It's Easy tech and garage tips time again.

Ok folks, it's time to once again start a thread on easy tech, handy tools, and garage tips again. Show me what you can do to make life easier in the garage or solve common problems. Or a tool you've made. There MIGHT be a winner of something cool!

Ryan, can you stick a pin in this one please so we don't have to chase it thru the drama? Let's give it a week or so and see what you hambers can come up with.

See Baron Von Mike's post on how to keep a flywheel still to see what I'm after. Stick em in this post & make em short and sweet. Pics if possible. Go HAMB go!

 

Thanks. I'll get it in here then.

Hold that flywheel

 

Most of you probably know this, but I am amazed at how many people DON'T: Use an old house painting brush (like 3-4" wide) to clean your wheels when you wash your car. Works better than anything on Wal-Mart's car-washing-supplies aisle for getting between the center and the rim, and around lug nuts (or spokes if you have them). Also good for egg-crate type grilles.

 

easy way to remove a broken bolt----- find any nut a little bigger and mig weld it to the broken bolt. the heat makes the bolt shrink and just spin it out with a wrench

 

Here's the hot tip for how to save posts on your computer, complete with all the pictures using Internet Explorer.

Step 1: Open the post. If it's multi pages do the see all option. Start with looking at the top of the post, not the end.

Step 2: Go up to "File" in the upper left of Explorer. Under "File" select "Save as".

Step 3: Now you can change the filename if you want or just leave it in the upper box. In the center box select "Web archive, single file [*.mht]

Step 4: Select save and it will save the post and all associated pictures to your drive as a single .mht file that you can open with your browser and look at just like you were online. The pictures won't go away after time like they do on the net.

You can do this with just about any web page on the net but you'll have to save the hyperlinked pages separatly. I started a folder on my hard drive named "Muncie" and snagged all the pages I could gind on parts, differences, numbers and rebuilding Muncies off the net and stuck them in that directory. Every time I find another relevent page I snag it too as an .mht file in that directory. I keep a directory with all those .PDF online catalogs in it too. They load up much faster from my hard drive and I don't have to find the site.

 

Easy dislodger for frozen piston, provided cranks not frozen. One of many. Go to a real hardware store, get a short bolt matching thread count and diameter of spark plug and a zurk fitting. ( A good hardware stiore WILL have a match). Soak the cylinders for a night or few using penetrating oil, Coke, whatever your favorite dissolving agent. While youre waiting on that drill the center for chemistry to make your world a better place, drill the center out of the bolt with a drill-size that when the hole is threaded you can screw the zurk in place. Drill that sucker all the way thru. After the cylinders have soaked, pick the piston closest to the top of the cylinder, screw the bolt/zurk in the spark plug hole, use a greease gun and pump that thing full of grease. Let hydraulic pressure and the world of physics do the rest. If it doesn't work, you probably have more than frozen pistons to worry about.

I know a lot of you older guys know that trick, but I figured I'd put it out for those that don't.

 

For those that have a Nice stero, TV, ect in the garage. Got a remote? Slide it in a heavy mill Zip Lock bag to keep it nice. Brite colored tape stripe it to find it as well.

 

[ QUOTE ]
Most of you probably know this, but I am amazed at how many people DON'T: Use an old house painting brush (like 3-4" wide) to clean your wheels when you wash your car. Works better than anything on Wal-Mart's car-washing-supplies aisle for getting between the center and the rim, and around lug nuts (or spokes if you have them). Also good for egg-crate type grilles.

[/ QUOTE ]
you can also use the brush to put armor all on your tires. dip the brush in the armor all and wipe it on. no more overspray on your wheels.

 

Are you tired of sifting through the hopper in the bottom of the blast cabinet to retrieve all those original screws and tiny nuts and bolts that got away as you were painstakingly cleaning them while holding them in a thick rubber glove and blasting with a 120-psi stream of glass beads? Well, sweat, fret, and hunt no more. Poke a few holes around the base of a small juice can, put your itty-bitty parts inside, stick the nozzle into the opening in the top of the can, and blast away for a minute or two and you're done -- and all the parts are clean and safe inside the can until you pour them out.

 

Painted wheel's? Use cleaner wax if they have been neglected for a while. Clean else where, let the wax grab. Before you buff the wax off, hose the tire's w/protectent (if you use the stuff) then wipe off the wheel's. Buffing the hood? Rain-X the glass, Pledge the weather strip, vent's,emblem's,ect so the sling wont' stick as well.

