Welcome to the one if by land, two if by sea 50-in-1 electronic playground edition of the Tool of the Week. This time around we’re peering into computerized technology. The 1987 Mitsubishi Starion is a fuel injected car, but by no means modern. The transitional period between carburated and electronically injected engines produced some interesting if not cantankerous systems. The two-injector throttle body injection on the Starion falls into the island of misfit toys category, but the car is equipped with fully transistorized Electronic Control Unit. Any ECU made after 1995 can be accessed with a readily available universal engine code reader to help sort out check engine lights. The only people that had a Mitsubishi code reader back in 1987 were Mitsubishi (and Chrysler) dealerships. These machines were a few steps ahead of ENIAC, and about as expensive. Proving that you can learn and save money on the internets is the forum post that provided the knowledge to solder together this simple engine code reader from a two-dollar 12V LED and thirty-cent alligator clips from the local Radio Shack. Just find the pin outs and count the blinks.
Archive for the ‘Tool of the Week’ Category
Tool of the Week: Engine Code Reader
Tool of the Week: Battery Post and Terminal Brush
Welcome to the Tool of the Week crust removal Independence Day edition. The battery post and terminal cleaner brush is really two tools in one. The lower part of gizmo is full of stiff wires that clean up battery posts in short order with a few twists of the handle. An opposite twist of the handle reveals that inside the housing is a bristling porcupine of added utility! Cleaning corrosion from the inside contact surfaces of the terminals is the second use of this multiple purpose tool. The 2-in-1 reversible nature and long years of utility provided by this simple brush make it a required addition for anybody that owns a machine with one or more lead-acid batteries in the mix.
Tool of the Week: Pan and Tray Edition
From the environmental protection and creative reuse division of Clunkbucket comes this installment of Tool of the Week. While not at all glamourous, the drip tray and oil change pan are supremely useful – and can in fact help save the planet. Collecting used oil in a container that won’t puke all over the trunk makes it easy to recycle used engine oil. Picking up another drain pan and dedicating it for engine coolant means pouring the poison green stuff right back into the radiator after replacing a stuck thermostat or cracked heater hose. A drip tray is bonus protection against toxic spills or ruined concrete. Bringing used oil back to an official collection and recycling station means knowing it will get cleaned up and put to good use. The titans of global industry will tranform old crud into new Chuck Taylors, Yuri Gagarin Junior Politburo bureaucrat paperweights, or another quality plastic oil change pan!
Tool of the Week: Compression Tester
From the diagnostic tools division of the garagelet comes the compression tester – or compression test kit. While there is a danger in gathering so many tools with blow-molded cases that you have to start labeling them in Sharpie or ’70s-vintage DYMO labeler to tell them apart, the compression tester can more than pay for itself with the discovery of one or more dead cylinders. Finding out the car you just acquired is in reality a two-and-three quarters cylinder instead of the advertised four-banger makes the compression tester in kit, or cobbled from swap meet parts form, an essential device for those of us who enjoy finding, fixing, and driving the finest past tense automobiles into the future! Being able to figure out what’s going on in that old engine is the first step in fixing it.
More: Compression Test
Tool of the Week: Magnetic Tray
From the tools that support the use of other tools department comes this week’s featured tool of the week – the magnetic tool and parts tray. While there are dozens of different shapes and styles of this useful shop item, the simple yet effective concept is one that works as it should. Magnets attached to the bottom of the tray keep wrenches and errant nuts, bolts, and other fasteners in one place while working on your bucket. These same magnets allow for E-Z placement of the tray anywhere where there’s some steel or iron. On an engine stand. Under the lid of the toolbox. On top of a fender cover. And so on. One drawback of the magnetic tray is an unintended result of its awesome powers. The hours of mystery spent wondering where on freaking earth the 12mm box end wrench went can often be solved by turning the magnetic tray upside down. Oh – there it is.
Tool of the Week: Flare Nut Wrench
There are moments in the do-it-yourself automotive world where one truly wishes something didn’t just happen. One of the more famous of such moments is stripping out or rounding off a fuel or brake line fitting. Finding out that these fittings are often made of a softer metal the hard way is not fun. Since these fittings are captured by the flare on the steel line or tube itself, stripping either the threads or nut sides means far more work than planned. The easiest way to prevent stripping fuel, brake, or any type of in-line fittings is with a set of flare nut – or line wrenches. A few sawbucks invested now can save an enormous amount of time down the road. Most of them come in 2-in-1 configuration with both popular sizes on one wrench for bonus utility!
Baling Wire Bonanza
Tools that have specific or singular purpose are useful tools indeed. The one that does just about everything is a requirement. Sitting on the bottom shelf of the rolling tool cart for over five years now is an well-used spool of baling wire. From a roadside repair made to hold up a teetering muffler and tailpipe, to more driveway-based uses such as suspending brake calipers out of the way the while hammering on ball joints, the trusty spool of baling wire is unparalleled in its utility. While the warm days of summer may bring with them the revelation the only thing holding that old jalopy together was baling wire and large chunks of ice, a tool collection without baling wire is simply incomplete. It won’t solve all problems, but can eliminate quite a few. The best feature of baling wire is that it’s a tool of a thousand purposes as yet undiscovered! Think of all those eureka moments that have yet to come.
Tool of the Week
From the not once but twice department comes a double-feature edition Tool of the Week. First, the answer to an inevitable query ahead of time. What is up with the blue gloves? The answer is of course is two-fold. The latex-nitrile gloves are good safety against automotive chemicals, as well as the never-dry undercoat that Mitsubishi sprayed all over the underside of the Starion. The secondary use of the gloves is to keep tar, gunk, and corrosive chemicals off the camera. The gloves come off for camera adjustments while shooting the step-by-steps. Brake fluid and cameras are an unfortunate combination. The bonus installment for this week comes courtesy of Justice Brothers Car Care Products. JB-80 not only helps loosen easy to shear off items like the brake bleeder screw shown here, but is also Twice as Good® for helping separate rusted fasteners.
