In a time before nuts and bolts were packaged into useless plastic bags in never correct quantities, gathering fasteners was as easy as heading down to your auto parts or hardware store and just asking for a dozen M8 45 millimeter exhaust studs with a 1.25 thread pitch and matching copper pinch nuts. While there are some auto parts joints and fastener suppliers that still … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Battery Charger
Dividing the number of times a tool is used into its own utility makes the battery charger one of the best long-term investments for the absent minded and forward thinker alike. Since the basic design and chemistry of a lead-acid automobile battery haven't changed all that much since the days of Charles F. Kettering, the old battery charger is a tool that is often used for many … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Wood
From the back to nature desk of our renewable resource and sustainability division comes one of the more versatile and useful items in the Clunkbucket Arsenal of Tools. Wood. Countless blocks, lengths, or chunks of wood make it onto the tool carts and work benches of the world as proof that necessity is the mother of invention. Can't get the car high enough with the floor jack? … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Super Straight Edge
As we approach the beginning of Mitsubishi Astron engine rebuilding season, it is time for the first in a series of tools that can help get the job done. A quality step in transforming a salvaged engine block into a working short block is checking the deck for flatness. One might think they could lay any old reasonably straight thing across the deck and mark it good, but … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Vacuum Gauge
From the atmospheric pressure and faulty carburetor adjustment division of Tool of the Week comes the large dial vacuum gauge. As the Starlet was going through its bi-annual carburetor meltdown, the time was right to bust out the vacuum gauge to see what was going on. Spark was there for sure. There was plenty of air. That left fuel and fuel delivery as suspects. This … [Read more...]