These days, tool sets can be fairly cheap to buy. I see complete metric and standard sets for the same price as one of my father's old Snap on ratchets. I don't make a living with tools, but it saves me money when it comes to my own vehicles. Why is it that they seem to leave out the sockets you might need? Especially metric sets. I have my father's tools, mostly Snap on, but his collection of metric stuff was sparse. I have a dozen 9/16 wrenches, and so on, 5 or 6 10mm sockets. Where is my 15mm, or my 18mm, that I had to run out and buy? Don't know how many times I have forced a standard socket onto a metric nut because I didn't have the in between metric size.
I have the same complaint. Every time I buy a new set it will be missing something. I bought a set of gear wrenches and it's missing the 18mm. But I have a 9mm wrench. I have never used a 9mm, but I need the 18mm. It seems that for every common size socket, or wrench missing. You get some odd ball size that never gets used.
A big company will spend millions trying to figure out what to put in a set and what to leave out. Most sets are complete till you get in the bigger sizes hen they skip around. I think its because when you look at a set you start off at the small end and you lose concentration by the time you get to the bigger ones. Alot of metric tools will have 20,21 22, 23 skip to 30.
I’m finding the better “cheap” sets are more complete these days, outside of big box store sets. Gearwrench, Tekton, Icon, and I think Milwaukee all offer no skip sets plus Grey Pneumatic and Sunex do the same for impact sets
I think a set of gear wrenches will be my next purchase. They have them at work with the hinged boxed end, very handy. I would like to get a bigger air compressor. I have a little one for an air nailer, and it won't run any of my fathers tools. I put a pig on it, and it won't last long enough to break a bolt lose. The old garage where my father worked for most of his life was purchased by a trucking company. They went bust and the bank took it. It's an old half round building. It's been ransacked, and all the wiring and copper has been taken. I think there might be a few homeless people stay there from time to time. I noticed the door open many times, and stopped one day for old times sake. The old air compressor is still there. The motor is gone, but the 2 compressor heads are still on the tank. No one seems to know who is in charge of the building, and with my luck, the cops would come along as I was pulling it outside.
Toptul and gedore make very complete metric tool sets for not too much money, so for modern cars and equipment it should cover a lot. I used to have the harbor freight 300 piece mechanic set and added 2 sets of $25 wrenches and a breaker bar, did almost everything I needed. The new Quinn set seems decent but I haven't handled them in person.
The snap on stuff of my father's is nice, and most of it's old, but I could never justify the cost. Most of my own stuff is Sears Professional, back when Sears was in Canada, and Canadian Tire Mastercraft. We don't have harbor freight, but I am told it's like princess auto
The cost of Snap On is absolutely insane. A small wrench set will be $400+, hell they had a manual impact driver set a few months ago, the kind you hit with a hammer, a $25 tool anywhere else for $830 in the specials flyer. Not to mention $20,000 toolboxes. https://shop.snapon.com/product/Impact-Drivers-(3-8")/36-pc-3-8"-Drive-Impact-Driver-Set/PIT2230E Tell me how is this worth $830 to anyone? A basic set of wrenches for heavy equipment to cover up to 1 5/8 is $2245! How does this make any kind of financial sense to purchase for a guy making $20-30 per hour??? https://shop.snapon.com/product/Sta...-Combination-Wrench-Set-(1-4–1-5/8")/OEX724KB I go to work to make money, not spend money to work so I stay off the godforsaken tool trucks.
I need wrenches or just tools, I call Napa and buy the Carlyle brand. Those work just fine and they will deliver them to the shop.
As a regular buyer of snap-on tools, I have their pricing structure pretty well figured out. Something like that impact driver set, that is meant to be hit with a hammer, will likely be replaced 10 times over its life for "free". The same goes for 1/4" drive stuff, the purchase price is close to the 1/2" stuff, but you will get many more "free" replacements with the smaller stuff. You just absorb those costs for warranty replacement on the initial purchase. I do appreciate the weekly truck visits as well. If there is something new that can help me do a better job faster, I usually buy it. I can always make more money, but every minute that goes by I am one more closer to the end.
