Welcome to Wrenching Wednesday, our weekly just-for-Members feature where you can get together with The Autopian gang and your fellow members to talk about all things wrenching. What you’re working on now, projects coming in the future, your latest triumphs and greatest challenges–if it involves spinning a wrench or twisting/pushing/pulling/squeezing any other implements you pluck off of a pegboard or pull out of a toolbox, this is the place to talk about it.
And speaking of reaching for tools… what do you reach for when the task at hand is farther than a walk to the garage or the car-shaped bare patch under your shadiest tree? I’m not-young enough to remember when there were two or three flavors of portable steel toolboxes and that was it. Each was just a big ol’ rectangle, and you either lifted out a tray to get to a main compartment; or lifted a multi-tier tray thing on parallelogram links that displayed all your fuses and nuts and bots and whatnot (that mechanism fascinated kid-me); or you had a lidded top and a drawer-front setup–convenient, but man, was it heavy. For me, anyway. Dad had no problem.
The big brains rejected this as the top shot. It is kinda dull though, so you win, big brains. But I’m using it here. Hmph.
Today, there are all kinds of tool-toting solutions to choose from. You can go with a semi-rigid pocketed carrier, a compartmented backpack, giant clamshell bags, a hardshell rolling box, one of those bucket-sleeve things (which seem more like a plumber/drywall guy thing to me, but maybe you love ’em), you name it… the sizes, colors, and styles are endless. Let’s talk about how you prefer to get your gear from A to B, and anything else wrenching-related you want to get off your toolchest. Ah, now that’s clever writing. So good.
I have a Black & Decker tool bag that was originally for a tool of some sort. It has two compartments inside the bag plus a larger storage area in the middle. I can fit an entire road going tool set in this single bag that weighs about 20-24 lbs. Tools include a medium sized ballpeen hammer, a medium and small adjustable wrench, 3 screwdrivers, a small pry bar, two full sets of 3/8ths drive sockets (SAE & metric) a ratchet and 2 extensions, ignition wrenches in a small bag, zip ties, crimp on electrical connectors, a roll of electrical wire, a roll of mechanics wire, a roll of electrical tape, and a handfull of various nuts and bolts in common sizes also in a bag, a multimeter and a flashlight. Never met a roadside task I couldn’t bodge through somehow.
I also always carry a swiss army knife that provides to very sharp blades, scissors, punch, magnifying glass, roach clip, tooth pick and all kinds of weird blades to do “other” things. Been carrying one since 1965 to include a tour in Vietnam. Never leave home without it!
These tools currently reside in my 2019 Cadillac CT6 and I seriously doubt I will ever need it but I get great peace of mind knowing it’s there.
The one car I do not have some sort of kit in is my wife’s Highlander, and it bit me in the ass a couple months ago. I was sitting in the Walmart pickup area, waiting for my groceries when the car refuses to start. Knowing it is the original battery and that the car is 6+ years old, I’m confident it is the battery. I go into Walmart and grab a cheap adjustable wrench. Then I walk over to NTB to get a battery. I tell the guy about the situation and that I’ll bring the core back later. I install the battery pretty quickly and then return the core. The guy at the counter says “Wow! That was fast! Do you want a job?” Haha.
My old beater car has a cheap blow-mold socket set, a multitool, a screwdriver handle with bit set, jumper cables, fuses, and electrical tape. I’ve used those tools quite a few times, but never on my own car. It’s been perfectly reliable.
When going out to help on a specific job, I have a spare Harbor Freight plastic tool box that I can toss tools in. No idea why I never use it. Always end up tossing tools in a 5-gallon bucket.
Been so many years of needing to travel with tools, as I started to get newer cars. That said, many of the options listed here were not available. I used to rock the Steel Gray Craftsman tools box filled with Craftsman tools. This was back in 1988, where I changed a water pump on the 72 Javelin AMX in a Hotel parking lot in King of Prussia. They were probably pretty mad at all that grease on the white towels..
