Let's see pics of your tools and boxes/cabinets

[ORVietVet]

I work on vehicles on the side. One of the trucks I did today was a 1999 C1500 Silverado but it had all 2000 brake components. Had the hub and bearing assemblies instead of the packable bearings. The d/s had caliper pins with 18mm heads on them. The p/s had caliper pins with T55 torx heads on them. It took my Milwaukee 1/2" impact to break them both loose. Since they were so tight, I decided to use a Duralast, extra T55 on it, instead of one of my SK tool Torx bits. Look at what those pins did to my bit. It's ok, has a warranty on it. May not show in the pic, but the right spline has a small crack in it. All I was doing was replacing warped rotors.

 

[ORVietVet]

Then, on to the other truck, a 2010 F150 with a 5.4 engine. I had a list of things to do and while doing it I came across the rust sign from the d/s coolant crossover that is between heads. During the oil change I found the frothy oil fill cap and oil fill tube. The dipstick looked fine. I am going to finish it tomorrow morning with all new PCV lines on it. I have to try and see if the dealer lists a PCV vale for it. Also, found a hellacious need for a battery cable end service.

 

[ORVietVet]

Got a call from the manager friend of mine, that me and my American Legion friends eat tacos at her bar on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She called me at 9 am, I was gonna take the day off and lazy around, and her son's 2007 Mazda 3 had no heat. The temp gauge showed normal, 1/2 gauge. Coolant was full. I said bring it over and leave it. Her husband and son showed and said that when driving at higher speeds, the heat was there. I did a quick look and the water pump was leaking and I said at least the water pump and I will do thermostat at same time. The water pump was not the problem but the stuck open thermostat was. It now has heat at idle but not as much as I think it should. The heater core feed hose is hot and the return hose is warm and gets warmer when rev engine. Sitting over night and am gonna flush out the heater core tomorrow. The coolant I drained out of it had plenty of little bits of black debris in it. He does not take very good care of it and they did not say anything about oil leaks I saw under there when removing the lower engine splash shield. Kids cars, what cha gonna do???????

 

[ORVietVet]

Almost forgot. My neighbor across street has a 2006 F150 4x4 that me and my shop friend put a Ford crate engine and transmission in, middle of last year. he has had an ongoing dash cluster park brake light staying on, problem. I pulled the cluster last week and sent it to Circuit Board Medics and got it back today. Removed and replaced in a total of 30 minutes tops. Easy to do. Happy guy again. I did not even charge him. He has his 3rd oil change coming up, since the new engine. Gonna be sending the oil sample to Speed Diagnostix for analysis and gonna cut open the Motorcraft oil filter for inspection. We are going to be doing 3 oil analysis checks in a row, starting with this one coming up.

For anyone that does not know about Speed Diagnostix, do yourself a favor and check out the videos on you tube for Lake Speed Jr.

 

[DateNight]

Never used speed diagnostix but doing old samples are worth it. Thanks for the heads up, I like lake speed jr, smart guy

 

[ORVietVet]

The best videos Lake Speed Jr. does, IMO, are with the people at Dave's Auto Center. He is affiliated with Valvoline and other oil companies in their research and is great about explaining the research.

 

[ORVietVet]

Back to the 2007 Mazda 3. I was still not completely satisfied with the heat output at idle. I did pull the heater core hoses off and the heater core was not clogged up at all.

Then I noticed that when it sat idling, I could see little air bubbles come back to the reservoir. I put an rpm prop on it, after filling the reservoir, and watched. The air bubbles would appear every so often and level would drop. I then shut off and filled up. I then ran at a higher speed and saw just a few more air bubbles and all of a sudden the heat at idle was way better. I got it fixed and the air out of the system.

 

[someotherguy]

Back to the 2007 Mazda 3. I was still not completely satisfied with the heat output at idle. I did pull the heater core hoses off and the heater core was not clogged up at all.