 

I don't know if this a good idea or not so take it with a grain of salt, I was trying to clean some overspray off the weatherstripping and thought I would try the Dremel. Chucked up a small wire wheel (I used stainless because it was all I had at the time) and set the speed to low. Cleaned the paint off the weatherstripping. It did burn it in a few spots but it seemed to work?? I guess this is a tech tip "your results may vary"

 

here's what I do because I have several cars, I tape the oil filter box top on each car to the door of my locker in the garage also write the mileage, so when I do an oil change I got the right Part# and mileage since the last change. When I'm done I replace the new oil filter boxtop with the new mileage, may sound stupid, but its less stuff to remember

 

When you get a new toothbrush, throw the old one in the tool box. Keep one fairly clean to get the wax from around trim and badges on the car. Wrap a light rag over the bristles to protect the paint. Use the others when you're trying to clean all those hard to clean places on things like old intake manifolds. They're way better than those stupid little parts brushes.

Grab some of those cheap plastic containers with the snap on lids for the garage. When you take a carb or generator apart throw all the little parts in the container. Snap the lid on when you leave. Same thing when you pull a tranny or whatever. All bolts in the container instead of some on the engine, some under the car, some mixed with others on the bench. I hate hunting for bolts a week later when I come back to finish something. Label with masking tape if you're going to be away from it for a while.

Keep a notebook in the garage. When you install that new radiator hose or those wheelbearings, stick the numbers in the book before you throw away the box. Make a chapter for each car.

 

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Keep a notebook in the garage. When you install that new radiator hose or those wheelbearings, stick the numbers in the book before you throw away the box. Make a chapter for each car.

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I recently gathered all the "User Manuals", "Assembly Instructions", and "Installation Guides" for everything I have put on my car. Then I got a 3-hole punch on sale at Office Depot, and put all the stuff in a 3-ring binder. I also added some hand-done wiring diagrams for how I custom-wired a couple things. Now I have a way to reference back to everything come troubleshooting time.

 

Keep your masking and other tapes in a ziploc bag to keep the edges clean

 

Wow, no posts about wasps yet!

 

[ QUOTE ]
Most of you probably know this, but I am amazed at how many people DON'T: Use an old house painting brush (like 3-4" wide) to clean your wheels when you wash your car. Works better than anything on Wal-Mart's car-washing-supplies aisle for getting between the center and the rim, and around lug nuts (or spokes if you have them). Also good for egg-crate type grilles.

[/ QUOTE ] works especially well on wire wheels

 

Ever have trouble mixing JUST the RIGHT ratio of hardner to plastic filler when doing body work?

Try this: Invision the filler as a TIT and the hardner as a NIP. That way wether you are working on a big, medium or small tit, you just picture the right nipple to tit proportions and can always place just the right amount of hardner on it.

(You dudes that dig chicks with the big funky pie plate size aeriolas are gunna have trouble with this one.)

What can I say...a guy has to do something to entertain hiself during long hours of block sanding, right??

I would post picks to illustrate, but Ryan might yank it.

 

To make a bubble flair with out a actual "Bubble Flair" tool.
Just use the first step of the inverted flair process but don't run it down all the way. Just spin the insert down till you get the look you want and thats it your done.

THis would be used mostly on Trans cooling lines or fuel lines where you use a hard line and then go to a rubber hose.

Next

 

If you care about that ugly sanded edge on your window glass, a little transmission fluid will clear it up quite a bit..............OLDBEET

 

In my timing light case I keep a short piece of vac. hose with a golf tee in one end. A piece of chalk and another white golf tee. The vac. hose if for plugging the vac. advance. The chalk for highlighting the timing marks. The other golf tee for plugging holes or in a bind the white paint will rub off for highlighting timing marks.

 

Tired of seeing your freshly painted headers turn all white and chalky after the first couple runs? Before you crank up the engine wipe them down with tranny fluid. Maybe a second application after the first drive. Now they will keep a nice satin finish for a good while. I used to do the one on my Harley only a couple times a year and I always got asked what I did to it.

 

need a cheap welding table? take an old grill and strip it down to a rolling frame. it should have some supports sticking out each side that make a perfect place to mount a big piece of metal plate. weld some supports in with square tubing or whatever and thats it. you could also use plywood as the table surface to make a regular rolling workbench. Im not sure if this works with all grills but ive made 2 so far and they work great. If you need to go through grass or mud with it you may want to mount new wheels on the front though, the dinky caster wheels weren’t really designed for all terrain use.

