Show off your home made tools!

Everybody has encountered a situation where they needed a certain kind of tool which wasn't available (or too expensive). This is when you have to improvise, and get creative. I had this happen a few times. To start off this thread, I was replacing my front suspension components (shocks, springs, upper control arm bushings, ball joints, etc), and encountered a situation where I needed a way to compress the lower control arm, and support it. Here are some pictures to further explain what I did:

 

[BrooklynBay]

It might be a good back scratcher too.

 

[Josh]

Well I guess this would kinda qualify as a tool. I just got a Millermatic 180 and decided to build a welding table/cart. The welder will sit on the sliding tray and the opposite end will have a spot for a gas bottle. The table top is 1/8" plate 54x32."

 

[Josh]

A little more progress. I still need to make a mount for the gas cylinder and a few other nick nacks. The drawers are from an old Craftman plastic tool box with metal drawers I sprayed the shelf the welder is on with a spray on bedliner. Might need to get a plasma cutter to fill in the empty space behind the welder

 

[FireZapper]

manual wheel stud press. Use a BFH and a steel drift.

 

[BrooklynBay]

This is an addition to the washer in post # 33:

It's a 200 Watt aquarium heater. This warms the water in the tub in about 20 minutes (about 5 gallons). It gets a little warmer in 40 minutes, but not by much. It even maintains a steady temperature while the pump is circulating. I keep it set on 90* F.

 

[Turdle]

OK, I think I have the biggest home made tool in my garage.
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213101

 

[POS Camaro]

Anyone got any pictures of their softer side? like sepcial wire harnesses used for trouble shooting things for different vechiles?

This is a resistance test box I built to test my gas gage in the Camaro. It has 2 50 ohm resistors and 2 25 ohm rheostats. I can dial up any resistance from 0 to 150 ohms.
It did prove that the sending unit was bad (dropping the gas tank is a bitc* in this car)

 

[Rick]

Rotisserie project:

 

[BrooklynBay]

Rick, I saw 2 models like this on the Eastwood site. One was $1,100, and the other was $1,500. Was this purchased or constructed by you?

 

[axlegrease]

The shifter shaft for the A4LD (and several other) Ford automatic transmissions has a two-part seal - metal and rubber - to prevent leaking of ATF from the transmission case where the shifter shaft assembly goes from inside to outside of the tranny to connect to the gear shift cable assembly.

The photo below shows the bore of the A4LD transmission case (driver’s side) where the shifter shaft seal is located.

To replace this seal, which is almost always necessary after removing the shifter shaft assembly, as the sharp edges of the groove in the shift shaft usually cut off the sealing lips of the shift shaft seal, a seal driver is needed for installing the seal. Having learned the hard way, a hammer and plate won’t do the job. The seal driver is not cheap (prices as high as $83.00) and being a tightwad, went the home-made route.

With a hacksaw, cut a 1-7/8” long piece from 1-1/4” diameter steel bar stock and a 1/2” long piece from 3/4” steel bar stock found in junk box.

Faced the ends of the 3/4” diameter piece on the milling machine to get square ends and a smooth surfaces on the ends.

Drilled a 1/4” diameter hole through the center of the 3/4” piece, and used a 1/4” diameter bolt and nuts to hold this assembly in a drill press chuck. With the drill press running, used a file to reduce the diameter from about 0.750” to 0.742”, for clearance with the bore shown in the photo above. Used a fine emery cloth section to polish to the final diameter.

Faced the ends of the 1-1/4” diameter piece in the milling machine to get square ends and smooth surfaces.

With a propane torch, using 95 % antimony 5 % tin acid core solder, soldered the two pieces together so the about 1/4” of the 3/4” diameter piece sticks out from the 1-1/4” diameter piece.

The best way to get the solder to “wet” the surfaces of the steel parts is to clean the surface down to bare shiny metal and then scrub the surfaces to be soldered with lacquer thinner to remove any traces of oil or grease. REMEMBER THAT LACQUER THINNER IS EXTREMELYH FLAMMABLE AND CAN IGNITE EXPLOSIVELY. Please read the label on the container for safety practices.

Sorry, no photos taken during making of this tool.

The finished driver is shown below………..

The following photo shows the seal driver at work..

For the application of this seal driver, click to the following link…….

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227701

....

 

[BrooklynBay]

This is the latest addition to my converted parts washer/utility tub: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232624

 

[little x]

At first I thought it was a Kegerator, lol.

 

[turboranger91]

i don't have a picture, but the most creative i've had to get was using an old distributor for a 2.3 as an oil primer for a freshly rebuilt motor. basically you just take the rotor off and put the shaft onto a drill. stick the distributor in place like you would if you were installing. then you let her rip.

i'm sure that one has been done thousands of times. lol.

 

[JDraper]

Well, we had to break down yesterday and make a custom wheel puller for my buddies F-150. He had a passenger's side front bearing nut work itself loose and it "welded" the bearing and inner nut to the spindle. After much work with a cold chisel, he got the inner nut off, but the bearing was still frozen on the spindle. No amount of force that we could apply was breaking it free, so we made a wheel puller to yank it off. A machined tube, an old rim, some 2" box tubing, a welder and a 3/4-10 nut and bolt produced what you see below.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Was the rim welded to these metal tubes?

 

[JDraper]

Yep. Rim was part of the rig. that way we could put pressure on the spindle and use the brake rotor to pull the bearing off the spindle. The spindle was already toast, we're just trying to get the rotor off (it's almost brand new, so we want to salvage it) so we can replace the spindle. With the rotor on, you can't get to the nuts/bolts that hold the spindle in place.

 

[jkfoote]

Homebrew torque wrench checker

I don't use a torque wrench very often so I worry that I'm not using it correctly or that the wrench isn't working right. I found this web article that describes a simple testing jig:

http://rides.webshots.com/album/516313754BTbBSN

So I put together my own version. Here is the jig:

And here it is in use:

This rig is nowhere near accurate enough to call it a calibration setup. But it works surprisingly well to convince yourself that your wrench settings are close. Use it several times at the same setting and you can get a feel as to how repeatable your wrench is (surprisingly good even for cheap torque wrenches).

Here's another article for a more scientific approach:

http://home.jtan.com/~joe/KIAT/kiat_3.htm

 

[Maniak]

Can you post more close ups of the power screed you made. I have about 800 sq ft to pour around my house and that will make it a lot nicer.

I received a couple more request for close ups recently

These are from the pics I took for the craigslist add (still for sale)

 

[BrooklynBay]

Here's my latest tool: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246792

 

[black91EB]

subscribing, this is a great thread, lots of good ideas on here. I'll post some of my stuff when I get home in 3 weeks.