[Jeroen]

Currently I am in my home country the Netherlands for a short vacation. We own several cars, all of mine are kept in storage. Whenever I visit the Netherlands for more then a few days I have one car taken out of storage, checked over, MOT-ed and drive it! For last year’s Christmas I had my Jaguar XJR out, three months ago I had my Mercedes W123 out and now I have taken my Alfa Romeo Spider out. We’re taking it to the UK to visit our home in Suffolk. Also we are going to tour for a week in the UK, maybe a bit of Scotland

I have been fiddling with cars all my life and even before I started with cars I have always been interested in just about anything technical. And I like to take things apart, fix them and put them back again. So as you can perhaps imagine I have collected, over the years, quite a number of different tools. My tools are somewhat spread out over the world. Currently we live in Delhi and I have a very limited set of tools with me. When we moved abroad in 2009 we put a lot of stuff in storage, including some of my tools. But we also own a few properties in the UK and I have tools there as well. Still the majorities of my tools are in the Netherlands. And cluttering up our garage as my wife puts it. So now and then I have to go through the tool collection and sort it out.

Although technically speaking because my wife wants it sorted, I actually do enjoy it. I’ve got so many tools, acquired over a 45 year period, that sometimes I forget that I have certain things. So today everything comes out and gets inspected, cleaned and repacked. Good opportunity to take some pictures and share some of my collection and what I use the various tools for. I hope some of you might find it interesting.

Now, I’d be the first to admit that the trademark of a really good mechanic is his/her ability to do any job with a minimum of tools. Having said that, there is also a Dutch saying, “goed gereedschap is het halve werk”. Which roughly translate as; proper tools halves the job at hand. As I’m part lazy, part tool-nerd, and I do undertake just about any job on anything I keep buying tools.

So here goes: My tool collection started when I was about 10 years old. My parents gave me a so called “toy electricity box”. Basically a box full of switches, push buttons, light bulbs, bells, little electric motors, wire, and a 4.5 volt battery. The idea being you start building very simple electrical circuits. I absolutely loved it. With it came some simple screw driver and some pliers. Soon I was taking every device in the house apart and hooking it up to my 4.5 battery. My parents did not like that very much, but they did like my enthusiasm and got me some more of this stuff and my dad quickly understood I needed better and more tools.

So from these very simple tools I have started and maintained this particular tool box; I still refer to it as my “electrical work tool box”. It has a huge collection of all sort of pretty small tools and all sorts of other bits and pieces. When I was working in the oil and gas industry, I used to carry this personal tool box with me to commission fiscal oil and gas custody transfer systems all over the world, in particular Africa. Those were the days before 9/11 and you could carry a tool box as cabin luggage. On more then one occasion I’ve been offered thousands of dollars to leave it behind by the local teams But I never sold it for sentimental reason, but also it is a truly unique collection.



A couple of close ups:

This was the very first pliers my dad bought for me. i still remember the shop in our home town, Amstelveen the Netherlands. Beautiful tool shop. It can also be used to cut and strip electrical wire.




When you work on electrical stuff and instrument you need small screw driver, different sizes, small pliers.



A set of very small sockets and very small Allen keys. Some advice here; when buying tools, especially tools like sockets and wrenches I always buy very good quality. It is very frustrating to have a socket that doesn’t fit properly after applying some force on it, or worse damaging the nut/bolt.



All sort of little clamps. And a very special tiny pullerThis is to pull the hands of manometer or thermometers as used on refineries, ships etc. I’ve also used it to fix an old proper wind up analog alarm clock once. Some taps as well



This is a real injection needle; I use it to apply oil in very small quantities to instruments, but also my N-gauge model trains (1:144 scale). These days, very difficult to convince doctors to let you take home these needles. This one was given to me by my GP in our village many years ago. He knows me well, and he just laughed when I told him what I need it for.



When working on electrics and or electronics you need a multi meter. I have at least five of them, but this is the most sophisticated one. Bought it at least twenty years ago or so. Still going strong. For most jobs on car electronics, accuracy is actually not that important. So even though this one is pretty accurate I rarely need the accuracy. When you get a multimeter, make sure the various voltage and current ranges on both AC and DC settings are adequate for your type of jobs. This one can also measure resistance, which is very useful. It has a special circuit continuation measurement setting. Very useful, a buzzer sounds when the circuit across the test pins closes. So you don’t need to check the display, just listen for the buzzer. For those of you that work on cars and have found themselves half emerged underneath the dashboard trying to keep two test pins in place, you will appreciate this! In those positions you tend to be one hand short already and you need eyes in the back of your heads to watch your hands, poking the test pins in life electrical circuitry whilst also monitoring a digital display. Go for the buzzer. Also, a small word of caution. Just because most of these multimeters these days have digital displays, that in itself doesn’t say anything on the accuracy. Proper analogue multimeters, with a so called mirror scale display can be incredible accurate.

With it comes to testing you need a host of different test cables, probes, alligator clips, jumpers etc.



