Building a basic toolkit

AKA Surface Drive.

I've never split a socket. Lent one to a neighbour who did by standing on the ratchet (and extension drive) to loosen a wheel nut. If I couldn't loosen such a nut by hand I'd have supported the pivot point with a jack - given that no socket can cope with excessive sideways thrust. And neither will the nut flats. Simple mechanics to me.

Not that I'm suggesting you applied excess sideways thrust. ;-)

Obviously at your garage they employ sensible, down to earth mechanics.:-) Why spend thousands on Snap-On tools, when the job can be done by spending much less. Better the difference in your pocket to buy something more worthwhile I say. Mike.

I've split a few sockets, but now I always buy impact sockets, even for hand use.

Have broke one or two of those, but only when giving them serious abuse.

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

Last one I split I'd done exactly what you suggested - supported the extension bar with an axlestand. Still split it though.

You owe me for a new keyboard now that I've just spat tea all over mine having read that...

Despite the feeling of familiarity with how much it must have hurt I coudn't help but laugh out loud. Strange that it never seems remotely funny at the time... ;-)

No doubt it was in winter too.

Mathew

The message from "Mathew Newton" contains these words:

Ho yus - hurts ten times as much with cold fingers.

? i can't understand how you would split a socket on a wheel nut i've snapped plenty off but have yet to snap a socket on one i've split several cheap and nasty ones on crank pulley bolts through :) but thats what you get for not using an impact socket with an air gun i suppose :)

halfords do a good set for around £100 it's got all the basics you'll need and if you want to get other stuff you should really buy them as complete sets he only spanner I've bought separately was a 24mm one for undoing the tow bar because I only had one big long extension at the time

The message from " dojj" contains these words:

This was on a crankshaft. Or at least, the last one was. There was also the one on a rag-bolt into a cocrete wall.

2'6" extension bar in my case, It finally came undone when I used a Facom 19mm socket & stamped on the end of said bar. Presumably ShitFit had done them up with an airwrench set to max.

2 foot 3/4 drive on wheel nuts tends to shift them no matter what and if they don't move there is always the 4 foot worth of 3/4 drive 500ft/lb torque wench as a back up and if that still doesn't move it? in that case there is also a back up back up in the shape of a 7 foot 800ft/lb torque wench with 1 inch drive on the end ;)

The message from " dojj" contains these words:

Ah, I use slip-joint pliers for those - they have a degree of self tightening in that the harder you need to turn the nut the harder you grip the handles.

On the subject of plumbing - I had to replace my CH pump the other day. So I turned off the valves either side - and found they didn't isolate it.

So, I drained the system and while it was empty I thought I'd replace the pump isolation valves. Bought two new ones, fitted them = and then found the pump was now an inch too short. The buggers have made the valves 1/2" shorter! So I had to put the old ones back in since it was too late on a Sunday to get another pair.

And so speaks the man who doesn't know how to use an adjustable properly!

Yup. Same here.;-)

Yup - same here. ;-) And add to that the three port valve - although the same make and model as the original, had to modify the pipework to get that to fit too.

The last crank pulley bolt I needed to remove was on a Mitsubishi Galant. After about 1/2 an an hour a faffing about with a good 1/2" air gun, I borrowed a heavy duty 3/4" drive gun. Still could't shift it. After drilling a 1/2" hole straight down the middle of the bolt, it came undone quite easily using the 3/4" drive gun. Obviously it relieved the tension on the bolt. I'd never tried it before, but where space allows, I'll certainly remember it in future. Mike.

total thread hijack here, but my plumbing nightmare went from bad to worse to just total frustration we had a new boiler fitted and our old hot water system removed so no tanks, just fresh hot water everywhere the water was fine, until we flushed the downstairs toilet and it was hot water coming out then we had several taps the wrong way round, cold/hot etc but these were all relativly simple to fix the main problem was that the upstrai radiators wouldn't work when the downstrairs ones were open for 3 months we had people coming round offering explanations left right and centre just before the guy who was finnaly coming round to sort the problem came round (after quoting us just under £500 to solve the problem) i decided to take a look myself the numpty plumbers who plumbed it in origianaly, and everyone who came to inspect it subsequently, totaly missed the fact that there were 2 seperate systmes running for upstairs and downstairs there should have only be one but instead they T'd off the outlet to go up AND down on 2 ciruits and the returns coming back on the same system, ie up and down T'd back into one return a simple swap around of the pipework resulted in the whole house being warm because it's all just on one curcit with 2 systems the water never needed to be pushed up stairs so it never went there

it cost me 3 months and about £9 to fix the problem in the end :)

Did you fit a new bolt after. or use the one with the hole?

The message from " dojj" contains these words:

Hurrah! Hot flushes!