Technical Ever lose a tool while working on your car?

I did find some Harley specific wrenches when I inherited my dad's tool box. I thought that I had lost them years ago. I guess he decided that he needed them more then me.

 

this reminds me of a time w.hen i was out in the boonies with my '56 olds and lost the ignition key. had to hot-wire it to get home. the next day, i was at the rear of the olds, bouncing it for some reason when i heard something hit the ground. a previous owner had hidden a key under the spare tire and it had fallen out through the drain hole in the spare-tire well.

 

Had a cheapo set of 1/4" sockets that I used from time to time, best thing about them was the 90 degree adapter, you could use it with a power screwdriver or drill and get into some tight spaces. Left it on the fenderwell of my pickup one day after replacing something, went on a test drive.......heard the plastic box hit the pavement as well as the sockets and extensions. Went back, found the plastic box and the 90 degree adapter as well as a few of the sockets. Most of the sockets simply disappeared in the gravel and grass on the roadside, never did find them.

Have found several tools under the hood where I or somebody else left them.

 

The previous owner of my '40 Ford bought the car in the mid 60's and "rebuilt" it. He did some amazingly wifty crap on the car, such as placing wooden blocks under the Mustang bucket seats and screwing them through the floor with wood screws, not nuts and bolts, wood screws. The padding under the carpet was a padded tablecloth. I removed the rear fenders and took them to a local rod shop to have the lower lip on both fenders cut off and replaced. Whoever had done the previous repair had taken a 7/16" wrench and laid it in the fender lip to give the bondo something to cling to. I took a grinder to the wrench to clean the bondo off and added it to my tool box.

 

More ghetto than actual chicken wire!

And the embedded wrench means the magnet will still stick when you check for bondo.

 

Nothing's more frustrating than dropping a wrench or socket into a black hole, except for placing a part or tool somewhere thinking you'll get back to it and then never find it. I'm constantly misplacing small things, and for a 50-something that's probably not good. A good friend of mine suggested I pray to St. Anthony to help me find things I've misplaced: hasn't worked yet, but it's helped cut down my swearing a little. As full as my tool chests are, I really need to spend time and set up pegboards to hang wrench sets in order to see what's not in place...oh hell, who am I kidding? That'll only piss me off more and increase my frustration level. Now to figure out where that extra bolt and clip came from when I swapped the tranny in my El Camino.

 

I had never seen a chicken wire job until I joined the hamb, much less a "wrench" job. I never knew that that kind of stuff went on! That's a great point about the magnet test, I wonder of the joker who did the crappy work was thinking that far ahead. Pretty clever if he was.

 

Somewhere in central Florida, a Trans Am is driving around with no less than 3 of my 9/16 sockets rattling around somewhere in it.

 

Today I FOUND a tool for a change! Put my car up on stands for some tranny work and noticed a 3/8 wrench stuck on a rear wheel cylinder bleeder. Some dumb..s left it on there about three weeks ago.

 

Well I am finally at that age where I don't have to loose my tools. My son turns 25 tomorrow and he comes over several times a week to work on cars for friends. Of course he lost most of his tools repeatedly so now he looses mine for me.
Personally I have never lost a tool. But sometimes I lie! If you'll look real closely at those Craftsman tools you'll see most have little legs.

 

I was working under the car and lost a half inch open head wrench. Got out from under and started to look with my trouble light. That darn wrench was no where to be found. I gave up figured it fell into that black hole were tools end up. the following week I pulled down the trouble light and there was the wrench stuck to its magnet ! Another time I lost a new small socket working on the grille of a old Dodge van . The owner drove from Pa. down to Mississippi and back. He comes in for service and there sticking out of the grille was my socket ! But I still don't know where my other lost tools ended up !

 

I would ask if that were a real question if it wasn't always happening. I changed a flat on my wifes O/T suv a full six MONTH'S ago, and I have been looking for the cup to my floor jack ever since. About a week ago she stopped on the way to work and called and said she saw something hanging under her car, kicked it and "there are parts falling off my car!" I told her to take a pic, and you guessed it.....................HOW THE HELL DOES THAT HAPPEN??? (also a national tire chain replaced all the tires a month ago..................) WTF?!!? Glad it didn't fall off in traffic and take somebody out!

 

My dad and his friends used to lay under their drag car on an open trailer and work on it while it was being pulled to the races. They would tie strings on the wrenches and to their belt loops so if they dropped the wrench they would not lose it on the highway. They were "professionals" so don't try this at home kids!

 

add me to the membership roster of the 'lost 9/16 socket, 3/8-drive' club.

I grew up in Mandan, NDakota in the 70's, early 80's, a time when alot more people did their own wrenching, either for fun or out of necessity. I say this, because I found lots of tools in the street/road, that I'd take home. (not so much, anymore) Not sure what happened to that small horde of stuff, I accumulated. Hmmm... guess I lost the 'lost' tools.