I own various electric soldering guns. When moving to the states I had to buy three more as soldering guns tend to be rated for one supply voltage only. Mine were all 220VAC and the USA its all 110 VAC. I remember the red soldering gun to be a present from my parents when I was probably 14-15 years old. Pulling the trigger does two things. It puts on the little light bulb but it also puts more heat into the soldering probe. You can clamp these little devices on the probe and that will allow you to do repairs on plastic. You short of melt the plastic together.



Also shown, don’t know the English name for it, but it is a tool that allows you to suck up excess solder. to be frank, I don’t even know the Dutch name for it! Still, works well!



When working on electronics you need to be careful on how much heat you put into a circuit board and its components. That’s why I have several smaller soldering guns like this yellow one. Also, it being smaller allows for getting in between components and more precise soldering as well. You might also look for different solder as well.

I make it a habit to have a toolkit in every car I own. As all my cars are in storage all the tool kits have been removed obviously.

This is my oldest kit. Comes in one of these handy very heavy duty roll up clothes. I remember buying it myself when I got myself not my first car, but certainly my first very nice car. Up till that moment I had owned a large number of cars. This was during my student days. My first car was a VW Beetle I bought for fifty Dutch guilders. I bought my first really nice car, still second hand though, after I returned from my very first job in the merchant navy. I had been away from home for six months and the first day I was home on leave I saw this beautiful Fiat 132. In those days that was a car for MD's of companies. It was for sale with the Audi dealer from which my dad bought his cars. They knew us well and gave me a good deal. Next day I took delivery and first stop was in our town at a specialized tool shop where I bough this kit and most of its content. For the last fifteen years it spend its life in the boot of my Alfa Spider, together with some other stuff.





A couple of special items:
Little telescopic mirror to do those deep down in the engine bay inspections. Where the hell is that leak ? Little telescopic magnet, to pick up bolts, nuts, rings whatever you drop in those impossible to reach engine crevices. A piece of string. For the life of me, I can’t remember what I used the string for. But there is something very specific on a Alfa Spider, that breaks down often. where this piece of string used to come in handy. I used to be a member of the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register technical committee. And amongst others, we provided technical assistance during our tours. So I’ve been repairing Alfa Romeo Spider at road sides all over Europe. Down to complete clutch changes. We can do that in under three hours at the side of a road.



Here's another electric tester I once bought whilst touring through Switzerland. It's pretty handy, it works on any voltage AC/DC from 1V to 240V. On DC little LED will give you the + and - as well.



When you work on cars you need a proper jack. Make sure you get one rated accordingly to the weight of your car. And whatever you do, never ever, and I mean NEVER EVER get underneath a car that is resting on a jack. Always put it on axle stands. Every year several DIY car enthusiasts die as they get crushed by their cars that were only supported by a jack and the jack gave way or they accidently released it. Very sad and easily preventable.



Not a tool perse, but part of my standard on board equipment when driving my Spider. Heavy duty jumper cables and a heavy duty tow rope. I like these nylon ropes the best. They give good elasticity and the little shackles make them easy to attach to any car. It was my friend Peter and me that ran the technical committee. We had the towing down to an art. On our tours we drove well behind the convoy of Spider. Meaning we would see any break downs along the route automatically. I would drive in front of Peter. I would park immediately in front of the stranded Spider. Peter would park behind and put his car diagonally along side, to keep the oncoming traffic away from us. I would jump out, get the towing rope out, jump back in . Peter would hook up the towing rope and give me the signal to pull away as soon as possible and divert traffic. We could do that within 60 seconds flat and have you towed to a safe place in order for us to do the actual repairs. I’m always utterly amazed here in India. It seems when you break down, you preferably do this in the middle of the road or at least in the fast lane. Put a few rocks behind your car/truck and start your repair right there in the middle of the road. I see cars all the time, with say a flat tire, in the middle of the road. It would be so much easier, safer and considerate to move it to the side of the road as a bare minimum.



Whenever we experienced a break down our first thought and action was to get the occupants and the cars into a safe spot. That usually means towing or pushing, but you don’t leave a car in a busy road to work on.

This is a little tool specially made for my Alfa Romeo Spider. Sometimes I make my own tools and I have a number of friends who are into that as well. This one is made by one of my friends. These little templates are used to adjust/position the cylinders in the brake calipers. The top of the cylinder pushes against the brake pad. The top is specially shaped and therefor needs to be set in a specific orientation. If you don't the brakes are likely to squeal, or worse, don't work properly.

[Jeroen]

This box was part of my Spider tool kit as wel. All sort of bits and pieces, some specific to Alfa Spider. Another multi meter, big knife (best to cut cooling liquid hoses!) fuses, electrical connectors, another set of wrenches open and ring ended. And this is a very handy, one in many, snap ring plier. Can be made to fit different snap rings.



This light comes in handy as well. You plug it into the cigarette lighter, it has a strong magnet in its base so you can mount it easily anywhere on the car to provide some lighting whilst doing repair jobs at night. Alfa Spiders brake down 24/7 unfortunately.



I have at least 7 or 8 different sets of spanners. This one I keep in this box and is one of the nicest I have. It's beautifully machined. One end open and one end closed its very versatile.

And a standard crimping tool for putting electrical connectors on wires. This box is stocked with every electrical connector known to men and then some. So I can repair anything electrical on the road. Always use proper crimping connections. Its the only thing that will last on cars.