Then I noticed that when it sat idling, I could see little air bubbles come back to the reservoir. I put an rpm prop on it, after filling the reservoir, and watched. The air bubbles would appear every so often and level would drop. I then shut off and filled up. I then ran at a higher speed and saw just a few more air bubbles and all of a sudden the heat at idle was way better. I got it fixed and the air out of the system.

Sounds like it had a lot of air in the system caused by the leaking water pump, which was behind the initial complaint. Replacing the pump solved the more immediate issue, but took some work to get the system bled so that heat was corrected. Good thing they brought it to you or they may have run it til they cooked the engine.

Richard

 

[someotherguy]

My little "2 car garage" (if you have 2 SMALL cars) setup isn't much to look at but I get by. I sure miss having my old shop with all the space to work, and all the equipment that I've since let go of - pair of engine hoists, transmission jack, chain hoist, several nice steel worktables, floor standing drill press, 5hp/60 gallon compressor, air hose reels, water separators, ridiculously overbuilt floor-to-ceiling steel shelving units, etc. Oh well! LOL

So here's a cut-and-paste from gmt400.com

My current setup.. the blue box w/stainless worktop is the nice one, it's new enough it has the lock-and-roll drawers. I found them a little irritating at first but it quickly became natural to operate them. That was the $5.5K ($500 for the optional worktop) box in 2003 pricing that I got for $1K off CL.

The red roll box is a little beat up but it still works great and was super cheap, IIRC I paid $500 for it, craigslist deal. The matching top box was picked up by my little brother as a trade-in off the truck for $300; I actually had it first and lucked out on the matching roll box later.

You can kinda see the cart to the left, cut off in the pic. It's small but it was cheap (less than $150 IIRC) and nearby so I grabbed it just to have it. It currently just gets crap stacked on it but the shelf in the bottom holds my oil jug and filter stock.



And y'all have seen my glorious work table, which is an old steel/formica office table from more than half a century ago. When I used to work for the gas company in Atlanta, they were doing some remodeling work on their 1940's building and threw out a LOT of furniture/fixtures. I wish I'd hung onto the steel desk I also grabbed, but it was a monster to keep moving around. Better view of the little cart behind it, plus an ancient steel utility cart that holds most of my chemical supply and a few misc other things that could do better on a shelving unit, should be my next project. I need to create some more storage space in here.



Speaking of shelving, always being a fan of re-purposing stuff and finding deals on old junk.. these wooden shelves are what's left of a whole bunch more that I bought from an engine rebuilder's shop that was closing down. (Another "wish I'd kept the ridiculously long steel workbenches" but gave them to my little brother's shop type deal.) They're really durable and used to hold rebuilt cylinder heads. Got 'em for practically nothing, still have 8 of them, holding misc. parts, supplies, tools.



Richard

 

[ORVietVet]

My little "2 car garage" (if you have 2 SMALL cars) setup isn't much to look at but I get by. I sure miss having my old shop with all the space to work, and all the equipment that I've since let go of - pair of engine hoists, transmission jack, chain hoist, several nice steel worktables, floor standing drill press, 5hp/60 gallon compressor, air hose reels, water separators, ridiculously overbuilt floor-to-ceiling steel shelving units, etc. Oh well! LOL

So here's a cut-and-paste from gmt400.com

My current setup.. the blue box w/stainless worktop is the nice one, it's new enough it has the lock-and-roll drawers. I found them a little irritating at first but it quickly became natural to operate them. That was the $5.5K ($500 for the optional worktop) box in 2003 pricing that I got for $1K off CL.

The red roll box is a little beat up but it still works great and was super cheap, IIRC I paid $500 for it, craigslist deal. The matching top box was picked up by my little brother as a trade-in off the truck for $300; I actually had it first and lucked out on the matching roll box later.

You can kinda see the cart to the left, cut off in the pic. It's small but it was cheap (less than $150 IIRC) and nearby so I grabbed it just to have it. It currently just gets crap stacked on it but the shelf in the bottom holds my oil jug and filter stock.