Tool companies will have the understanding from a couple of decades back, that when metric was introduced most bolt manufactures also decided to standardize metric bolt sizes as well, so M6=8mm, M8=10mm, M10=17mm, M12=19mm, M14=22, M16=24, M20=30 and so on. So those were the spanners made for "set's" as they were the most common, obviously since then the different nations around the world have decided to bastardize the system to make it fit their needs and make it a nightmare for tool companies.
I had a bunch of Napa branded tools for years, liked the tools and their service, set up ten matching toolboxes, bought sets with blow molded cases for tool identification, figuring lost tools would be quick to be replaced and match, a few years later Napa brought Carlyle in and my plan went to ****, as nothing fit the old Napa sets, who ever made Craftsman also made Napa tools and those worked for a while, now Sears is gone. And always had to buy 18 mm separate.
I wish i could sell all my tools for what i gave for them and then bough another set. I have about 3 sets of the basic stuff because of working in 2 shops and at home . I may sell off some one day. I have some of every brand snap on is good stuff but if i was hiring a guy starting out i would tell him he couldnt work for me if he bought new snap on tools they dont add up there not worth going in debt over.
The old man pulled wrenches all his life. Started working for Ford when he was 16. If he was still alive he would be 81. He liked the Snap on warranty. In later years when salesmen said their stuff had the same warranty, he said I don't want to spend my time returning tools that break, I rairly break Snap on,. He swore by their screwdriver tips, and figured no other wrench that he ever tried had as much strength in the open end. Of course in later years there was a mixing of brands. All his one inch drive stuff is Sears, a few others as well. I do like how thin their non impact sockets are for tight places. He also had a tool allowance when he moved away from the car dealer, and onto truck and trailer. I gave his inch and a half drive stuff to his old work place. I rairly use the one inch stuff, so I figured I would never need the inch and a half. He had left his widow maker impact gun there when he retired. Besides that impact, it was only about 6 or 8 regular impact, and 5 deep impact. I don't even remember the brand.
My little Nissan Frontier broke down while I was driving into town and I needed to fix it in the parking lot where it sat. Not having all my tools with me, I walked a few blocks to Home Depot and picked up a 3/8" set of Husky metric impact sockets that were low profile and had the hex on the outside of them so you could turn them with an open end wrench. I think I paid $25-30 dollars for the set. It is a full set with no skips. I am super impressed with them. I have a lot of Snap On and Proto tools and don't get me wrong they are nice, but when I am working on small stuff like 4 wheelers and chainsaws, I constantly find myself grabbing the Harbor Freight colored metric ratchet end wrenches. Little things like color coding or having an easy to use storage case make more sense to me. Obviously, if I am going to be doing bigger stuff like tearing down a backhoe cylinder where cheater pipes, heat, and impacts are involved, I want something like a Proto or Williams socket on that.
the 18 MM is a pet gripe of mine. I was in the UK and offered to do a front brake job on our friend's Mercedes wagon, and that was the fastener. It was not in any sets. I had to track down the single wrench at an auto parts store with a proper rack. I blame the germans, always. The japanese at least followed a consistent standard in the early days. You needed an 8, 10,12,14, sometimes 15, 17,19. Most jobs were 10,12,14,17. The US got started in the metric game and they were the exclusive purveyors of the @#$@%13 mm fastener size.
All the guys I work with refer to the Snap-On truck as "The Rape Van"
My old TEA20 tractor had one wrench in the tool box that pretty well fits every bolt. That's smart engineering
I remember when I was a young fella, the snap on guy came once a week. He knew his product, and the guys that bought them. His truck was well stocked, and he always had something new for you to try before you buy. He retired, and I don't think you can get Snapon unless you drive for a couple hours.
The hex is supposed to be half again larger than the bolt. SAE, the 5/16, 7/16, and 9/16 were fudged a little. But the metric charlie foxtrot? Who knows? There are at least 3 different metric specifications. Take the common 10 mm bolt. If its Japanese, it was produced to JIS and has a 15mm head. If it was continental European, it was produced to ISO, and has a 16 mm hex. Now if the Krauts made it, its DIN and has a 17mm head. Chinese? It depends on whoever produced the product they copied. And if its American? Chances are good they whored out their brand name and just assembled parts from whichever country offered them cheapest. Green tractors for example.