And yet another multimeter. This one is very simple, picket it up at a B&Q I believe in the UK some time. Works well, with integrated test leads.



This here looks like a surgical instrument. I own several of these clamps. They come in handy picking things up or clamping wires and such. Stunning finish in stainless steel.



I buy tools everywhere I go. When we lived in the USA we used to go on long road trips looking for antique shops. Founds this little micro meter for a few dollars somewhere in a antigue shop near St. Louis. It's calibrated in imperial units. Never had a use for it yet, but I have a metric one that comes in handy when working on cars. For instance measuring gaskets, clearances etc.



This is an important tool. It's used to remove and or install snap on rings. It comes with various attachment so you can use it on different sizes of rings, inner or outer mounted. Lots of parts on cars get fixed with these snap on rings. Real bugger to get them off without the proper tool. It can be done with some patience and improvisation but the right tool makes it so much easier.



Big knife! My dad bought this for me when I was about 16 years old. He used to go for long hikes in the "Swartzwald" in Germany. Always brought us some presents when he came back. This is a beautifully made knife. High quality steel, big blade and a serrated blade as well. And very important a cork screw as well. Also, a real weatherman. Can't remember where I got it. Seem to recall I got it as a present at some function or the other.



I keep buying tools. Whenever I see a tool shop I'll stop by and have a look and often buy something. This little set I picked up at a DIY store. In the UK there are these B&Q stores. Great places for looking around and they often have all sorts of specials on sale. Like this one



I own many different sets of spanners. These are some of the more unusual ones. To get into those difficult to reach places to undo a nut.



These are special spanner for the hydraulic brake lines. A regular open spanner might not work and you might damage the nut. A ring spanner won't fit over the hydraulic line, hence these 'open' ring spanner. I only have two, but so far that has done me well with every brake system I have ever worked on.



Some more tool boxes. This is my best socket tool box. Like spanners, always buy the best quality. Very frustrating if your socket starts twitching around a nut or a bolt or does damage. So invest in a good set. This one has lasted me for more then twenty years. The ratchet is still like new!



A box full of snap on ring pliers. All sorts of different shapes and formats. I carry the simple version with multiple attachment as shown earlier in one of my cars. But this box sits in my garage. Look at the torture implements with the black handles. Well, of course, they are a bit grim looking, what with their pointy hooks. You use these on stuck hoses. Over the years, rubber hoses tend to stick to the pipes they are attached to. These tools allow you to break them free. You stick the pointy bit in between the hose and the part its attached to and work your way around until its free and of comes the hose!



This is one of the most versatile tools I own, a tire level. Although admittedly, I have never ever used it on a tire! But it makes for a great lever. If you need to push something heavy out of the way or such, it’s remarkable thin and incredibly strong so you can get into real tight place and still put a lot of leverage on.

Another one of these little "grabber" to reach that nut that fell somewhere in between! Also shown is a flame soldering gun. Careful when around garages, engines and petrol. But fact is that when working on cars and engines its easy to have a "flame" around. Used copper rings can be made pliable again by heating them red hot and dipping them in water. Stuck parts can often become loose by heating them etc.

I also own about 6-7 different kinds a lights. This one is a rechargeable one, but I also have several that run of the mains, but they're all in storage.



Always good to have a selection of wire brushes. This one comes with brass wires, but I also have them with steel, nylon, copper in many different shapes.
This fork is for undoing ball joints. I actually have used it a few time to undo ball joints, but more often it’s used as a lever. Hammers you need in many different shapes and formats. This one is a rubber mallet for whacking without damaging so to speak!

The open end sockets are specifically for working on nuts on long bolts. A regular socket won't do and that is where these come into their own.





Next a stroboscopic timer light! These days fewer and fewer mechanics know how to use these as they all will reach for an OBD analyzer. But they are extremely handy for checking the ignition timing and advance setting. Another very handy tool is this stethoscope! It's not a medical one, although the principle is the same. It's got a long steel narrow tube that you can place on a part a listen to the sound. Great way to detect bearing going faulty, whether injectors are working etc.



I said it before, I keep buying tools. Especially if I run across something that is a bit unusual. This screwdriver is more than 65 cm long! The ratchet is telescopic and extends, give better leverage.



One of the many oil filter wrenches I have. Those oil filters can be really stuck. to fit them, put a little bit of oil on the gasket and tighten by hand, never ever use a filter wrench on tightening the filter. That's how they get stuck! Even with these special wrenches you might still have problems getting the filter unscrewed. When all fails, just hammer a large screwdriver through the filter housing and twist. Guaranteed to come off, just a bit more messy.

Various bits and pieces to clean spark plugs and to pull the spark plug cables off.



This is a very simple device to test the proper functioning of your spark plugs in line with the spark plug still in the engine. You put this on top of the spark plug and plug it into the spark cable. Start the engine and you'll see a light coming on if the spark plug works properly. As you will notice it's still in its original packing. I've never used it. If I suspect spark plug failure I will always take them out and clean and inspect them first. But, if I want I can test inline!



