Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by bobins »

I can remember back in the day when my late father used to set and sharpen old hand saws for customers. I think the going rate was £1 per saw ! There can't be many people still doing that these days :(
Sadly no longer a C5 owner :(
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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by Timmo »

A lot of tools are classed as throw away now for that! The cost hasn't really gone up much for them but instead of a good one and sharpening, a lot just go cheap and throw away,

That is a Genious slate jobber!
After All, I am the Cornish one!

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Took a door off today to saw a bit off the bottom of it to fit new flooring in the bathroom.

I cant be sure whether it had ever been taken off before in the previous 160 years or so, but the hinges were covered in layers of paint, and the screws had litle discernable slots showing, and expected quite a struggle to get them out.

Then a stroke of creativity. Lying around somewhere was a set of diamond encrusted "Bits" to fit a dremmel of various shapes which I had bought for next to nowt from the middle of lidl with no particular use in mind for them at the time. Perfect tool for grinding away the crud from the screw heads and indeed cutting a decent slot for the screwdriver.

Hinges were off in no time, door trimmed and reinstated with new screws, job done. Saved myself the anticpated hours of struggle!

Not in the same class as my slate ripper though, but a minor success.

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Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Enjoyed a success with fixing an ABS light on problem with the Vectra with a minor bit of creative adaption to the multimeter leads.

It was a bit difficult making a decent contact on the small pins on the ABS plug at the ECU, to test resistance values of the wiring to the wheel sensors.

So I came up with this with a bit of insulating tape and a bit of copper wire flattened with a hammer.
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Did a similar thing with a length of wire so I could poke it into the connector on the wheel arch and bring it up into the engine bay to test continuity to that connector from the ECU plug.

The offending article I discovered was the intermediate connector from the wheel sensor to the under arch connector. One of the conductors had no continuity even though externally there was no damage to the wiring or any loose pins/damaged connectors.

Got a replacement from a scrappy for £5 and out goes the ABS light...result!

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

From the archives......just used this simple technique again (with success) when the manual wiggle and pull wouldnt shift a wiper off its splines.

If you have any useful "Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools" post them up here.

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 01 Oct 2018, 22:59 Hammer and a Spanner

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

I wouldn't say I have assembled a vast tool kit, but over the years I have managed to muddle through with a bit of ingenuity and do the vast majority of maintenance and repair jobs on many different cars.

I've had a Dremel for a few years now, and it has proved very useful in cutting off rusted bolts and nuts especially in tight access areas. It was junior hacksaw and senior hacksaw where space allowed prior to the Dremel.

For the first time today I had need of the "dentist" flexible extension on the Dremel to solve a particularly tight access situation, and it proved to be the perfect/only tool for the job.

7 retaining screws with T25 heads on what I will call the ECU box on the Corsa, which is jammed up against the inner wing. 6 came out the 7th had no useful head on it for the torx bit to grip. Just so happened to be a long screwdriver length up the gap between wing and box, and horizontally positioned, with no prospect of getting it out with the torx bits, no space to fashion a slot on the rusted head.

Drilled/ground the head off using the dentist extension and removed the box lid. Success!
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Taps and Dies

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

I need an M10x1 Tap to clean up some damaged threads where this oil pressure switch fits into the alloy cylinder head of one of my maintenance fleet.
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The bog standard cheap sets never include this tap. An engineer friend of mine with a tremendous workshop, and a serious collection of motorbikes and cars opened up his beautifully organised little red cabinet of taps and dies and that size nowhere to be seen.

Put me onto "Tracy Tools" from Devon, and reckoned I would only need a cheaper one at around £5 for my purpose, and they were excellent at shipping and would sell the taps singly. I have had to look up wiki on Taps and Dies to understand the options of Taper Tap, Second Tap, and Plug Tap.
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Re: Taps and Dies

Post by white exec »

If stuck, a standard nut (one of Gibbo's come highly recommended :roll: ) can be used to clean up a thread.
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Re: Taps and Dies

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

white exec wrote: 27 Aug 2019, 21:30 If stuck, a standard nut (one of Gibbo's come highly recommended :roll: ) can be used to clean up a thread.
The stripped threads are on the female hole in the cylinder head so I need the male tap. Hoping I can get away with a clean up/recut of the threads, and coating the male threads of the Oil Pressure switch in a strong loctite formulation which be able to keep the joint oil tight. My friend also suggested dispensing with the supplied "washer" and using one with an inbuilt o-ring.

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Re: Taps and Dies

Post by white exec »

Can also use a bolt, with a shallow sawcut or two along the length, to mimic a tap, plus a smear of grease to help grab muck in the threads.
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Re: Taps and Dies

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Thanks, good tips Chris, the sort of thing I started this thread to accumulate.

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by myglaren »

I had to tighten a mixer tap for my daughter. Need a tube spanner to do it.
Raking around among the tube spanners I unearth this one:
AA280022.JPG
Last used as a clutch centring tool for either a Hillman Imp or a Cortina, at least thirty years ago.

Masking tape has many uses :)
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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

^^^ Excellent Steve "every picture tells a story!" The tube/box spanner in itself is probably an endangered species now :-D

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Re: Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by myglaren »

I do have another, Citroen specific one somewhere. "Somewhere" being the problem.
Piles of tube spanners though, many of them inherited. Useful tools and sometimes, as with the mixer tap, the only one that will fit, even then it was awkward.
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Toolbag Tales-Homemade and improvised tools

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Just had a quick rummage and found a couple of box spanners languishing in the "toolbag". One is a spark plug spanner. The other tool there is for the large nut/bolt on a mini clutch (1.5"/40mm) a spritely 41 years since I used it, and never found a subsequent use for it.
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