Out of date tools

I have a bottle jack (Sears!!) that I don’t use in the garage since I bought the quick rise floor jack. I used the bottle jack to hold the old garbage disposal while I unbolted it and then again when I bolted the new on in. It’s very handy in tight quarters where you need to hold something up.

I used to use a very small pick to remove those clips

Then one day the tool truck guy gave me a catalog

When I was flipping through it between jobs, I saw the window crank handle clip removal tool and the next week I told him I wanted to buy it. Not surprisingly, he had one on the truck

I actually used the tool today.

I had to remove the driver’s door panel on a 3500HD . . . to tighten a loose exterior door handle and replace an inner door handle.

Every time I replace one of those window crank handles, I save the clip, just in case I lose one, as @Scrapyard_John mentioned.

Like someone else here mentioned recently I also carried a cotter pin in my hat for about a year long ago and that habit went with me causing me to accumulate all kinds of seemingly idiotic small pieces in the top right drawer of my tool box where there remains several of the pins that hold timing belt Asian tensioner rams down until the belt is installed, various tin devices made to remove memory sticks from GM computers, several of the screws that hold points in a Ford distributor and other pieces that I might not recognize if I were to look. If I ever dropped a small critical piece and spent an hour looking that particular piece, whenever I found one I acquired it and kept handy. And come to think of it I must have over a dozen old carburetors in my hoarded treasure to rob various levers, screws, linkages, etc and I haven’t owned or worked on an automobile with a carburetor in many years. Maybe someone who needs my junk will run across it when my kids haul it to the Salvation Army when I go.

Great idea for bottle jack use. I noticed during a walk-a-but somebody was throwing one away, which I nipped and later and made use of , along with some 4 x 4 lumber, built me a sort of miniature press. Functions similar to an arbor press, only hydraulic. I mostly use it for repairing electric motors and other electronic gadgets.

Oh, and back to the out of date tools, I noticed today I still have the tools I used to test my old VW Rabbit’s mechanical fuel injection system. So if I ever run across a problematic Bosche K-Jetronic, I’m already tooled up :wink: .

Oil can spouts are still used in aviation (especially jet engines- Mobil Jet Oil, for example). For general aviation (recip engines), Aeroshell is bottled, just like automobile oil.

I have a lot of antique watchmakers tools. Some might call them out of date but I still use them for repairing mechanical watches of all ages.

I have kept the oil spout and the window handle clip remover tool for anyone who would find them useful. One tool I did throw away was an oil filter wrench. I couldn’t use a strap wrench on my 1978 Olds as there wasn’t enough room to move the handle. I had an end wrench for the filter that I could attach to my socket wrench ratchet, but it would only fit an AC oil filter. I had purchased a Purolator filter and didn’t realize the end wrench wouldn’t fit the Purolator filter. As I lay under the car frustrated, I realized that I was wearing an oil filter wrench–my belt. I took it off and slipped it around the filter and it did the job. That belt became my oil filter wrench. I sold the 1978 Olds seven years ago, but the belt was still in my collection of tools until yesterday.

When I did the timing belt for the first time on my Caravan with the 2.5L engine, the instructions mentioned using that weighted wrench. The local auto parts stores wanted over $70 for it. I saw it online for about $30, but decided to just rotate the tensioner using two fingers to estimate the desired tension. I ended up replacing that timing belt about a year later, because the head gasket failed, and the belt had to come off anyways. I again set the tension by hand, and haven’t had any issues with it.

When I did the timing belts on our Horizons, Omnis, Reliant, Caravelle, I used a hang type fish scale. I also find pipe wrenches to be great stud removers, I have them down to 6" size.