As I mentioned in a response to Stef’s earlier post, I have a “go-wherever, fix-whatever” tool kit currently in the back of my ’66 Biscayne. I also have some blow-molded cheapo-special tool kits in other vehicles, so I likely have access to a few tools at any given time, but the set in the back of the Biscayne is the best outside of my garage as that’s the set that has evolved from my OG college collection which was my absolute automotive life-line for a number of years, starting out in high school and carrying me through college and beyond.
During college was my own time harboring peak knowledge of what was specifically in that box. I knew every tool, every stray socket, every extra odd-ball bolt, nut, and screw that was in there. I also had the cheapest imaginable version of an analogue volt-meter, a dmm, a basic 12-volt tester, a spark plug gapper, magnets, a C-clamp (brake jobs), channel locks, needle nose pliars, a one-inch wrench that doubled as a hammer and was in there more specifically for accessing and cleaning out the Rochester-fuel-filter-screen on my ’68 Coupe deVille, a steel file, jumper wires with alligator clips, a wire-crimping tool, a door-panel removal tool, electrical tape, small pieces of sandpaper, etc., etc., etc.
Going along with that was the requisite used-up case-of-oil cardboard box full of various fluids: extra antifreeze, carb cleaner, ECC cleaner, WD-40, at least one quart of 10W-40, some Dexron Type 3 ATF, brake fluid, and more. I was amazed how many 80’s K-car variants could be made to run semi-correctly again with a couple of squirts of liquid wrench into the PCV valve.
It was the days before cell phones were commonplace, the Sprint phone-card was necessary if a person didn’t want to haul around ten bucks worth of change everywhere, and I was the de-facto version of AAA for more than a few of my college friends. Roadside repairs happened rather frequently, and as long as I had that red tool box with me, I was relatively confident whoever’s ride had died would roll again.
Currently, that particular red metal box still has a number of the original tools from back in the day, but I couldn’t tell anyone exactly what’s in there. It’s kind of turned into a pile of random stuff and I hope for the best if I have to take it somewhere and open it up.
Try as i might to use nice toolkits or dedicated hard shell toolboxes I always seem to end up with at least one cardboard box worth of tools in the trunk of a car.. I’m going to blame genetics as my father does the same thing..
Being able to read these comments, but not the article is the Autopian equivalent of listening to an NPR pledge drive.
I feel guilty posting this comment here.
(We all know only monsters post comments without reading the article first, this isn’t Facebook Marketplace or Offer Up.)
Wait? Autopian Vinyl is only $10 a month.
I’m sure there is some monthly subscription I’m currently paying for but have completely forgotten about that I should definitely trade for ‘Wrenching Wednesday’ alone.
Not to mention the warm feeling in my heart from supporting independent media at a time when a lot of my favorite sites are dying, soon to be nothing but a corpse, buried in pop up adds and impolite comments.
(And maybe helping Jason and David never have to eat Chipotle ever again, I guess you could say I’d pay to unsee that).
I guess it’s time for me to cancel that burner credit card I use for all my monthly subscriptions and reassess where my money is disappearing to anyway.
Some spring subscriptions cleaning is in order.
I’m in. Hand me the vessel of hopefully well-contained (I know. it’s vinyl, but still) cool aid.
Well that was easy. I’m a member!
I prefer to get point B to point A.
The closest thing to field wrenching I do is help strangers when they’ve locked their keys in their car.
And, of course, I have a kit for that in my daily.
•Spool of “wire hanger” gauge wire
•Rubber doorstop
•Spool of leather stitching strength string
•Metal banding that’s been cut with tin snips to look suspiciously like a slim Jim
All in a small cardboard box in the trunk.
And of course, A Leatherman Wave on my hip at all times.
This is interesting. I don’t seem to encounter these people at all. And yet, you encounter them often enough to have a whole kit in your car ready to help. Maybe I’m just not paying enough attention in parking lots?
Well, good work! You are a good samaritan.