This is something I find extremely useful. When you're working on your car, bend over to reach deep into the engine compartment it's easy to damage the paint. So I have some of these protective covers. Heavy duty plastic with padding inside and magnets on the top. So you just stick it onto the fender! As shown here on my Alfa Romeo Spider.



Another very useful gadget are these magnetic trays. They'll 'stick' anywhere on your car and they'll hold all the bolts, nuts, rings that you have taken off.



Here is a bit of an unusual tool. So called stud pullers. We have used them on a friends Jaguar XJ 4.2. The head gasket was damaged and we pulled the head off, only to find that some of the stud bolts were badly corroded. A known problem with these engine. Problem is that these stud bolts get stuck in a huge way. We tried first by putting multiple nuts on the top and trying to get them undone, but no way. So I got this set. It looks like a regular socket. But inside it's round and there are several little rollers mounted. These grip the actual bolt without any slippage. Finally managed to get them out!



Some various pullers. The one on the right is a universal puller. You can adjust it for size. Works well on all sorts of things, like pulleys etc. The one on the left is more specific and you would use it on the various steering linkage components of cars.



Another very useful tool is this infra red thermometer. You just point it, press the trigger and it will tell you the temperature. Very useful for checking a radiator whether it is blocked. You'll find big changes in temperature, low where it is blocked, high where it's still working.



Some more spanners. These open spanners are a bit special, Look closely at the beak. It's a metric/imperial version. Theoretically it should work on both. In practice I prefer specific spanners, i.e. metric or imperial. Still, couldn't resist buying. The ring spanners are very useful. You should really always try to use a ring spanner and or socket first. Only it you can't fit them, use an open spanner. Worst, using an adjustable (Bahco) spanner. When I went into the merchant navy as an apprentice engineer, we were absolutely forbidden to use adjustable spanners. And we were only allowed to take the exact number of spanners out of the workshop that we needed for the particular job at hand. What it taught us, within days, to quickly learn to visually gauge any size bolt and nut. Because if you didn't you ended up going back and forth to the workshop.



Here some more unusual tools. The two on the left are nut splitters. If you find yourself with a nut that you can't undo, these will allow you to split the nut into two! Works well, but admittedly you do need a bit of space to fit them.

The tool on the right is ball joint separator. This one I have used repeatedly on my Alfa Spider.

[dushmish]

I know one line posts do not add any value to the content of Team BHP. But I cannot resist posting this one. Jeroen, this is by far the best collection of tools I have ever seen. My cousin collected tools long ago but gave up. What inspires me is the fact that you put these to use. The passion is inspiring indeed. Thank you for sharing.

Regards,
D

[ajaypjayaraj]

That is great! I can understand your passion. My dad and myself have our own collection of tools. I keep collecting them too.

I believe in using the right tools for every job. Makes a lot of difference in the work quality and improves efficiency. It kills me when our local garages use the wrong tools and mess up the work, and the equipment - 1 major reason why I opt DIYs. A component opened should be put back in place without a single scratch with factory fit perfection. Spoils my sleep otherwise! It has happened sometimes that I've re-opened stuff and boxed back correctly after bringing the car from it's "authorized" service centre. Correct tools are a must for any job. Not a fan of 'jugaad'.

Now stowage has become a problem. Been thinking of an additional garage where I can securely keep my tools as well as carry out DIY jobs. Right now it's taking up a lot of space inside the house in various places. Should get wurth workshop truck which is basically a tool trolley with drawers and locking arrangement. Don't know about its availability in India. Have to find out. What do you do about the storage?

[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 had done some online research so I knew exactly what I needed. Surprisingly (nearly) everything on the Jaguar is metric. However, next to your regular set of spanners you will also require several sets of different Allen Keys! And of course, another multi meter.



Soon afterwards I also bought this generic OBD reader, to keep in the Jaguar’s boot. Great little machine. Does a nice job of all generic OBD codes, can reset Engine Check Light and it can provide you with a range of different life measurements and statistics of various engine parameters. A few months later I invested in this wonderful Autoenginuity OBD Analyzer (http://www.autoenginuity.com/) . Runs on a Windows based PC. As standard it gives you the same functionality as the generic OBD reader. But you can purchase car/model specific upgrades and that will allow you to see all the car/model specific codes. The range of different static and dynamic measurements is staggering! I’ve said it many, many, many times on the forum. If you have problems with a modern car, hook it up to an OBD analyzer first!



I will try and do any job myself. Even if that means buying or making specific tools for a one off job. The most expensive tool, relative to weight and size, I ever bought is this little pin. Its about 2.5 cm long! It’s an official Mercedes tool, believe it or not and it cost me around Euro 20. I had some problem with the steering box on my W123, bad play. So I took it out and overhauled it completely. According to the official Mercedes shop manual you needed this pin to fix and align the steering box before attaching the pitman arm back. So I bought it and used it, but with hind sight it wasn’t really necessary, I could have done without it just as easily. That’s German Grundlichheit for you and another reason why German car service is expensive. They have a special dedicated tool, process and procedure for everything.



