[sajjt]

Jeron Sir,

For me its a mouth watering collection Like others said, after a long break we are enjoying a very informative thread. You got a massive tools collection out of which some I never heard of it. Hats off to you sir. Expect more on organizing and storing the tools in future posts.

[ajaypjayaraj]

Wow that's a wonderful collection!

Have said this before but when mods moved your thread around, that post got deleted. Couldn't help but come back and say it again as I myself have this habit of collecting all kinds of tools. Helps a lot with DIYs. It's fun to work when you have the perfect tool for the job.

Nice of you to put a write up. Felt happy to see this thread. Like I mentioned last time, my concern now is stowage of all these tools. Been collecting for years and now it takes up quite some space in the house. Need to build a DIY friendly garage. On the look out for storage solutions. Well, thanks for sharing. I can understand the passion.

[Roshan_v_k]

Wow this is a fabulous collection of both old and new, I have some too, not sure if I can share it on this page, let me get the pictures first.

[ghodlur]

One word Wow. You do have an enviable collection of tools. The tool box, the spanner set, the screw driver set reminded me of the tool boxes we used to have on the offshore oil & gas platforms. We had the chest drawers of Stanley, Proto etc filled with almost all kinds of hand operated, motor operated tool set and along with them also had Taparia make ones too. Inspires me to have a modest one atleast for the home and car purposes.

[blackasta]

This is insane!
Hats off to you for building up the splendid collection.
I am planning for long to get a torque wrench and suitable keys - perhaps some guidance from Jeroen would be great!

P.S - I suspect half of the tool cache is for use on that red alfa :P

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by raghu.t.k

Isnt the pump shown to remove excess solder, a de-soldering pump, that is used to remove any soldered joins?

Correct, just couldn't figure out the proper name! You heat up the solder to the point where it becomes liquid and then this little pump allows you to suck it up.

Originally Posted by Ananth_shukti

If you could share how you organize these it would give some idea about storage & access to them as well.

What I have shown is probably about 30-40% of all the tools I have. I tried to show the more unusual and or special ones. Storages is a bit of an issue. I can't say I have a real system. I have some shelves in my garage and most of my tools come in various tool boxes and or plastic boxes, a few card board boxes and I just stack them all in the shelves. Works fine for me.

Originally Posted by sumathindra

Fantastic collection across the years. Just wondering if all of them can actually be put to use in today's cars!

Yes, most if not all of these tools can be put to use in today's cars. In fact, over the years cars have only become more complex. They've been adding all sorts of stuff, but all the basic stuff is still there. Working on say the transmission, steering, suspension on any car requires the same set of basic tools. If has some fancy electronically controlled air/electric suspension you might need some more electronic stuff, but for all the mechanical stuff it's the same sort of tools the world over, on all cars.

Jeroen

[JoseVijay]

Jeroen,

Amazing collection. What next? Life time collection of cars(and driving them too)?
After all you have so many of them.

[kraft.wagen]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

This is one of my more recently bought tool kits. When I arrived in the USA on August 2009, the very first day I bought a car, my Jaguar XJR. In all it took a few more weeks before I actually took possession. Picked it up in North Caroline and drove it in three days back to Kansas City. First and very nice road trip. All our house hold goods, including my tools had not even left the Netherlands. So I found myself with a beautiful Jaguar but not a single tool, not as much as a paper clip. First stop was, what else harbor Freight, see http://www.harborfreight.com/

I buy most of my tools for my motorcycle from HF, they usually have great deals and freebies But I feel their in-house brand(Pittsburgh) lacks in quality.

The magnetic trays are my favorite tool lately, so very useful

[adrian]

@Jeroen :Great collection of tools. Way to go friend.
I am also a tool addict and I just can't stand the sight of a good toolkit at the hardware shop. The problem starts once you reach home when you are accused of wasting money on the hardware. Then they don't get to know about the satisfaction and result one gets by using the right kind of tool for the job in hand.
regards adrian

[Tgo]

I would really like to thank you Jeroen.

I am in the process of building up my tool kit mainly for working on my RE Thunderbird. It was really informative to go through your thread as I got to know about a lot of weird looking tools and their specific purpose. This thread is going to serve as a knowledge source for me for future.

This is what my tool kit looks like at the moment.

[Shubhendra]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

[b]
Truly amazing collection Jeoren! And I used to think my collection of spanners is a big deal!

Same here, i used to think that tool collection i have is good enough to work on my old vehicles. period



Shubhendra

[Sutripta]

In this Alladins cave of tools, did not notice some (of the top of my head) staples
Lockjaw (Vice Grip) pliers.
Cylinder leakage tester. (For that matter, even a compression gauge)
Tach/ dwell (most probably built into the Gunson timing light. (Talking of Gunsons, no colortune?)
Calipers (unless machining something, more readily useful than micrometers.)
Plug cleaning sandblaster.
Wire type plug gapping tool.

Not talking of really specialised tools (like carb jet flow comparators).

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

In this Alladins cave of tools, did not notice some (of the top of my head) staples
Lockjaw (Vice Grip) pliers.
Cylinder leakage tester. (For that matter, even a compression gauge)
Tach/ dwell (most probably built into the Gunson timing light. (Talking of Gunsons, no colortune?)
Calipers (unless machining something, more readily useful than micrometers.)
Plug cleaning sandblaster.
Wire type plug gapping tool.

