The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk home made tools

I remember my first parts washer. I took a chevy small block oil pump and placed it under a steel washtub with a variable speed drill. I used a hose clamp to hold the trigger at a certain speed.

What contraptions have you guys come up with over the years?

I made key extractors, for getting broken keys out of a locks, with busted hacksaw blades.

Use a piece of hacksaw blade about 2 - 2 1\2 inches long and grind it down. Leave it wide at one end for a "handle", and grind down the other end for about an inch till its skinny enough to slide into the lock above the busted key. The hacksaw teeth have to be pointing backwards. Line them up with the teeth on the key and flick back. It usually comes out after a few tries.

I made a clutch disengager with a 2x4. It came in handy when the column shift jammed.

I have ground and heated up and bent all kinds of wrenchs to snake around and work on old brit bikes. I needed a special clutch hub took for a honda turbo bike and they wanted like $60 for a tool I would use once. I miked the hub nut, went to a pawn shop and bought a socket for $1, then welded 4 pieces of key stock to it to make the tool. I have also taken pawn shop wrenchs, cut em down and welded sockets to them to make offset tools. To remove a stuck brake drum I took a big 12" 3 jaw puller, and made some reallly long binders for it out of 1/8" stock and then attached the pulling jaws to that. Worked great. Had a busted/rusted spin adjuster and couldn't back the thing off on a stuck rear wheel. Had to cut the pins, then jerk the wheel over the brake shoes to get the thing off. Boy was that a royal pain in the tush. I also have welded pawn shop sockets to a metal rod, vice gripped the rod to the frame, and then used that crud socket as a drift (for king pins). Another handy tool was a big heavy piece of copper, heated and smushed into a spoon to use behind sheet metal with the wire welder. This wicks away the heat and prevents burn through. You can see the tool if you follow my link to my 47 jeep.

Other than that...nah...don't mess with custom made tools much....

My neighbor showed me how to remove a bearing from the transmission by making a doughnut type washer the the puller could attach to. I thought that was cool AND clever. He's a super mechanic, and without him or some of you guys here, I couldn't do a lot a the things I've done or will do. Muchos Gracias to all.

I needed a really deep socket for a nut that was over a long shaft. I took a socket and cut it in half and added a chunk of pipe to the center making a huge deep socket.

A worn out file cut short and ground to a fine straight edge makes a great scraper better than you can buy. Also if you have extra allen wrenches they make great easy outs. Choose a allen wrench just smaller than the offending bolt center drill a hole the same size of the flats drive the allen in the hole a little twist and out it will come. I've used this method on many wheel cylinders to remove broken bleeders with out failure. I think the heat from drilling and the shock form driving it in helps loosen the broken bolt.

Too many to list...

Easy ones:
1. Caliper hangers to hold weight off of the brake hose wheen doing a brake job-From the wire hooks that new struts use to keep them compress in the box
2. Endless wrenches/sockets modified or made from plate steel
3. all of the above (except the file scraper-thanks for that one- I'll have to try it out)
4. Distributor drive gear press adaptors from thick flat washes cut to a "c" shape
5. Small pullers from a length of pipe, a washer, and a bolt with nut
6. Hydraulic Mandrel bender from manual bender, old an 110v ac motor, used p/s pump, hydraulic ram, and a degree wheel.
7. Vacuum pump / air compressor from old piston type a/c compressor and 110v motor
8. "manifold spreader" for gm v8 manifolds from large turnbuckles

When replacing tapered wheel bearing and din't have the tool to insert them with, I took the old race and ground down the outside edge to make the diameter smaller. I could then walk the new race into place and the "tool" would come right out of the hole when the new race was bottomed out.

I also made a listening stick. A length of 2x4 about 3' long. It works great when trying to teach something new to someone in your shop.

You just crack them in the head with it to get their attention first.

Builder I have one of those but I call it a hearing aid. When held in your hand while talking to someone, they will hear everything you say.
I have made a lot of the above tools. I built a slide hammer out of a piece of stock some flat bar and a VW flywheel for the hammer. If it don't come loose with that,Go get victor the gas axe.
Oh i almost forgot, I used a condom to protect a seal I had to install over a splined shaft. First one I had to roll all the way out to the end.

A piece of rope and a 2x4 to unscrew dorked up stuck on oil filters.

a friend of mine turned down the outside of a 1 5/8 socket so it remove the nut on the pinion shaft. the socket was too big to fit inside the universal joint yoke so we set it up on his lathe and turned it down until it would fit. has a beautiful machined finish on the outside now.

i also made a "spanner" to hold the yoke on the rear differential while i turned the nut off. i cut a piece of 1/4" thick aluminum in a "u" shape, drilled four holes to match the yoke/universal joint bolt holes, and bolted the aluminum plate to a length of 1 1/2" square steel tubing. the handle could rest on the ground while i pulled on the breaker bar to loosen the nut. worked like a charm and it worked just as well putting it all back together again.

I had 2 cars to move that were missing the rear axles,and couldn't afford a tow dolly,so I cut two pieces of 2" thickwall pipe about 4-1/2 feet long,ran a piece of tow chain through both of 'em and wrapped the ends of the tow chain securely around the rear of the frame of the car a couple of times per side,then linked the ends together in the center between the rails. I used a chain tightener to pull the slack out. I took the chain at the other end of the pipe (a very small loop) and hooked it into my pintle hook and latched it,and removed the blocks from under the car. I tied the steering wheel securely and towed the car like a trailer. It worked great on those two cars,and later I used the same trick to haul a Mustang with no front suspension. Makes for pretty heavy tongue weight,but with a one ton,it's not that much of an issue.
I used basically the same set up as a rig to flat tow a car some years ago behind my half ton pick up,but just chained it to the front bumper,and at the hitch end I used a big ol' clevis around the chain loop right at the trailer ball to keep the pipes from working sideways. That worked okay,buut I drove real easy,and I didn't have a lot of faith in its being successful.
I've also made the usual assortment of gear puller adapters from Ford cam thrust plates and all thread,ground slots in big sockets to remove and install vacuum switches,I've made my drill press work as a milling machine and lathe,Made a shop air compressor from a truck air tank,an A/C compressor and a garbage disposal motor (not very successful,but it was free),used a gas powered arc welder to jump start Diesel trucks in the winter,and cut S shaped pipes to use as ratchet extensions to clear frame rails and axle housings and pushed the front bumper of my Pontiac back into (near) alignment when it's left side was run over by a bus by nosing it up to a power pole and nudging it repeatedly.
Part of the fun of what we do is being able to say "I got the job done,WITHOUT buying that $100.00 special tool they said I "have to use".I enjoy taking up the challenge of how to do something that,from a purists point of view,I'm not set up to do.
Speed

All the home made tools I have were to fix the 4 letter "F" words except one. I had to extend a 10mm socket to fit over a stud on a 85 Chevy S10 2.8L valve cover. My F word repairs required me to grind down a 1/4 in socket to get the ignition module out, cut a set of spanner wrenches out of flat stock to get the fan off, lengthened 9/16 socket with pipe and a nut (don't remember why), shortened a 11/16 wrench to get starter bolts off a IH 345ci truck motor, M-16 rifle cleaning rods to work as oil primer for GM V8's. I am sure many more that I forgot.