I have two very good, very expensive I hasten to say torque wrenches. So far, with these two sizes I’ve been able to torque everything I’ve ever owned or worked upon. Applying proper torque to bolts and nuts is pretty essential. Certainly for parts such as wheel nuts/bolts, anything on the steering, suspension and braking mechanism. Whenever I do a job on a car I look up all the appropriate torque specifications for whatever parts I’ll be working on and write them down on a piece of paper for easy reference.



I have several sets of these; taps and dies. I would say that these days my experience is that more than 90% of thread on cars/bikes/ bicycles or anything around the house tends to be standard metric. With the notabl exception of my 1975 Royal Enfield Bullet. The taps and dies are mostly used for cleaning up, and regrooving. So if I take something apart and it is really difficult, I’ll run a tap through it or a die over the bolt. I have bought dozens of single taps and dies over the year. Occasionally, you’ll come across very odd or very rare threads. These sets will retail in tool shops for around Euro 40. Typically a single die or tap might be Euro 3-5, so buying sets tends to be a good investment.



When you own a Mercedes W123 one of the problems you will experience is with the vacuum system. The vacuum system was designed in house by Mercedes Engineers. At the time pneumatic systems were widely used in industrial application and aviation. But of course, Mercedes engineers felt they could do a much better job and designed everything themselves ground up! In the W123 the central door locking, fuel door and boot lock, front beam adjustment to name a few, are all pneumatically controlled. If you have an automatic W123 that doesn’t shift so well, likely to be the pneumatics as well. It’s all done with pretty simple and robust parts, but there are a lot of membranes and gaskets and O-rings involved and they simply perish over time or become porous as a minimum. So you’re going to have problems. To troubleshoot vacuum systems you need to be able to create vacuum. That’s where this little handy tool set comes in.



This is a so called easy bleed. It allows for one man bleeding of the brakes and or hydraulic clutch system. Either you bring a compressor, or you hook it up to your spare tire. Works great! But you should only use about 0.1-0.2 bar so you need to let some air out of the spare tire. The huge syringe is to drain off access hydraulic fluid and is my own personal addition to this kit. And you need to stock up on bit and pieces of hose, tubing etc so you can make it all fit. Small word of caution when using this on hydraulic clutch system. Typically those systems are not pressurized, at least not the reservoir and the hoses/tubes leading to and front. The easy bleed works by pressurizing the whole system. First time I used it on my Mercedes W123 the hose connecting the reservoir with the master clutch cylinder came undone, because it is not secured with hose clips or anything because it’s not pressurized normally. Let me tell you, even with an overpressure of only a few tenths of bar, the Mercedes reservoir and the Easy bleed reservoir emptied out real quick. I had my head stuck in the footwell and got a good spray. There was hydraulic fluid everywhere, and its pretty corrosive, so lot of time spend cleaning up.



Have you ever removed, say a door card, or a piece of the dashboard? Then you know how difficult that can be without breaking something or at least breaking the various clips and bits that hold all these parts together. The only car I know of where every part comes of easily and can be easily remounted is the Mercedes W123. All down to those anal Mercedes Engineer who took it upon themselves to design it as such. So if you need to do these sort of jobs on anything but a W123 you are going to need some of these: These are made of plastic, nylon and Teflon. The pliers are great and are specifically designed to slide underneath a door card or similar and pop out the clips without damaging them.



Visiting and stopping at all these tool and DIY shops all over the world, has also allowed me to pick up a huge collection of boxes with bolts, rings, nuts, washers, electrical connectors, fuses, hose clamps etc.



And over the years I have built up a huge collection of various cans and sprays. Anything from waxes, to clay bars, to various oils, brake dust remover etc etc. The list goes on and on!



Here's another one of my official tool boxes. It's real leather tool box. When I was young boy all plumbers, mechanics had one of these leather tool boxes. Lasted for a life time. Got this one from my parents as a birth day present. It holds a lot of my more regular tools I use around the house for DIY work. Hamers, screw drivers, a few wrenches, chisels, some more wood work tools etc. And a multi meter or course! Some of the tools below, including grip plier, hack saw (very useful) and a sump oil plug multi wrench





One of the tools I made myself. Actually, its the first proper tool I made myself. At Naval college they taught you everything. Theory and practice. Part of the practice was learning to weld, cut, use a lath, drill, file, tap a thread etc. For us to practice they made us make our own tools. Still works!



Working on cars, requires some insights, some tools and I like to have every piece of literature and or manuals I can get my hands on. Here's a small selection from my personal technical library.




I hope you enjoyed this post and or found it useful. I certainly enjoyed going through all my tools again. Brings back many memories. Who gave them to me, where I picked them up, or when or why I used them.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Here, yet again, another multimeter. You see it here being used on the engine of my 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider. This particular meter comes with an induction clamp. You just clamp it on the spark plug lead, put it to RPM and it will give you the revs of the engine. Look closely at the scale. It also measures Dwell angle and frequencies. Not with the clamp though, you use the regular probes for that.

Very useful. I picked this one up in the UK for UKP10. Was marked down for some reason.



Here a few interesting tools. The blue box with the five sockets is actually not an ordinary socket set. These are specially designed to undo bolts and nuts that have become damaged. So when your normal spanner or socket can't get a grip, its time to break out these babies. They are made from special very high grade steel and essentially partly cut into the bolt/nut to prevent slippage. So you won't be able to use the bolt/nut again, but you will get it undone.

