• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Tool Definitions

nascarcharlie

Freshman Member
Offline
ACCURATE TOOL DEFINITIONS:

1. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat
metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and
flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly
painted part you were drying.

2. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under
the work bench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and
hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "SH**!!!"

3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their
holes until you die of old age.

4. PLIERS: Used to round off hexagonal bolt heads.

5. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board
principle: It transforms human
energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to
influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

6. VISE GRIP PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is
available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the
palm of your hand.

7. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for setting various flammable
objects in your shop on fire.
Also handy for igniting the grease inside a wheel hub you're trying to get
the bearing race out of.

8. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2
socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

9. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground
after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle
firmly under the bumper.

10. EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 4X4: Used to attempt to lever an automobile
upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

11. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters of wood, especially Douglas fir.

12. TELEPHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another
hydraulic floor jack.

13. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for
spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for removing dog feces from your boots.

14. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes
and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

15. TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile
strength of bolts and fuel lines you forgot to disconnect.

16. CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool
that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end
without the handle.

17. AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

18. TROUBLE LIGHT: The home builder's own tanning booth. Sometimes called
a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin,"
which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside,
its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate
that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours
of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is
somewhat misleading.

19. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style
paper-and-tin oil cans and squirt oil on your shirt; Can also be used as the
name implies, to round off the interiors of Phillips screw heads.

20. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning
power plant 2000 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that
travels by hose to an Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last
tightened 70 years ago by someone at Ford, and rounds them off.

21. PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or
bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

22. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.

23. HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer now-a-days
is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the
object we are trying to hit.

24. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of
cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on
boxes containing upholstered items, chrome-plated metal, plasticparts and
the other hand not holding the knife.
 
25. 2ft Breaker bar: Used to snap headbolts and exhaust studs off in the block/head. Also good for denting the car next to the one your working on when it falls off of the fender you put it on.

26. 20" Ratchet Extention: Prybar for removing stuck heads.

27. Rattlecan Spraypaint: Good for adding a two tone effect to the car downwind of the headlight bucket your painting.

28. Toolbox: Great place to store parts after all the tools have disappeared from it.

29. 10mm, 1/2in, 12mm, 9/16in, 8mm, 7/16in, 14mm, 5/16in: The sizes of wrenches and sockets you'll buy a million of, but never find just after you had 'em in your hand 30 seconds ago.

30. workshop manuals: Those $50 books you bought 2 years ago, but have never even opened.

31. More tools: Those things you'll buy $400 worth of just to replace a $25 part.

32. Specialized factory service tools: See Hammer, Prybar, Big screwdriver, Breaker bar, Ingenuity, Beer.

33. Ingenuity: breaking the only 10mm wrench you could find after an hour of looking, by using wedging it into a cam gear so you can get the nut loose... and other such stuff... See Douglass Fir 4x4.

34. Beer: That stuff that lets you take a break for a few minutes, and come up with more inginuity. Also allows you to break fittings that are no longer available anywhere.

35. Jackstands: Those things we all own at least 6 of, because they only get used about once every 2 years, and then sit under the front porch rusting away.

36. Bandaids: Used for holding that big gash closed that needed stitches... Changed 12 times during one wrenching session because it keeps getting dirty and bloody.

37. Shop first aid kit/box: Where that missing 10mm socket and universal joint is probably sitting.

38. Shop Stool: A place to sit and drink your beer while coming up with the next bit of ingenuity... or just sitting staring at the car for hours while listening to the radio.

39. Mechanics Creeper: Transmission dolly, oil change bucket holder, and lost socket retainer.

40. Whatzit/Widget: The only tool you need now to fix the part, but don't have, or can't find.

41. Workbench: Where most of the lost stuff is, and also what that just-dropped bolt rolled under... behind the engine block and 15 cans of oil you have under there.

42. Bench Grinder/polisher: Parts flinger.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
roflmao
 
Back
Top