I had a mid nineties Chevrolet and you could've disassembled the whole truck with a 8,10,14,15,and 22mm. The weird thing was that all those bolts were metric heads with sae threads. That I could never figure out.
Someone is paying the taxes on the land / building. Check with your local tax authority / city / provincial / for the owner of record. Seems an offer of scrap value would be appreciated.
My neighbor inquired about the building a couple years ago. He represents sawdust for seniors. They get together and build or refurbish things for babies for single parents that can't afford new stuff. They thought the building would be perfect for them. The holding company went bust, and I guess it's just a matter of time before the city takes the property for taxes, and deems the building unsightly and puts out a tender to tear it down. Luck has it that we do most of their demo work, and I put my name on the compressor through the guy that bids the demo jobs.
Yup. I saw it first in Ford full size trucks in the early 2000s. Bastards. NO set you could find at the time had an 18 in it. (at least any set I could afford, and I bought a lot of tools). The 13mm bolt head size (VW bugs from the 60's) was where I saw the future, and yet I remained in denial for decades. I still have some of those bolts in my 8mm bolt bin, but I will rectify that earliest.... I would rather work on nearly ANYTHING Japanese, because as stated above, if you have an 8, 10 12 and 14 mm ratchet wrench and sockets in 1/4 and 3/8 drive, you can twist nearly any bolt those cars will have. Detroit started mixing Imperial and Metric stuff in the 80's. Working on my Mom's 88 Suburban is the quickest way I know to empty a tool box drawer....we won't address the effect it has on my patience....
My dad took me at 15 years old to work for his friend. His service station used Snap - on tools. The sign in the truck said " When you buy a inferior (Cheap) tool you feel good when you buy it, and Not Good every time you use it. When you buy a quality tool you don't feel good when you buy it , but feel good every time you use it! You buy a tool once and use it often" Over 50 years later my Snap-On tools are still used daily some replaced free some not. Retired now and just came in from the shop from working on a restoration of a 1948 Harley...Love quality tools.
I was working at a gas station through high school, and the Snap-on driver was my first credit. I had a small payment every week and I still have some of those tools 40+ years later. Some were stolen but I took the insurance money and tracked down another dealer, and pretty much replaced them tool for tool.
There was a young fella that did his work experience under my father. When he came back after his second term in school, he had a massive Snap on box, full of tools. More than my father had collected over the years. His instructor must have seen some promise in him, and sent him to see a lady about a good deal on tools. When he arrived, she was expecting him, and took him out to her late husband's garage. When he saw the tools, and said there was no way he could afford it. She said her husband wanted his tools to go to someone who would get good use out of them, and that she could sell them for a thousand dollars. Jason said he couldn't take them for that, the tool box was worth more than a grand. You know the type, the tall box with the built in work bench and cabinet under that. She wouldn't take more than what she was asking, and the snap on guy told him the box and contents were over twenty grand. He works for his dad keeping his trucks and equipment going.
Many NAPA chains host equipment fairs in February and that’s an awesome time to purchase Carlyle stuff. $2.56 per pound is the air-freight rate for me to ship my tools from ANC to Dutch Harbor. $1.95 return. That’s $384 to get my three each, fifty pound boxes to Dutch. So, I purchased a good selection of Carlyle to keep in Dutch. The ROI worked out fast. Nonetheless, it didn’t take long in a fleet setting for it to all disappear.
We had a Napa near us but its gone i bought some tools from them now i cant get them warranted. I have snap on and craftsman stuff to i need warranted .
I've got some Carlie stuff in my box and trucks, I like it. If I need a socket or something and I'm out on the road near a NAPA I'll hit em.
Dutch Harbor... must be chilly there now. Back before self adjusting brakes, it was hard to keep 9/16 wrenches around. One of the guys in the shop spray paints all the wrenches hanging on the board neon pink. Finds the guys don't keep them.
