Technical Useful Tools

[Twink80]

I thought I’d start a thread on this topic.Anyone that has done maintainence on cars soon learns shop bought tools dont always do the job!
Here is a selection of my brake pipe nut spanners. There fittings are problematic as they are soft and readily corrode due to galvanic corrosion
The modified spanner with the removable pinch bolt will not slip and if the fitting is going to come out (it may be too far gone) this will get it out!
The ratchet version is a pretty good stool if not to heavily corroded but I have also resorted to clamping the jaws on this with a small mole wrench
The left spanner is a brake pipe spanner with wider jaws than a regular spanner. This is great when everything is new!!

 

[bugsymike]

I thought I’d start a thread on this topic.Anyone that has done maintainence on cars soon learns shop bought tools dont always do the job!
Here is a selection of my brake pipe nut spanners. There fittings are problematic as they are soft and readily corrode due to galvanic corrosion
The modified spanner with the removable pinch bolt will not slip and if the fitting is going to come out (it may be too far gone) this will get it out!
The ratchet version is a pretty good stool if not to heavily corroded but I have also resorted to clamping the jaws on this with a small mole wrench
The left spanner is a brake pipe spanner with wider jaws than a regular spanner. This is great when everything is new!!

Obviously the one on left most of us are familiar with, but I have never seen the middle one and I like the conversion job on the right hand one.
We all get brake unions that are so corroded the spanner slips etc. To the point where I have had to saw off the pipe and use a hexagon socket to shift some.
However I bought a small genuine Stilson some years ago and have found that it's wrap on action combined with really good unused jaws have got me out of trouble several times on brake pipe unions.
I also have a pair of American Proto "molegrips" I bought around 1970 for £1.50 and all the other mechanics took the p*ss as a genuine pair of Mole grips were only19/6p at the time, but I still have them and apart from welding a nut on the handle so I could use a bolt to tighten them, even when only using your fingers to adjust they grip much better than many newer versions.

 

[The Panda Nut]

My favourite is as simple as an old steel handled claw hammer. When in my 20's I crooked the neck of the hammer using excess force. I couldn't do that now. I use the oval shaft to push caliper pistons back when changing brake pads put the handle in the caliper jaws and turn the head. Even well stuck pistons slide back without resitance. Occasionally I add the handle of a wire brush as a shim. The rubber handle long since bit the dust and its totally useles for anything else.

 

[Twink80]

Obviously the one on left most of us are familiar with, but I have never seen the middle one and I like the conversion job on the right hand one.
We all get brake unions that are so corroded the spanner slips etc. To the point where I have had to saw off the pipe and use a hexagon socket to shift some.
However I bought a small genuine Stilson some years ago and have found that it's wrap on action combined with really good unused jaws have got me out of trouble several times on brake pipe unions.
I also have a pair of American Proto "molegrips" I bought around 1970 for £1.50 and all the other mechanics took the p*ss as a genuine pair of Mole grips were only19/6p at the time, but I still have them and apart from welding a nut on the handle so I could use a bolt to tighten them, even when only using your fingers to adjust they grip much better than many newer versions.

The very original Molegrips came from Newport South Wales (were I grew up) and have been widely copied. I still have a set of originals inherited from my dad. You soon learn to watch you don’t trap skin when your closing them!

 

[124BC1]

@Twink80 I hope you're not using these on the older Fiats, the 9mm one won't fit, and the others (11mm) are likely to slip..

Fiat brake pipe unions are 10mm
(and 8mm fits the brake bleed screws).

 

[124BC1]

Here's a few brake spanners (wrenches) :-

The top one is iirc a Fiat dealership special tool (the back of this tool seems to have the Fiat SAT No. ground-off, for some reason...). I've shown a close up of the maker's name & number, you can also see that the wrench fits around 5 flats of the hex nut and includes a brace to prevent jaw spreading.

The middle spanner has an 8mm size which fits Fiat caliper bleed screws.
The bottom one is a recently purchased Draper tool, it only grips 4 and possibly a tiny bit of the remaining 2 flats of the hex union nut, so probably not much better than a normal open end spanner.