Have you ever heard the phrase “I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
See, I was going to say don’t become a member but rather just make your best guess and post…
“Yeah, I have a 36″ hand saw, but only for use at night”
“I was going to say don’t become a member but rather just make your best guess and post…”
That comes off like I just walked into your country club wearing a hockey jersey. Easy there Shooter McGavin.
Delete
(Damn disappearing edit button)
I read your comment all wrong.
Now I get it. I apologize.
Sorry. My fragile defensive ego and reading comprehension skills weren’t working well together that day. No hard feelings.
I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t one of Torch’s burner accounts. If so, well played. If not, you’ve written an excellent advertisement. I remember seeing the membership levels a long time ago and thinking they were more than my wife would agree to spending to support a website. $10/mo is fine.
“I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t one of Torch’s burner accounts.”
That is one of the best compliments I’ve received in a while.
“If not, you’ve written an excellent advertisement.”
That was exactly what I was going for.
Thanks again.
It’s easy for most readers to not click on the “This is what you get”
article because we see it every day and scroll past it like any other add.
But people read the comments obsessively. So I figured I’d toss a little (I hate to say it) FOMO in the one comments section that people that love this site read, without the article.
Then I felt guilty for not paying for this content. And I wanted to read the article.
So I bought a cheap ass membership
(Only a few days in and I think I’ve already got a cigarette burn in the vinyl).
Wow! A treasure trove of previously unreadable articles opened up.
Tales From The Slack alone gives me a lot of reading to catch up on.
For $10 a month?
I am berserker level enthusiastic about this purchase.
And genuinely consider it worthwhile.
My wife and I weren’t really watching anything on HBO MAX anyway.
We’re glad we got rid of it.
My goto is the number of the garage I go to.
I keep the emergency tool kit for my old BMW airhead (including the adapter that turns one engine cylinder into a tire pump) in a Crown Royal bag. Not the best solution, but it does the job.
Love it! I have a schoolkid’s softside pencil case for my Suzuki (in addition to the factory roll). It even has an outside pocket that holds my vial of ethanol stabilizer for when I fill up and my little flashlight so I can peer into the tank.
In the vehicle, I keep a small canvas tool bag with general purpose stuff: a socket set, some metric and SAE wrenches, SAFETY GLASSES, screwdrivers, etc. The handle of the bag goes over one of the hooks in the cargo area, holding it in place and minimizing rattling.
Outside of that, I like to set up a couple additional toolboxes by function. For example, one has the propane torch, flux, solder, emery cloth, and soldering iron. If I need to solder around the house, everything is in one place, and if I need to solder elsewhere, everything is in one place and portable. 🙂 The impact driver goes into its own toolbox as well.
Improvements in battery quality and small LED lights mean I can store headlamps everywhere with a reasonable expectation that they will still work when I need them, which is really handy.
Wrenching on the go is what I do, I’ve been driving a service truck for the better part of 20 years now and have got going mobile down to a science at this point. Most of what works for me at work also works great for my personal wrenching.
Professionally I often have to walk a fair distance to machines to repair them so it’s not just about a good setup it is about only having to carry what I need. It’s not what works for everyone but for my purposes. I go with a hard-sided fabric tote and have everything divided into smaller Kline zip bags. The tote has some basics (channel locks, pliers, cutter, crimpers, all the fiddly stuff that doesn’t fit a zip bag well. For wrenches, I use Tekton wrench rolls but keep the most common 2 or 3 in the tote. I went with a smaller meter and a small case so it fits easily in the tote. For screwdrivers, I go with a 4-in-1 so I only need one. One zip bag for electrical, one is 1/4 drive and the other is 3/8 and one is electrical stuff. In the 3/8 bag I carry only deep sockets and it’s a special mixed set that covers sae/metric overlaps. 90% of the time I can work out of the tote by loading it for the job at hand; once in a while I need something outside of my usual carry and have to go back to the truck.
Going mobile for personal stuff I work about the same way but I do have complete Tekton socket sets in cases that I’ll bring along for larger jobs where I’ll need a bunch of stuff.