The mirror sits on a telescopic pole. I have a few of those, but this one is special as it also has two LEDs. So it provides its own very bright light! It's, pardon the pun, brilliant!

Also, quite brilliant, a set of Allen keys (hex keys) in some very small sizes!



Here a set of small pliers for special ring locks. Each one is about 2 inch long!



A set of pipe wrenches. Essentially the same use as sockets. However, if you have to undo a nut with a large bolt sticking through, a socket might not work. Then you need one of these, or those other special feed through sockets I have shown in the earlier thread. The problem with these pipe wrenches is that even the very high quality ones, typically aren't that strong. It's quite easy to bend them. Once you've bended it once, might as well throw it away. Be careful with these!



These little bits can be fit into electrical screwdrivers and then you can put your sockets on them for easy use.



This is another electrical screwdriver I have in the Netherlands. Its near identical to the one I have in the UK and showed earlier. Both use 12 Volts rechargeable batteries. I believe the current range has 14 or maybe even 18V batteries? Anyway, as far as I'm concerned electrical cordless drill/screwdrivers are the best thing invented since sliced bread.



This is a wonderful little piece of kit. It's a (hobby) vice. The metal clamps on the left allows you to attach it to a table. It's made of PVC type of plastic so it is not particularly strong, but it is very versatile. It sits on a big ball joint so you can move it in all sorts of odd position. I've used it for all sorts of little jobs, soldering being one of them.



Here are a few of the special bicycle tools I own. The tool on the left is to spread the frame to replace a tyre without having to take the whole wheel out. Especially useful on the rear wheels. Shown are also two chain punches. I use these to take my chain of my bike to clean the chain, bike and the derailleur.

The roundish thingy is to set/tighten the spokes in a wheel. I was taught by a friendly bike repair guy in my home town in the Netherlands how to re-spoke a wheel. It sounds easy, but in practice it is really difficult and it takes a lot of effort and practice. I'm not very good at it at all. I'll use it to replace a broken spoke, but even then I would eventually take the whole wheel to a specialist to get it properly tensioned. I'm a big guy, 90 kg, I used to ride my bicycle a lot and fast. So having the right tension in the spokes is pretty essential. It's very easy to bend a wheel if not tensioned properly.

The big black sort of funny looking bolt is a special puller to get the main crank and gears off the frame. The tiny bit on the top right is a adapter nipple. You can screw it onto the valves of racing tubes, and then you can use an ordinary pump to inflate them. Not shown, but I have several pumps. One ordinary and one that fits specifically on these so called race-nipples and comes with a pressure gauge so you can set the pressure on each wheel exactly correct.



This is my proper electrical drill. Runs of the normal grid at 220VAC. It has hammer action, so it can be used to drill into concrete as well. Any drill is only as good as it drill bits, so I've got lots of those. For any surface, wood, metal, concrete, masonry etc.



A handy set of all sort of screw driver and socket extension. On the right you can see the master holder. You slot that into an electrical screwdriver as the one above and then you can put any of the different bits into it. I used to sharpen my own drill bits on a special grinding machine. In all honesty, these days, bits are so cheap I just buy new ones. Also, some of the better bits are made out of special tempered steel and they don't do well in the home grinding process as it really requires a careful heat treatment afterwards. All I can do is heat them up, using my little torch as shown earlier and let them cool down in air, oil or water. Not very precise.



Here are two some more unusual tools. The large coil is used for pulling electrical wire through electrical ducts. It's about 15 meters long. You push it through the duct, which sometimes, what with bends, might be a bit of a fiddly job. Next you attach the electrical wire to the little loop on the end and subsequently pull the electrical wire through. This coil is made of some sort of nylon type of material, its very flexible but still firm. It needs to be firm to be pushed through the ducts, but it also needs to be flexible to get across the various bends etc.

The long silvery thing is an internal piper bender. If you look at it closely it is actually sort of a spring. You push it into a copper pipe (tube) into the position where you want to bend it. It allows you to bend copper tubing without heating and without the tubing collapsing. In one of the earlier posts I mentioned all the work I did on our kitchen in our home in the UK, including the central heating. I used this bender to get all that central heating tubing in the correct shape.



In my earlier post I showed my favourite towing rope and shackles. Here's another one I own. I bought this in Kansas City. The Americans seem to like/favour these sort of towing belts. I bought one and kept it in my Jeep Cherokee just in case, but I don't think I've ever used it. I'm not sure how it would tow as it lacks elasticity all together.



This is a tool set I got from somebody many years ago. It has a few simple tools in it, but more importantly it has proper jumper cables. If you ever find yourself investing in a set of jumper cables make sure you get the thickest and the longest cables you can find.



And yet another tool bag. This one was kept in my Jeep Cherokee and was filled with all sorts of odd bits and pieces. See below.



A set of little screw drivers, pliers and a few other little bits of tools, sockets etc.



Also another set of sockets. Not a particular fancy one. But they will do the job, not very often though. It's not very good quality.



Obviously, another tool bag, another multi meter!



