Technical Little tips and tricks for garage hobbyists.

@Boneyard51 I totally agree. Its horrible though, they shouldnt be jumping your fence in the first place, but if they do and get hurt they can sue you. Whats the world coming to? No nails on my fence, just a big loud dog on the inside.

 

By the time you get big enough wheels on a creeper to work anywhere that is not a perfect surface you need a lift to get the car high enough to use it. If you have a lift..........
Does anyone make heated cardboard?

 

They can sue you if they get hurt even if you do nothing.
Years ago a guybroke into my Grandfather's neighbor's house and stole a bunch of stuff. The cops came and he ran out the back and jumped the fence into my grandfather's yard then over the next fence into another yard where he was met by a big dog that stopped him until the cops got there. He was arrested and the goods recovered. He sued the dog owner and won.

 

I got one of those Magic Creepers (sorta like a fabric Caterpillar track). It works pretty well for this geezer.

 

I agree, it’s crazy! All the more reason to not give them the ammo to win! Sometimes not all the facts are given in cases that seem absurd!
In the USA you are entitled to a jury of your peers! If I get in trouble, I going to insist on all members of the jury , be members of the H.A.M.B. ! !!






Bones

 

I've used some leftover fanfold insulation that is used under vinyl siding and it works very well, toasty warm and is comfortable to lay on!

 

A+ on the cardboard box. I have from from a water softner that I bought 11 years ago. The box gets lots of use. The best part is that it's bigenough to cover the width of the car with a bit extra and small enough to fold up and stor in 1/4 the space.

 

Go find your friendly neighborhood Snap-On Dealer, ask him for the cardboard box a roll cabinet box comes in. To combat shipping damage they have gone to extreme on the boxes. Probably 1/2” thick and when you fold them flat they’re now almost 1” thick. The big boxes are around 8’x4’ when flat and do a great job of insulating old bones from cold concrete! I always saved as many as I could and shared them as needed.

 

My wife and I were looking at new mattresses yesterday. Maybe I'll just get some cardboard.

 

Came across another good one today. I have some rubber mat to make a bed liner for my Bantam pickup. Decided I better make test pieces first...A few days ago a friend who is moving called me to comer over and get some free construction leftovers, which I did. So this morning as I was getting started and wondering about the test patterns I walked right by it, still sitting there in my driveway..a partial roll of roofing paper! This is lightweight stuff, cuts easy but still stiff enough for my needs.

 

Thinking about it... You could probably use a thin futon mattress in place of cardboard. Just get it used and you can fold it up in the corner of the shop and not worry about it. Better then cardboard and still pretty cheap, just not as available or common as cardboard.

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I have several sizes of old car & bicycle inner tubes in my scrap "rubber box" (don't go there !) that I use to make various sizes of rubber bands when needed. I can bundle stuff up and put it away for years and it'll still be pliable, not petrified, like offshore rubber bands would be.

 

Bicycle boxes, too. Come springtime, bike shops throw a lot of them away.

 

i use one of my wife's old exercise mats, also use them to line toolboxes

 

I have 2 old rubber shower mats I use in the shed.
About 3/4” thick and great for lying under your job if need be and saves the old knees.

 

In the thread My belly tank racer build by onekoolkat1950...

Atwater Mike said: "I was setting my rear crossmember in my '27 Hiboy, '32 rails, rear 'kickups' kicked up 2" additional, Model 'A' crossmember. Working both sides alternatively, I had my yardstick on the right, and a wooden Harbor yardstick on the left.
Every time I measured from my stretched center wire to each side, I was nearly 1/2" off! Then from the other side? Couldn't find my error, so 3 times measure...then compare yardsticks. Wooden China stick was 3/8" shorter at 30"!!!
Hope my metal Starrett was correct...Checked it with my Lufkin tape. Hope they're both right... LOL
Didn't weld 'til I figured that out..."

and catdad49 said: "Probably because Chinese are generally not as Tall!"

I was reminded of some wisdom that someone imparted to me years ago: when working on any project; whether car or motorcycle or metal or wood or whatever; always use only one tape measure or ruler during the entire build. The reasoning is exactly what Mike discovered the hard way.

 

Of all people, my mom tauht me this one. An old distributor cap makes a kool pencil holder

 

Sorry about the 3 pics, still learning how to.

 

Speaking of 'mats under the car'......I have one of those black plastic mats that are sometimes found on the bottom of a shipping crate. Been using it for a while. Oil...A/T fluid...water... everything just wipes off of it. What I really like best is,,,when the jobs done under there, I pile all my tools and 'stuff' on it and drag everything out at one time! No more trips crawling around under the car picking up crap.
6sally6

 

The mat is probably got a hydrophobic coating. I'm going to have to find some of those

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Forgive me if I've mentioned this before but for the last 10 years or so I've been using a foam pad for kneeling. It's just the right size and has a couple of hand grip slots near one end. We bought it about 30 years ago. It's one of those floats the kids hold out in front of them when learning to swim.

Mart.

 

Yep...I did the same thing.Wife's okay

 

If you need to remove rust from chrome don't use steel wool use brass wool,doesn't leave scratches

 

Tired of dragging your battery charger around the shop?
Mount the charger on a wall/shelf, then adapt an extension cord to the charger leads. Makes it much easier to access batteries, and you won't have to find a place for the charger to sit.

 

Well, this one is a no-brainer. Don't forget to install your oil sender or plug the hole in SBC. Ask me how I know.

 

You can also do it with coke and aluminum foil. It also won’t scratch it.


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Coke as in CocaCola?

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Coke is good for removing bugs from windshields and breaking beads on old tires and rims.
I don'r remember seeing this one yet but I just used it. If you have to drive a bolt out put the nut back on for as long as you can. Use a soft hammer or driver. If the nut is castleated try to put it on backwards so it can chase slightly damaged threads on the way off.

 

Yeah. It’s the phosphoric acid. Pretty mild but will take it off. Same acid as Ospho.


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I keep a dry erase board mounted somewhere handy in the garage and put useful info on the vehicles on it like lug sizes and torques, drain plug sizes and torques, etc.