Please recommend good tools that work well or are thought to be must for DIY work for Panda cars or in general motor cars in this thread.
Discussions on tool box, tool chest and work areas and work benches are all welcome. Thanks.
I was thinking about this as I was gardening this morning - lovely mild day up here, shirt sleeve order! - Things going through my mind were, like you Dave, my power bars, single hex impact sockets, ball joint splitter, 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" drive socket sets, plenty of screwdrivers of all types (slot, phillips, pozidrive, etc) Caliper wind back tool, Oh hang on, I'm starting to just list all my tools.
The trouble is I bought all my tools for a purpose and because I needed them for specific tasks. So I started thinking about the more unusual ones, dug them out, lined them up on the back step and took a photo:
At the front of the step are the spring compressors I made sometime in the '70's. Quite like yours? There is one thing you need to be very careful about when using them. Neither yours nor mine have any way of locking them to the spring coils. If something catastrophic happened, like the spring fully compressed, fell off your bench onto the floor, (other scenarios are possible) then a compressor tool might come loose. Coil springs are humongously powerful and a compressing tool which gets loose could easily main or even kill you. I really have no idea of how many springs I've worked with and these home made compressors have themselves done a fair few. Just make sure they are on either side of the spring and then tighten a few turns on each side in turn so the spring goes up evenly. Watch all the time what shape it's taking on - if it starts to go "banana" shaped the compressors are highly likely to slip and you should unwind, reposition and start again.
Referring back to the first picture, to the left of centre are my brake pipe bending tools:
In the workshop speed was king. I don't know if it still works that way but every job had a "book" time which was in a little box on the worksheet. You were credited with that time regardless whether you did the job faster or slower. The faster you got a job turned round the more money you made. I hated it because it encouraged a "that'll do" approach to the job. Anyway you soon learned to form bends in brake pipes around your screwdriver (or other implement) handle because it was quick but often the pipe ended up rather flattened and lacking a smoothly profiled curvature. It worked and was safe enough but it troubled my "perfectionist's" eye. So I made these tools during my lunch hours from odds and ends I found lying about. The first one I made was the one with handles and it's ok for most bends but won't do really tight ones so I made the smaller one. (I found you don't really need the handles, you can hold it fine with your hands or in the vice, so the second (tighter) one doesn't have them). I see there are quite a number of variations available commercially so probably, if you want one, I'd just buy it!
Underneath these are a couple of "split ring" tube nut spanners. Very helpful for tightening brake pipe nuts (buy the single hex type) but not great for really rusted fixings - you're better to cut off the pipe and "attack" the nut with a single hex socket (assuming you haven't already rounded it off with an open ender!). To their right is a tool I've previously mentioned somewhere. Made by Stanley (which are pretty "middling quality" tools in my experience) but these - in a set of 3 sizes - are pretty good because they grip on three flats 120 degrees apart so don't collapse the nut like a Stilson, Mole or Footprint type tool will, and the harder you lean on the handle the harder it grips the hexagon.
Top left, above the bending tools are two thread files:
I needed the metric one for a particular job I was doing and the imperial one was half price as long as you bought them together - I couldn't resist. Thought they'd be one of those "nice to have but seldom used" tools. However not so, I actually use them quite a bit, been a good useful buy. Being very "hard" metal the teeth are very brittle and would probably be easily broken off if knocked hard by something. So to protect against this I slip the bits of plastic pipe over them when they're in my toolbox
The red thing at the top is a "BOA" - grips just about anything from canister type oil filters, exhaust pipes (when aligning) to the lids on marmalade jars! came in a set of three.
Just below it is an extending magnet - the blue "screwdriver looking" thing - for retrieving things that are "hiding" in awkward corners. Fished a nut out of a bell housing last time I used it!
Under that is my home made tool for pressurizing cooling systems when hunting for leaks. Below that is a cree led (so very bright) inspection light. It is powered by AA batteries (I specifically bought it because I am fed up with rechargeable things which are either flat or won't hold a charge) I just keep a packet of Ikea's super, and cheap, AA batteries.
On the right is a 2/3 legged puller - indispensable! no more to say about it.
At the very bottom are my "listening diagnostics" A length of tube and an automotive stethoscope. (you can use a long screwdriver to nearly as good effect as the stethoscope, but it was on special offer on the day I was wandering around the market in Salisbury quite a few years ago). To use the tube just stick one end in your ear and move the other end around the thing you want to listen to. Inlet leaks, noisey fan belts, etc etc. The stethoscope is used similarly but you rest it's probe on the suspect component. So maybe you're hearing a bearing "zizz" and you aren't sure if it's water pump, alternator, cam belt tensioner etc. Just move the probe from component to component and it's usually quickly obvious where the problem is. You can do this just as well with a long screwdriver but to stick the handle in your ear you have to turn your head so you loose sight of what you are doing and it doesn't take much to stick it in a belt drive!! Much easier with the stethoscope.
Finally. Workbenches. I got my hands on an old metal office cupboard and really substantial office table top. (back in the days when you could buy things from "the tip" for the price of a few beers and some fags. I cut the top to size and fixed it to the metal top of the cupboard then rawl bolted the cupboard to the back wall of my garage:
I set the vice at 45 degrees so I could accommodate longer workpieces. Being bolted to the wall it is as solid as a rock. This is very important if you are to do accurate hand fitting. It's a nightmare trying to file something to a good finish if the bench your vice is bolted to keeps moving.
I also unearthed a few tools and devices I'd made which definitely didn't work! I think they can just rest peacefully where they are.