This is another present from somebody. It has one of these fold up / fold out pliers with a zillion attachments. Not unlike a Leatherman (shown earlier). This one has a special attachment for the screw driver bits and the sockets.



Yet again, a tool set I was given as a present. I'm a very easy guy to buy presents for as you can see. I prefer tools over a new tie any day!



Although it might not look anything special, this little tool kit, actually is pretty unique and much sought after by certain classic car enthusiasts. It's an original tool set out of Mercedes W123. I own a fully restored 1982 W123 and my good friend and spanner mate Peter owned one before. He sold his, but kept all his workshop manuals, tool set and first aid box and gave them, very kindly, all to me!



Those of you who do their own maintenance will know the situation where you need to undo, or fasten, a particular nut or bolt. But it's in a tight space and your spanner are really to big. What do you do? Well, I used to have a whole range of cut off spanners, but these days you can get these babies; stubbies! There are stubby spanners, stubby screw drivers, stubby ratchets, stubby hammers etc.



Next a set of punches. Punches come in handy to uh, punch things out? Or in for that matter. On the far right is a centre punch. You use it to make a small indent in mostly metal type of objects, to mark the drill spot and to ensure the drill bit stays in place when starting to drill.

The four other punches have different diameters. I have used them mostly on brake systems where you will often find cotter and other pins that need to be driven out. I've often seen it done with screw drivers, nails, bolts whatever. That will usually work, unless they are really stuck. But using a proper size punch is always better and will also ensure you don't damage anything so it can be easily re-assembled afterwards again.



This probe is a simple but effective device for measuring voltage, both AC and DC, from 4 to 400Volts. The LED will indicate positive and negative. I have several of these. Some can be used for continuity measurements as well. I actually prefer a proper multimeter, but hey, I like tools, so I've picked up a few of these over the years as well.



Some screwdrivers. All very suitable for electrical work as well, as they are heavily insulated. As you can see two stubby screwdrivers and also a stubby little ratites for those hard to get into places.



Another set of pliers all come out of this green tool bag as well. I'm sure you'll recognize the use for each. The orange one is a bit special. It's made out of some sort of PVC/plastic material and it is used to clamp of hoses, such as a fuel or brake hoses, without damaging the hose itself. It allows you to dismount say a brake oil hose without draining all the hydraulic liquid off. You put this plier on it before disconnecting, Bob's your uncle!



Two pictures of a very nifty little device! This little gadget attaches to a socket. It has a ratchet mechanism, clock wise / anti clock wise. The idea is that you can use your fingers on the rim of this little to quickly turn the nut/bolt on which you have put the socket.





As I used to be a naval engineer and have worked on all sorts of industrial machinery all my life and enjoy DIY at home and on my cars/bikes/bicycles etc. you'll appreciate I don't mind getting my hands dirty. Having said that, my wife hates it when I put oil and grease on any of my clothes other then some very old special duty DIY clothes. So I keep about a dozen pairs of these heavy duty oil resistant throw away gloves in each car. If I have a break down, I can at least tinker around a bit without getting my hands and hopefully my clothes dirty. In my Alfa Spider I always carry a tin with special cleaning soap and a big bottle of water to wash my hands.



And yet again, another towing cable. This one I kept in my Jaguar. Atlhough it looks different, it is very similar to my other towing cable I showed earlier. This one is elastic, which I think is essential for towing. This one even coils up to a relatively small and neat package as you can see. Fully stretched it's about five meters or so. The real elasticity comes when it is fully stretched. Still it coils into itself even further when the cars get closer and there is no tension on the tow line. That means its less likely to snag on something or get caught under a wheel.



Here a better view of the caliper I showed earlier. Also an interesting extension for sockets. This one is essentially a very large very stiff spring. But it allows you to tighten a nut or a bolt under an angle, or in a particularly tight spot where you don't have enough room for a ratchet.

[Jeroen]

A few more pictures of a few other items left in the collection:

Don't know if we have these here in India. It's to remove water of your car after washing it, before you start running a shammy over it. The blade is made of a very soft nylon type of material, very soft, very supple. Some people I know are afraid of scratching their paint with it. I've been using it for many years on all my cars and never had any problems. You do need to clean the car very well, so no dust/sand is left obviously. Also, it works best on straight surfaces. So on my curvy Alfa Romeo it is less effective as on my boxy Mercedes W123. On my etch-a-sketch-completely-flat-and-rectangular Jeep Cherokee this thing was near perfect.





This is a very nice level, about a meter long. Measured in both the vertical as well as the horizontal plane. You'd think a level is an easy tool to use, what can go wrong? Let me tell you:

When we moved to Kansas City we stayed in an apartment for several months until we found a beautiful old American home. Did not matter much as all our furniture took a while to get to the US as well. We finally got the keys to our house and our container with furniture a week before Christmas. And we had our three (adult) kids coming over to celebrate Christmas with us. So it was a few hectic days. I decided I wanted to surprise my two sons with a real pool table. In my home country hardly anybody has a pool table. Our houses are simply not big enough. But here we had plenty of room and pool tables are really cheap too.

