Mechanic tricks?

Seeing the "what tools are these" thread...
Following up with a "tricks that old people know".

I'll start: putting the closed end of a box wrench on a bolt, and using another box wrench on the open side as a breaker bar. Easier said than described. Ok, here;

Same vane, I have a few pipes that fit over the ends of my ratchets to use as breakers. Or over my breaker bars.

Been doing that all my life!

Bob_VT said:

Been doing that all my life!

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Same here

alldodge said:

Same here

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Well, same here but my 15 yo didn't know about it. Just something you pick up. How about welding a nut to remove something stripped, using a torx bit to remove a stripped Allen screw, etc. A lot of obvious stuff that might not be obvious, or just didn't get picked up. Especially diy'ers without anyone teaching them. Ran into that fishing/crabbing, never had anyone to teach me.

Some butchers out there I see. I have never and never will couple two r.o.e (ring open end )spanners together nor have I ever used a bit of pipe on a ratchet ,I may have once used pipe on a breaker bar but I usually go for a bigger bar ....like a ¾" drive breaker and an adapter for ½" socket . I have bashed a smaller sockets over a rounded nut or bolt and have used torx bits on a cap head screw . I keep cheap a socket set and driver bits for this purpose .such sockets have also been welded to make special tools . Old screwdrivers have been repurposed as pry bars and also as handles for special tools ( pix tomorrow )

I often use a piece of pipe over the handle end of a socket wrench to create a breaker bar.

I also use an adjustable wrench tightened to the a square shaft of a screw driver to create some leverage on a stubborn screw. Otherwise I will use a manual impact set on the screw to loosen it.

Gee, most often when I had to resort to using the "Cheater Pipe", I broke the bolt. Last time was on my car's disk brake caliper support.

Luckily a propane torch broke the bolt (or what was left of it) loose and I turned it out with a vice grip.

Now using a vice grip may not be an old person's trick, but it can be effective.

I have a box of sacrifishal tools I get at garage sales. Cut, weld, bend and such. Make what you need!

besides the various sections of pipe and tubes to turn ratchets into free-spinning tools needing repair or extending the length of a breaker bar, I also use two wrenches together to make a longer wrench

here are some of the hacks I have done over the years

a home made slide hammer for GM J-body half shafts. a 30# chunk of 2" wall tube on an 30" long 1-1/4" shaft with a 5/8" grade 8 bolt welded to it. manual says all that is needed is a 5# slide hammer. history proved otherwise

long bolts with the heads cut off to align a manifold / transmission / etc

a stack of laser cut washers and various bits of steel tubing and various sizes of hardened threaded shaft and nuts in my VW/Audi wheel bearing tool kit to press in new bearings while the spindles are still on the vehicle

a bit of electrical tape around a universal swivel extension to keep it from flopping about (because I didn't buy the ones with the spring around them)

a bit of painters tape inside the sockets to keep the nuts from falling into the depths of the car. also have a bunch of rare earth magnets I drop into sockets to hold nuts and bolts

a section of 1/4" hose to spin hot plugs out of a motor without burning your fingers on headers

old vicegrips with the jaws ground smooth and a hole drilled into them to drive dipstick tubes in place

a few old sockets with used #2 Philips bits welded to it to make rear brake caliper tools

section of aluminum pipe cut into a VW VR6 plug tool

grind the head of a garage sale wrenches to get it to fit into tight spaces

an old extension with teh end mushroomed out from using it to drive in seals and bearings. (turn the socket around)

cheap amazon borescope / endoscope in the tool box that plugs into my phone

welder to remove almost any broken bolt/tap/etc

welder to remove any internal bearing (just weld the race and the bearing falls out when it cools)

4" cut-off wheel to remove the ones that you cant get out with a welder

an un-lit propane torch and a vacuum gauge for setting idle mix

garage sale wood chisels for removing exhaust systems (they work about a dozen times)

Shop vac and a Tropicana orange juice bottle as a make-shift vacuum brake bleader

gallon of water and a cheap harbor freight flash light with some tape to make a room light when the power is out.

These are great! I'm going to need to take some of the vw tools off your hands

Chris1956 said:

Gee, most often when I had to resort to using the "Cheater Pipe", I broke the bolt. Last time was on my car's disk brake caliper support.

Luckily a propane torch broke the bolt (or what was left of it) loose and I turned it out with a vice grip.

Now using a vice grip may not be an old person's trick, but it can be effective.

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Ooooh yeah , Id forgotten about vice grips, designed for mis-use

I've been doing the '2 spanner trick' as long as I remember, used it today.

one of the things I did today was use a 5# fist maul and a block of wood.

the wood softens the blow so you dont leave marks, the 5# swung with anger provides a bit of a force. sort of like a really heavy soft-faced dead blow. sometimes the wood will splinter and things go awry

another hack, various bits of leather wrapped around a shaft, then two vicegrips applied to get it to turn. keeps the shaft from getting marked up. leather has to be 3mm or thicker. (that is 1/8" for those in imperial units)

this came up yesterday. checking clearances on engine builds or gearbox builds or engine into boat installations. use paydoh from the dollar store. I use playdoh to check PTV clearance, rocker to valve cover clearance, oil pickup to pan clearance, hood to induction clearance, etc. also useful to check stringer tub to deck clearance and other things.

Somewhere in the tool box dad has a custom ground and cut wrench for pulling mercruiser steering pins without removing the engine.

I have a few spanners (wrenches) I've ground thin to allow getting on to narrow fittings on pipes that are sandwiched between other fittings.

Made lots of custom tools over the years, made one last week - needed to undo a 10mm bolt which would have been fitted as part of a custom install in an engine bay when the complete inlet manifold was off, access was tight because this bolt was on a Jap import van that has the engine kind've half under the bonnet (hood) and half hidden further back under the windscreen area, the bolt was behind a custom fitted injector unit but below the brake servo. Couldn't get on the bolt using a spanner or socket so I cut a 10mm socket short and welded a hex key to the top of it so I could use a spanner on the hex key.

Probablly the biggest custom tool I made / modified was my engine crane when I needed to lift the engine out of the boat. It was nowhere near tall enough so I bought some box section, cut the crane 'mast' and other supports, welded the box section in to increase the height and added some extra sideways and forward/rear supports to make sure it wouldn't fall over when I was lifting the engine.

I’ve drilled a crescent wrench, if you need a spanner for those cylinder caps or similar. Drill a hole in each jaw of the appropriate size for the pins, hammer in a couple roll pins. Adjustable and easy!

The tool nobody wants to use/need



Tire mechanic in a can

dingbat said:

The tool nobody wants to use/need

View attachment 417959

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every plumber truck has one

I raided the scrap bin at work to salvage and rebuild a few of the valve box clam diggers they threw out. Seems every damn time we need to alter process valving there are stones in them... and the valves are stuck.