I don't think I've ever seen a 15 millimeter wrench. I do have an 18mm socket in a SK 1/2" SET that I bought back in the eighties or nineties. I think I used it once or twice on an American built truck sometime. The bolts I just hate are the Allen headed capscrews used on some of the Japanese and German made stuff. It takes several minutes to just dig the dirt out of the bolt head. They build the bolts out of unobtainium and you have to buy sockets with the allen wrench in them and then try to get enough pull to break the bolts loose. Breaker bars and cheater pipes are mandatory and when the bolts pop loose the shock goes from the socket all the way to the center of your body in a milli second. Finger joints, wrists, elbows, shoulders, collar bone and breast bone all feel that snap that sounds like a gun shot. I've had brand new sockets where the hex was a little smaller than the hex in the bolt head. Sometimes the inside of the cap rounds out and now you have to find a way to still get it loose. Only special drills will touch it. Stick some kind of easy out in there and the bolt head explodes. Cut the head off with something, usually a torch, and pull things apart. That doesn't work on a hydraulic cylinder when the bolt head is now deep in a recess. The sockets are incredibly expensive as well. I only bought the ones I typically use, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 20. Those five SnapOn tools cost more than my Matco 1/2" to 1 1/2" impact socket set.
I have found that when possible to smack the Allen bolt or torx bolt with a hammer. Then they back out like they were never had been torqued.
I'll stick a air pin punch down in a SHCS and rattle it a bit if it's stubborn. Big ones get the impact too.
Like those hose couplers on Hitachi. Doesn't Cat have them to? Packed full of mud, baked in by hot hydraulic oil. I have an old Poulan chain saw that has triangle screw heads so you can't work on it unless you get creative.
I'll take allen heads over torx any day. I've found with the bigger ones if they get stripped just switch to next size up of opposite metric or standard and pound it in and it comes right out. On my 210 volvo when I blew stick hose it was 2 allen heads, absolutely no problem getting them loose and it's a 2008 so guessing still factory hose. Unless someone has pre-stripped it or torqued it to stupid amount i've never had a problem with allen heads. The worst was on my ram 5500 transfer case fill plug, I had a 24" breaker bar on it and wouldn't budge, threw the impact on it wouldn't budge it until it eventually stripped it, but you can't blame the allen head for that, it was over torqued to a stupid amount. Took a ton of force with a easy out with a impact to get the dahm thing out, some idiot had to have torqued it with a pretty good 1/2" or 3/4" impact. Funny thing is, the drain plug was on the loose side..... I buy all my sockets and wrenches from canadian tire or princess auto. They are cheap but they are great quality. I managed to break one 15/16 socket after years of tire changes with an impact on a regular socket. I do notice they skip different sizes, I had a good stanley one years ago, just bought a new one and they've got worse. Although most do have 15mm. I don't know why they don't cover everything up to 1" and 24mm without skipping sizes, yet from like 1/2" and 12mm up they have in both 3/8" and 1/2" drive. Skip having 2 or 3 of the same socket and cover at least everything once. But for $100 for most basic ratchets, sockets, some allen and torx and a few wrenches to keep in a truck you can't complain. I figure one breakdown if the set saves me a trip to the shop for tools it pays for itself.
I removed and replaced a flywheel on a Mercedes powered Freightliner M2 last week. The bolts had a shallow female 12 point head. we actually had a socket for them, Snap-On of course. Going back on 92 Ft Lbs and 90 degrees. Tight for a 12mm bolt.
A lot of 15mm on high-end bicycles, 80-90 GM Tie rod sleeves, upper strut mounts, ball joint pinch bolts and 80-90 misc Ford products. Never on any industrial equipment I’ve ever encountered.
Had to add to my set for Deere Ag tractors & Lawn n Garden.
The problem with snapon is there is no way to purchase at the warehouse like in the old days. You have to buy from a guy in the truck, and adds huge to the mark up, and most of the time he doesn't have the tool your looking for. I had a tool stolen by a snapon truck guy years ago, he was going to check on getting it fixed. Then again for a tool that they can make for pennys by the hundreds, and then charge huge $ for that other manufactures charge much less for doesn't make sense to me the customer.