So I got ourselves a very nice pool table. Arrived the day our kids arrived. Had the boys help lug it into our loft and put it together. And then we had to adjust it so it was perfectly level. I had a different level at the time. We spend hours trying to get that pool table level. I could not figure out why we could not get it done. Finally, I discoverd my old level had gone wonky and was giving incorrect readings. With literally minutes to go before the shops would close down for Crhistmas we raced to the local B&Q and I bought the best level I could find. Half an hour later we had the perfect level pool table.



This set of curved spanners is my latest acquisition. When I was out in my Alfa Spider during our recent holiday in the UK I noticed a particular sound coming from the engine. It sounded as if the engine was pinging or a valve stuck. It did not sound good at all. I checked a few things, but could not find any immediate causes and before taking things further apart I thought I would just check with a few mates. And sure enough, when I described the sound and the conditions under which I noticed, one of them immediately said; sounds like your exhaust manifold is partly loose. That's the vibration of the gasket as exhaust gas gets blown by.

Sure enough he was right. Problem is that to get at those bolts you really need some special spanners. I had some, but not the correct size. Could not buy the single one I needed (13mm) so I bought a whole set.



For those of you that intend to travel by car in Europe, rent or borrow, you might want to take notice of the next three objects. Some of these are mandatory required in certain European countries.

For instance, in most European countries you are required to have one of these emergency warning triangle. As you see, it folds into a neat little package. You are not only supposed to carry it in your car, you are supposed to use it if you break down. Park the car on the side of the road and set it up 50 meters behind the car to warn other traffic.







Quite a few countries, for instance Germany, require a proper first aid kit in your car as well. Here is mine. Got it with one of my company cars some years ago. When I had to hand in the car, they allowed me to keep the first aid kid. Its still in its original packing. Never been opened yet, lucky me, keeping those fingers crossed.



This is last piece, a high visibility jacket. Mandatory to have in the car and to be used (mandatory) if you break down in for instance France.



That's all folks! I have some more tools, but that is all pretty much run of the mill stuff, some hammers, pliers, files, knives, saws etc.

Most of the stuff I have showed in these three postings are more or less related to working on cars one way or the other, or I thought it might be interesting to show here as I hadn't seen anything similar in India yet.

Hope you enjoyed it. I certainly had a good time going through all my tools again. Lots of stuff I forgot I owned, some I'm still missing as I have some in storage still

Jeroen

[tsk1979]

Thread moved to Technical Stuff. Thanks for sharing!

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

[fine69]

Magnetic trays! Something so simple yet so useful. I once lost a screw when taking out the air filter and spent good 10 mins looking for it later. I wonder if mechanics in India even know whether something like this exists. It'd make their life a whole lot easier I think.

How close do you have to use the Infra red thermometer from? What kind of display it has, an LCD or digital display?

I've personally used Thermal Imaging cameras as part of my profession and I was blown away by the results it gave. We used it to check the temperature of Battery Banks, PIUs, High Capacity cables (under spec'ed cables would be as hot as 95-110 degrees) etc. It even came with a software through which we could analyze the pictures we took from it, used to cost ~3,00,000/- around 2 years back.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by fine69

How close do you have to use the Infra red thermometer from? What kind of display it has, an LCD or digital display?.

Its best to use it within 1.5 feet. However, if you are measuring something big, it can be done from a greater distance. HTC mid range models come with a laser pointer, which helps you aim. Cost is around 2000-2500.

The greatest care to take is dial in the correct emissivity. Mid range or higher models allow this. Low end models operate with fixed 0.95, which means you have a to multiply by correction factor when measuring non organic stuff. most organic stuff like food etc., has 0.93-0.98 emissivity, while metals have a lower emissivity.

Most of these come with emissivity values for common materials, and you can dial in the value and then get a somewhat accurate reading.

[raghu.t.k]

Wow, thats an amazing collection of tools any DIY enthusiast would like to lay hands on.

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

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by fine69

Magnetic trays! Something so simple yet so useful. I once lost a screw when taking out the air filter and spent good 10 mins looking for it later. I wonder if mechanics in India even know whether something like this exists. It'd make their life a whole lot easier I think.

How close do you have to use the Infra red thermometer from? What kind of display it has, an LCD or digital display?

I've personally used Thermal Imaging cameras as part of my profession and I was blown away by the results it gave. We used it to check the temperature of Battery Banks, PIUs, High Capacity cables (under spec'ed cables would be as hot as 95-110 degrees) etc. It even came with a software through which we could analyze the pictures we took from it, used to cost ~3,00,000/- around 2 years back.

You can use the IR thermometer anywhere from a couple of inches to several feet. It has a little laser type dot that you just point at the place where you want to take the reading. It has a digital display and you can chose Centigrade or Fahrenheit readings.
Jeroen

[Ananth_shukti]

Hi Jeroen
wonderful to see the massive collection.
I am sure each one of us in the forum are fond of these tools.

I too collect tools where ever I go, but lose most of them due to lack of proper storage.

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

Ananth

[dileepcm]

Thats a massive collection and needless to say, I can see your great passion in each of those. As tsk1979 said, I thought I had a fair set of tools, but now I know! Keep them growing.

[sumathindra]

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