 

One of my favorite things to have around the shop is the soup containers you get at Chinese take-outs. MANY uses for them! Storing nuts and bolts, organizing small parts, catch alls for disassembling parts, they take magic markers very well. They hold up to gasoline, oil, lacquer thinner. Soak spray gun parts in them, in thinner, to clean them. Holds rust removers (Rust-Away, Oxysolve, Metal Prep) to de-rust small parts. Pour gasoline in them, out of a big container, to prime carburetors, they don't melt like coffee cups! The lids keep chemicals from evaporating. Mix small batches of paint in them. Store catalyzed paint in them, in the freezer, to save the paint for the next day (doesn't work for ALL paints, though!) Temporary paint container for POR-15...you shouldn't use it out of it's original can, and let the air hit it for too long. Mix fiberglass resin in them. They're free and throwaway!

 

Why throw away all the blister packs that EVERYTHING seems to come in these days?.. Use them to sort out your nut, bolts, screws. Tape a label on the end and write what is in it and stack them up. Beats dumping that coffee can of Misc. bolts out on the floor or bench looking for that 1/4x20x1.25 bolt you need

 

Absorb-all: The big paper bag it comes in always gets torn, or it get wet, making a mess either way. Buy a little RubberMaid or similar plastic garbage pail and dump the absorb-all into it. Add a scoop made from a cut-down oil container or some such thing. Haven't had that mess in the shop for 15 years.

Put a couple of trash cans in differrent places in your shop: keeps litter from accumulating. You'd be surprised how much crap you leave on your work bench/floor/tool box just because a trash can isn't close by.

Put safety glasses all over your shop. We're lazy, and frequently won't walk across the shop to get them when we should.

Take every cool magazine article you've ever thought would be a good reference, photo copy it, and stick it in a three-ring binder, with different categories for specific topics: Induction, Brakes, Rear Ends, etc. You'll never have to sort through 20 years of magazines to find the one article you need.

For the windshield wiper nuts on mid-50's GM cars (and probably others): These have the slots cut on both sides of the ring, and screw down over the wiper transmission shaft. They're soft pot metal, and are usually destroyed because someone removed them with a vise grips, or put a screwdriver blade in one of the slots and "walked" the nut off the shaft.
Get a 9/16 deep well socket, and draw two tabs, or fingers, on the side at the open end. Then remove all the metal that isn't the tabs (with a die-grinder/cut-off wheel), leaving the two tabs protruding up. Those tabs will engage the slots in the nut, while the transmission shaft goes up inside the socket, letting you remove those nuts without hurting them.

-Brad

 

Here's an easy one:

I was always dinging the bottom edge of my bumper when I tried to jack my car up, so I needed something to pad it.



A piece of 5/8 heater hose with a slit cut down one side...



...keeps that bumper from being damaged.




My jack has this little "pocket" where I keep the hose stored for next time.

 

Always running out of space in the garage? If you are like me and are cursed with a tiny garage, you can use these tips to gain some more room:



Most people don't take advantage of overhead storage for bulky items like extra 2x4's, etc...

Just take 4 "ladder hanger" hooks, two long pieces of scrap wood, and some plumbers tape and screws, and voila!





You might have to notch the wood like so, and use the plumbers tape and screws to secure it, you don't want this stuff coming loose and falling on you or your car!





And here's a good "underneath" storage idea. Make some drawers to go under your workbench to hold all those naggling little things that normally clutter up the area.




Plywood bottoms, I think the sides are 1x10's, with little casters on the bottom. You can size them to fit any unused nooks and crannies you have.





And here's my favorite. A couple of drawer slides ($5 at Home Depot), one piece of scrap plywood and a handle, and those handy little storage bins finally have a home out of the way!

 

And an old buffing bonnet slipped over your floor jack head will keep your nice undercarriage parts from getting damaged.

 

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Absorb-all: The big paper bag it comes in always gets torn, or it get wet, making a mess either way. Buy a little RubberMaid or similar plastic garbage pail and dump the absorb-all into it. Add a scoop made from a cut-down oil container or some such thing. Haven't had that mess in the shop for 15 years.



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This is great but I am cheap so I don't buy new containers. I use old cat litter containers. They work great for the garden shed too. Storing fertilizer or pesticides.

Cut down 1 and 2 liter bottles are great funnels too.

Also put everything on wheels. I work for a company that likes to throw casters away when we only have 2-3. Everyone thinks I am crazy for offering to take them. A couple of times and I have casters for engine/trans carts, body dolly, welding tables, saws, griders etc.