Off-roading I have a kit that I’ve made up that omits any sizes or tools I don’t need for my truck and include any special tools I might need for my specific truck.
I have an old craftsman “mechanics toolset” in one of those tough plastic containers with spots molded for all the sockets, ratchets etc that works well for 90% of what I encounter away from home. If I expect or know specifically what I’m in for I’ll either throw more tools in a tool bag or in the trunk and hope I have everything I need. For a trip like two weeks ago hauling a trailer to pick up a car out of state I load up a lot of “might need” tools into the cargo box bolted into my truck bed.
Those Craftman’s tool sets were and are so nice. I have two, the biggest one they made and a smaller with just essentials. Mine are 35-40 years old. The shells, which I thought for sure would fall apart in no time, are still solid, if a little warped. The part molds have saved me losing anything, well most things, although I know what engine bay now holds what was lost.
You know what will kill those plastic shells? Cold. Bone-deep February Wisconsin cold. I dropped mine on a -20 day when I was helping a friend replace a starter on her Grand Am, and it shattered like ribbon candy.
A quarter century in the Dakotas and I’ve somehow managed to avoid doing that to mine, just lucky I guess as my wife will attest I have been known to be a bit of a clutz from time to time.
LOL my wife too knows I’m a clutz, but thankfully helps hide it from the outside world. I don’t deal with that level of cold you guys do, but I did drop the big Craftsman kit once, which of course popped open and all of the sockets scattered like mice hiding under something you just picked up. Now it’s got a strap around it because, well, clutz.
I got my first Craftsman toolset in 1969 at a Sears store in Chicago. I still have about 75% of the tools. They have been very tough and held up great. About 10 years ago the 1/2″ drive ratchet lost its ratcheting portion and so I took it in for replacement. Not a word of objection. They proudly trotted out a brand new ratchet and placed it on the counter. I looked it over, tried it out for function and promptly handed it back. The original, even with the hassle of literally holding the ratchet mechanism, was a much better tool. They insisted I take the new one and keep the old one. Okay!
Back seat/floor for smaller stuff that is a casual setting. Used to do buckets for larger amounts or varied tools, but recently upgraded to a few Milwaukee cases during a job a couple years ago. I’d say they are pricey but I love them, help keep things organized in the basement when I take it all back home too. Around the property its the back cage on the atv or a wheel barrow.
I throw some shit in the back seat. Knipex pliers, screwdrivers and some sockets. When I did heavy maintenance on commercial jets it was a Matco bag with safety wire pliers and whatnot.
When I need to do something on the go, I throw all of my relevant tools from my main box into this heavy duty plastic Husky toolbox my dad gave me after he bought it for something and ended up not liking it. It has 3 drawers and a top storage area and can fit a surprising amount of stuff in it as long as you’re ok with having all of your sockets in one big, unorganized pile and that kind of thing.
It even made a nice bike stand last year after I pulled a minibike out of someone’s trash and was trying to get it running again.
New TREs for my XJ this weekend to see if that cures the mild death wobble. Also need to see if the AC charge I gave it last week held.
Heh, we thought ahead for the 411 being, well, a 411. Before it set off on Lemons Rallies and Gamblers, its frunk got loaded up with the cheapest Harbor Freight tool kit we could find that covered most of the things, plus a few spares, a jack and two tall jackstands, work gloves and other extra bits and bobs that the HF kit didn’t include, but would come in handy. Red solo cups and tin foil got added along the way for human emergencies, like being done with this car’s carb nonsense to the point where adding Malört to peach Twisted Tea seemed like a good idea.
Sure enough, we ended up doing a carb re-jet in the middle of a Terlingua thunderstorm…a midnight plug swap in a Georgia Walmart parking lot…and a plug swap in my buddy’s driveway in Florida (which spurred me to get the greatest tool ever created, a magnetized spark plug socket)……and replacing a vacuum elbow in a random parking lot in Florida…………and numerous refills with the spare gas can because there’s no gas gauge………………and, and, and. 411 lyfe, yo.
