The right tool for the right job.
Words and photos by Cliff Gromer
8/8/06
was paging through the latest Sears Power and Hand Tools Catalog the other day and I noticed that something was very wrong. It was the tool use descriptions— obviously written by some guy who never picked up a screwdriver in his life. We here at Drag Racing Online, on the other hand, use all kinds of tools every day, so we know first-hand what they're supposed to do. We also know that many of you viewers use tools on occasion, and may be familiar with the Sears Catalog. Judge for yourself which tool-use descriptions are more true to life—theirs or ours.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door. It works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age. But it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a Neon sedan directly above the rear brake line.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Used to chew rounded bolt heads down to 1/8" diameter. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the socket drawer (what wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.
ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxyacetylene torch.
 The Sears Tool Catalog may look slick, but these guys obviously don't know one end of a screwdriver from the other. |
DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes the fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from your fingers in about the time it takes you to say: "moth-er&%(*)?/#@!".
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Neon to the ground after you have installed a set of lowering springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.
EIGHT-FOOT-LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.
GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise, it's used mainly for getting dog shit off your boot.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is 10 times harder than any known drill bit.
TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft dampeners.
CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.
BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; it can also be used, as the name implies, to round out Phillips screw heads.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 34 years ago by someone in Hamtramck, Michigan, and snaps them off.
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