I'm traveling in the UK at the moment, so I can't take pictures of any of my tools in my garage in the Netherlands.

I have several Vice Grip pliers, from very tiny to medium size. And a few different beaks as well. Short and long. The third but last photograph shows one on the very right. At least that's what I call a vice grip plier. Maybe you mean something different.

Cylinder leakage tester and compression gauge are two different things. I don't have the first, but I do have a compression gauge. Although I have no idea where it is. So that probably means its' in storage with some of my other tools.

Tach/Dwell can be measured with the Timing Light. And I have a multimeter somewhere that is supposed to be capable of doing the same, although I've never tried it.

I have several calipers. You can actually see one in the very first picture. At the bottom you see the top of its leather protective pouch it comes in. I have two regular ones, and again somewhere (storage) one with a digital readout.
When I went to naval college there were a few personal tools that every student had to bring themselves. This very caliper being one of those. So it's well over 35 years old, still going strong.

I don't have a plug cleaning sandblaster of anything like that at the moment. Back in the USA I had one of those, but I sold it before moving back.

Wire type plug gapping tool: I have two different ones. One is essentially the old school "feelers" and a pair of pliers. The other one isn't much more sophisticated, but does the job as well. I'll see if i can post of picture. It looks like a coin, but the edge is calibrated along an increasing thickness. Just slot it in and twist until you have the correct gap.

I must admit that I don't do the gapping on plugs very often anymore. I try to get iridium plugs for all my cars. Much easier and they last forever!

Again, sometimes I loose track where all my tools are. I know for a fact that a lot of my car/model specific tools for my Alfa, Mercedes and Mini are in storage. Did not bother with taking them to the USA when we left the Netherlands in 2009.

But I was pretty sure I had some more electronic test tools, that I thought I brought with me to the USA and therefor was expecting, by now, to be in my garage in the Netherlands. Notably two wave generators and a scope. Very useful for trouble shooting ECUs and the various busses.

The one tool I'm looking into at the moment is a 3D printer. I co-own one with two of my spanner mates. We decided to get one and to get some experience and it's sort of ok. We thought it would be great for making our own plastic/nylon parts. In particular all sort of clips that hold for instance door cards in place. These are often difficult to source. So we bought a 3D printer. In all honesty i haven't had a go at it yet, but I've seen some of the results of my friends. It's ok, but not much more then that. But this is one area where huge progress is being made so I daresay soon we'll upgrade to a more capable printer.

We also try and buy up old/classic testing stations. So we got one from Mercedes and one from Jaguar. These are the old test rigs that were used by the official Mercedes/Jaguar dealer to check and adjust their customer cars. They come up regularly on Ebay and a few other specialized sites. Great fun

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

but also my N-gauge model trains

I sure want to see this.

Reading about your tools, their function, where you have used them, the guides, your experience in different kind of jobs, it is all so incredible.

The Alfa Spider sure seems to be a car that can't be owned by someone who is not technically inclined.

I am surely bringing both my Fiat's to you if they need anything:-)

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

I sure want to see this.

Reading about your tools, their function, where you have used them, the guides, your experience in different kind of jobs, it is all so incredible.

The Alfa Spider sure seems to be a car that can't be owned by someone who is not technically inclined.

I am surely bringing both my Fiat's to you if they need anything:-)

Sorry, cant show a single piece of my N gauge trains! Unfortunately, all of that is in storage. It was one of those things that doesn't make sense moving around the world with.

I used to be a big model train fanatic. During my college and university days I worked part time in a model train and hobby shop. This hobby seems to be dying out a bit. Some of the manufacturers have gone bust as well. But in the 70s it was big business. Some of our customers had huge setups. I knew a couple that had built seperate extensions or basements to their homes for their model trains. I was mostly interested in the technology. one of my regular customers worked for a company that was involved in industrial process automation. They ripped out old analogue control system and put in PLC based controllers. He taught me a lot about automating my trains. And he provided me with a lot of the old analogue and new PLC equipment as well.

I cant remember exactly, but I think I had about 15 engines and some 100 -150 carriages. My track had some 75 points and a real turn table. The turn table was originally manual, made by Fleischmann. I fitted it out with a little electric motor and gear, micro switches and a PLC so it became fully automatic.

I used reed relays along the tracks to provide inputs to the control systems. Magnets underneath the first carriage behind the engine. These days the model trains come equipped with full individual digital control. But nothing like that existed then. In essence you had to built your own block system, just like the real world railroad do to control their trains. I used to buy these reed relays in bulk. Must have hundreds of them installed!

I wasn'tm particularly concerned about the type of rolling stock. Basically I used everything from every era together. So steam, with diesel and electric. Actually in those days that wasn't that far removed from reality. In the 70's there were still a lot of steam engines used in Germany to haul freight.

Love those big steam engines.

Mine were slightly different, but here are a few samples:

http://www.fleischmann.de/en/product.../products.html

http://www.fleischmann.de/en/product.../products.html

http://www.fleischmann.de/en/product.../products.html

My dad was interested in the scenery and the buildings and so on. So he used to do most of that work. When I moved away from my parents home in the early 80s I packed up my model trains. My two sons were never that interested. They did like model building and they loved their Scalextric racetrack. So, in all honesty I haven't seen my model trains for several decades! But, im still interested in real and model trains.

Jeroen