Turns out, my grandpa thought of the same thing for one of his old cars he kept for years and years and years. I got his “fix whatever” box for his old ’60s? Impala, and it’s got a cool collection of pretty much anything he’d need for simple snafus in there. I’ve got a lot of his old tool kits in the house, but I kinda don’t wanna break that box up even though I’m not looking for an old American car. I guess I can whip it out when someone else has old American car problems, though. It’s just too dang cool.
Those fix-whatever boxes are the best – years of “I don’t want to end up SOL, so what might go wrong?” all wrangled into a single, often red and metal and rust-colored container with shitty latches and all kinds of loose odds and ends rattling about. I’ve got one in the back of my ’66 Biscayne that has evolved from the early 90’s, although truth-be-told these days I’m more likely to use my cell phone and the handy dandy AAA card as the primary tools if I run into anything serious while out roaming the blacktop.
I live in a building with a [edit: parking] garage, so all my wrenching is a go go.
I use this cool rolling plastic box with an inset tray. It’s big enough for a floor jack and stands and pretty much whatever tools I need to get the job done. Sturdy extendable handle so it maneuvers well, travels nicely in elevators and corridors, and doesn’t look particularly “mechanic” (and all the parts stickers are on the inside!) so it won’t draw the wrong sort of attention.
For smaller jobs, I have one of those soft but rigid duffle-like things with the various slots.
I keep one of those for traveling or anytime i am on the go. And just pull it out if doing any garage repairs or home fixit projects.
Look ahead… and you’ll choose Philco:
https://live.staticflickr.com/7431/9940743554_21374a4c3b_c.jpg
I have a big, heavy duty plastic toolbox that goes with me anytime I have to wrench away from home. I just add tools as necessary based on what I’m doing. I always take my basic Craftsman socket set too, and that’s enough tools to do most basic wrenching tasks. A bit heavy and cumbersome for sure, but I’d rather be over prepared than under prepared.
The 1972 Super Beetle has its own vintage metal toolbox that lives in the trunk, with a small basic socket set, wrenches, spark plug socket, feeler gauges, screwdrivers, pliers, etc. There’s a plastic toolbox I keep behind the back seat full of spare parts as well. Enough for any quick repairs, but beyond that, there’s a reason I have a AAA membership.
Frunk kit FTW. (Haha, I just wrote about mine, too.)
Last night at about 1:00 AM Central DST I wrenched on our TDI. Specifically, I tightened the oil drain plug that I had failed to do when I serviced it on Sunday. I can now report that failing to crush the crush washer will cause jet black VW 507.00 spec oil to drench the insulation on the bottom aero cover in about 72 hours and leave random drops where parked causing myself to feel like an idiot (again).
There, now you too know this exciting fact. And that getting older may cause you to do stupid shit like not crushing copper when appropriate.
home depot bucket. dump the tools in, get to mobile repair location, dump out tools and use as a stool. Second must have item is a 30X30 inch piece of closed cell foam. Nice padding for getting on and off your knees and it keeps you dry if the ground is wet and you need to lay on your back. Dont forget a flashlight when your dumping the wrenches and what not in the home depot bucket.
That foam idea is such a good one, even if you’re young. I have a set of those interlocking puzzle-piece style mats that I can configure as needed. Really makes a difference for anything more than just 5 minutes’ work of work.
A bucket is the most versatile tool on the planet
My goto when wrenching is my cordless impacta… 3/8 and 1/2… Makes short work taking anything apart.
I was given one of those bucket things as a gift once. It sucks. I use a lidded top with drawers in front. It’s heavy as hell with crappy handles, but it was free!
I have a little nylon traveling tool bag that usually lives in the MG, but gets moved to the trailer for camping trips. It contains several wrenches, a couple of screwdrivers, Vise-Grips, a hammer, a flashlight, fuses, a set of ignition points (age check!), some zip-ties, and a big roll of electrical tape. If I can’t get it going with that, well, that’s why classic car insurance includes towing.