View attachment 1747

And y'all have seen my glorious work table, which is an old steel/formica office table from more than half a century ago. When I used to work for the gas company in Atlanta, they were doing some remodeling work on their 1940's building and threw out a LOT of furniture/fixtures. I wish I'd hung onto the steel desk I also grabbed, but it was a monster to keep moving around. Better view of the little cart behind it, plus an ancient steel utility cart that holds most of my chemical supply and a few misc other things that could do better on a shelving unit, should be my next project. I need to create some more storage space in here.

View attachment 1748

Speaking of shelving, always being a fan of re-purposing stuff and finding deals on old junk.. these wooden shelves are what's left of a whole bunch more that I bought from an engine rebuilder's shop that was closing down. (Another "wish I'd kept the ridiculously long steel workbenches" but gave them to my little brother's shop type deal.) They're really durable and used to hold rebuilt cylinder heads. Got 'em for practically nothing, still have 8 of them, holding misc. parts, supplies, tools.

View attachment 1749

Richard

There are times, in Oregon, that I wish I could work behind a closed garage door.

 

[someotherguy]

There are times, in Oregon, that I wish I could work behind a closed garage door.

With any of the trucks parked in this garage, if the door is closed, I have to be working only on the accessible side of the truck! Pretty much no room front/rear to get around. Takes some planning ahead, especially for things that need work on both sides.

But I hear ya.

Richard

 

[Cadillacmak]

My garage was a shed built by the guy building houses in the area (or so I was told) and the first owner turned it into a garage. The owner before me added concrete pads in front of it so I extended the garage over those pads. I was suppose to be temporary, since the original and my part are not really built right, but temporary turned into 20+ years and I have never built my big shop. Maybe some day.

 

[ORVietVet]

I cannot believe that I got along ok without these 3 sizes of Snap On long nose slip joint pliers. 5", 7" and 9". I use these 80% of the time for so many things I need pliers for.

They are not cheap by any means, even with my military discount. When you need long nose/needle nose that has more space at the pivot point, these are the go to pliers.

They come in Neon green and Orange, too.

 

[DateNight]

Those are very nice

 

[bigdogYJ]

Dont judge me....


I actually dont own many Milwaukee tools. I have limited storage space and I needed good storage that allowed me to be mobile and the ability to move toolboxes without a big planned moving project to get a heavy toolbox loaded, etc. so this was a little pricey but has worked out really well so far for my needs. I still need to work on some more organization/labelling.

 

[ORVietVet]

Dont judge me....
View attachment 2463

I actually dont own many Milwaukee tools. I have limited storage space and I needed good storage that allowed me to be mobile and the ability to move toolboxes without a big planned moving project to get a heavy toolbox loaded, etc. so this was a little pricey but has worked out really well so far for my needs. I still need to work on some more organization/labelling.

As long as YOU know where everything is at, that is all that counts.

 

[ORVietVet]

I recently added a long reach 1/4" and 3/8" Milwaukee battery ratchets.

 

[INW-Iron-Steel]

My "mobile" set-up. I quite literally just unpacked this again last week. The worst part is how the drawers in my toolbox get wrecked anytime we move it. So much for organization... Sadly all my stickers are on the right, because back home it tucks nicely into a corner.


It works for what I need with traveling for work. That's 7 bins full of shop stuff, ranging from extra chemicals to spare hard parts. I'm a hoarder, but I try to keep it under control. What is on the shelves goes into a few more bins, and the shelves collapse into pretty much nothing. And it all fits nicely in a 6x12 uhaul with room to spare! I've only done it like 3 or 4 times now...

 

[ORVietVet]

 

[99Sierra2500]

Haven't touched a wrench professionally since 2007 so my current tools are mostly a jumble. Here is a pic of my old shop and a turbo BMW racer (had front and side air dams I removed temporarily). Snap-on is better, though the hf stuff is acceptable for home stuff. Tools really have to pay for themselves, I sold my old snap-on stuff when I got out of the field.