About eight years ago I was at a Memorial Day car show in Everett, WA. As I rounded a corner to walk up a fairly steep sidewalk where the cars were backed into the curb. I no sooner made the corner, look up the hill and see a guy that I know have the lid on a big briefcase style plastic molded tool box flop open to the downhill side, after lifting it out of another guy's trunk (owner had unlatched it looking for a tool). Out cascaded the whole 100-200 piece tool set onto the sidewalk. I watched the chrome shower of smaller, rounder bits & pieces jump, bounce & roll down the hill towards me and basically stop at my feet, both on the sidewalk and in the gutter. Just to my left in the gutter was one of those iron storm sewer grates that meets the curb, about the size of a small welcome mat. Seemed like close to 1/3 of the sockets, etc were all on & around the storm sewer grate. 1/2 of what started out in that box was now at my feet and in the gutter. The toolbox owner, the guy who lifted it out of the owner's trunk, and I picked everything up, being careful not to accidentally boot anything away or down the storm sewer grate. I kid you not, we got every last tool back in that molded case. I'm still at a loss to understand how nothing found it's way down the storm grate - a few pieces were sitting on the grate!

I walk many nights after dinner. Best recent (last 2-3 years) street finds: spankin' pair of vice grips, and a Klein branded, magnetic tip phillips head screwdriver in really nice shape.

Scott/Gotta56forme

 

Told my idiot non-mechanically inclined absolute jackass sorry piece of excrement neighbor to leave my garage one day.
Does that count?

 

lose tools and parts all the time-sometimes they show up later in some mysterious place. I put important things in "special places" so I won't lose them then forget where the "special place" is.

 

about 15 years ago , went to work on the then mother in laws car, on the way home pulled out of the gas station in south Tacoma , (no tail gate on the truck) and yup , ya see this one coming huh , stuffed to the rafters soft side tool bag with every wrench I owned and all my grandfather's tools I inherited , out the back . didn't know it was gone till an hour later and about 50 miles, never seen them again, anybody find a bag o stuff with mwb engraved on the contents?lol

 

Yup. At least once a week. They eventually come back to me.

 

I'm positive that during the night time my tools are having a fight with bolts 'n' nuts in my garage, and some of them end up as a casualty of war being eaten up by others. So many of them are lost during the decades that I just can't figure out any other way.

 

I did one like this once. Working in the you-pick yard on an O/T ambulance that for some reason they sat flat on the ground, in the winter, and left a big crowbar out there. Not sure I even realized it until two weeks later I go back to pick something else off the same van and there it was, under it where I left it. Usually something like that in one of those yards is going to be gone in a hurry.

I keep buying 9/16ths and 1/2 sockets at flea markets and swaps when they're cheap, or whatever other size I have a hard time finding in the tool box, with the idea that if I have 5 or 10 of them floating around I can lose one or two and still be able to get the next job done.

 

I can relate to this on more than one occasion.........

 

Just found a 9/16 snap on stubby spanner in a clients jet boat that I last worked on 7 years ago, shows naming your tools is a good idea..


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Dropped a socket down a front frame stamping hole once, and it rolled back where the sun didn't shine. That socket rattled back when I accelerated, and rattled forward when I braked. Drove me crazy for awhile till It must have gotten wedged somewhere, or finally fell out somewhere.
Not a tool story, but a friend fumbled an air cleaner wing nut down into his carb. Silly dude decided he would just start the engine, rev it up, and get the wing nut to go out the exhaust. Cost him a cylinder head, a piston, and a cylinder sleeve job.

--- Steve ---

 

Had an off topic gm pickup and needed the intake gasket replaced. Neighbor mechanic shop did the work. couple of days later, the engine was knocking bad. I opened the hood, and there was a timing light (still hooked up) on the inner fender. Oh,....and he forgot to put oil in the engine,.....that's why is was knocking. Stu

 

Unfortunately yes, usually dropped when making the effort not to. So far none down the motor or trans openings so I have been lucky. Still have a few that bounced never to be found but have been able to locate and retrieve most. I still have 98% of the original Craftsman set I bought when I was 18 (I'm 52)and almost always put them away when I'm done to keep track of them.

 

One day just the opposite opened a hood was wrenching on one side a buddy was on the opposite side holding the pry bar as I tightened the alt adjustment bolt...all done getting ready to close hood my friend says hey dont foget your so c kets ???? A whole rail of 3/8 druve short snap on sockets and ratchey just sitting on the top of the cowl. Home run ,I do not think it was enuff to even the score yet....

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This thread just reminded me, my 3/8" ratchet is still between inner and outer Left fender.

 

We bent a pushrod on a SBC dragster and it threw the solid lifter out of the bore, we were in late rounds at night , we lifted the intake up mag and all and put a lifter back in the bore with a new pushrod and could not find the 9/16 for the intake bolts, had to borrow one to put it all back together. this was all done in the staging lanes with flashlights. We made the round and as I am slowing down in the shutdown area there was a strange clanging in the motor. we pulled one valve cover and looked down to see CRAFT portion of the 9/16 wrench we left in the valley, luckily nothing was hurt by the wrench bouncing around in there

 

When I owned my semi, my mechanic left a box end wrench on the frame sort of wedged next to a bolt. I drove 10,000 miles and it was still where he left it.

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