Cool Tools Mean More Free Time
Do it Yourself by Jerry Cole
I like tools. That’s no secret. What DIY person doesn’t just love that new tool smell? If you give your favorite DIY person a tool that saves them an hour or even a day, isn’t that a bit like giving them a gift of free time? Each year, I find excuses to buy tools. Any excuse will do. If I think it’s cool and I think it might save me time (or save my knuckles), I buy it. Some stand head and shoulders above the rest and here are a few of them.
The Motive 0100 Power Bleeder for European cars. It sells for about $50 and is worth every penny. Pour in the correct brake fluid (DOT 3 or DOT 4 depending on your application), attach the cap to your master cylinder, pump up the pressure with the handle and you are free to go about bleeding the entire brake system without an assistant to pump the pedal. It really is that simple. It is far more effective than the old two-person pedal pumping method, takes much less time and eliminates the possibility of damaging the master cylinder by pushing the pedal beyond the normal end of travel. Since you can do it yourself, there is no one to yell at you about taking too long to get the job done and you get to brag that you did it all yourself. How cool is that?
The next cool tool is actually a set of wrenches. The GearWrench 9900 7-piece ratcheting flex head wrench set, sold by gearwrench.com selling on Amazon for about $70. The wrenches range from from 10mm to 19mm. The heads are compact enough that you can use them almost anywhere you would use a conventional box end wrench, but with the added benefit of being a ratchet that works with as little as 5 degrees of swing. When used to hold a spinning nut while tightening or loosening a bolt with a standard ratchet, you can spin the gear wrench as well, cutting the time to tighten or loosen the nut and bolt in half. Mercedes was kind enough to hide a 10mm bolt down in a recess at the bottoms of the front tenders on 1960s through 1980s cars. Very hard to reach and not enough room for a conventional socket and ratchet. You get to remove this fine threaded and probably corroded little gem with a standard box wrench over the period of an hour, or the gear wrench has it out in a minute or two. More free time.
Up next is my favorite ratchet. I have had mine for about 20 years and it’s still my favorite. It’s the Craftsman 3/8-inch flex-head quick-release teardrop ratchet model 9-44835 with offset handle. The small head gets into tight places and the flexible head with curved handle makes it possible to maneuver the wrench around obstacles during use. The curved handle has other benefits as well. It saves your knuckles and when stood straight up, it allows the ratchet to act similar to a speed wrench. The 12-inch handle does a good job of making it easier to break loose stubborn bolts. It sells for about $30 and it’s easily worth every penny.
Cheerios stayed the same for many decades, then they decided to start introducing new flavors. Vise-Grip has done the same thing. One of their newer “flavors” has turned out to be the greatest thing since humans discovered the benefits of fermenting grains and grapes. Okay, so it’s not that great, but it’s pretty cool. It’s the Irwin Vise Grip 7LW 7-inch locking wrench and it sells for about $12. It’s also available as the 10LW, a larger 10-inch size and 4LW, a smaller 4-inch size. This Vise Grip looks odd, but it can grab a bolt, even rounded, on three sides and hold it very tight, without doing more damage. The innovative jaw design will even hold a bolt shank or stud if the head is gone. It’s great for removing exhaust manifold studs. One more amazing use for this tool is brake bleeder screws and brake line fittings. Break them loose without rounding them off. That alone can make the difference between an easy repair and an expensive debacle.
Try a few of these tools on your next repair job, whatever that may be. Take the time you saved and go do something you really want to do, like go for a drive.
Clockwise from bottom: Some of my favorite tools. (A) GearWrench 9900 7-piece ratcheting flex head wrench set, (B) Craftsman 3/8-inch flex-head quick-release teardrop ratchet model 9-44835 with offset handle, (C) Irwin Vise Grip locking wrenches in 4LW (4-inch), 7LW (7-inch) and 10LW (10-inch) sizes.