Some of you may recall the thread I started about refinishing the hinges on my trailer. After I was done with them, I moved on to freshening up the white Rust-Cap paint that I used on the wheels a few years ago.
Well, as long as I had the wheels off and a can of black spray paint in the shop, I figured I might as well freshen up the fenders also. There are 4 bolts that hold each fender to the trailer. Using a 3/8? socket, I took off the first 7 bolts with no problem. Reaching up under the fender I tried to get the socket on the last bolt and it just wouldn't go on. There was definitely something in the way.
When I reached in with my hand to figure out what was going on, I discovered that the 3/8? socket I had used the last time I took the fenders off - 3 years ago - was still on the head of the bolt! It was very rusty, but it came off with just a little effort. It had somehow hung on for 3 years and thousands of miles.
Does that mean there's hope that I'll find the other tools that have disappeared over the years?
Imagine if for some odd reason you *had* to keep it stuck on there. No epoxy or loctite in the world could have held it. There's probably an endless list of things people have accidentally driven off with. I know of a portable typewriter that made a ride of several miles on the roof of a car.
I had a strangely similar experience this morning. I went to plug in my TomTom portable GPS to recharge it and the mini-USB plug just wouldn't fit. I tried two other cables because the USB socket is deeply recessed in the GPS and only plugs with a fairly narrow overall plug size will fit. Finally, after that failed I took out the magnifier. It turns out that the tiny metal shield around the plug of the last cable I had used to charge it had come off and was lodged inside the GPS jack. Just the metal surround shield, not the actual connector was stuck in there. I took a pair of needle-nosed pliers and pulled it out and all is fine again.
It once took me five years to find my favorite staple gun. I had gotten interrupted tacking down the back edge of a very tall bookcase and had left the stapler on top of the bookcase toward the back. Much time intervened and it wasn't until I climbed up on a ladder in that room that I saw the long lost stapler.
My neighbor's dog used to steal his tools - mostly screwdrivers and wooden handled chisels - and bury them in the backyard.
Neighbor told me had had taken his new car to the shop several times and they could never figure out what was the disturbing rattle. Finally, he listened closely for a while, stopped, took off the inside door panel, and found a paper bag with a bunch of bolts in it.
my moms 1968 chevelle malibu had a noise going around curves. finally traced to a wrench left in the gas tank......
i once lost a pair of pliars, at the time my boss was upset about replacing lost tools. found them a year later still right where i had left them in a machine....
gutting a home after a major house fire i once found all sorts of craftsman hand tools in the walls. some were new but others worn, i had sears exchange them/
i carry multiples of all my tools for my business repairing roll lamnators, that put plastic on paper. I lose some tools but always need certain tools, so i carry spares
My late brother in law worked for a VW dealer back in the 1970's, remember air cooled VW Beatles? When the mechanics and detailers checked the new arrivals from the plant in Germany, they would often find German beer bottles and the remains of some German fellow's lunch inside various cavities of the little cars. ^_^
I've noticed a rather regular exchange program that goes on in auto shops. Apparently elves take small change out of the change tray but they often leave vacuum nozzles, screwdrivers, bolts and other things behind. I always count the change in the tray before I give the car up for service because $3 or so is a small price to pay to find out you're giving your car over to thieves. Interestingly enough, while I've lost money in several places, there are many places where I have not. Nor has anyone ever taken everything, which leads me to believe there are multiple thieves, all taking
*some* of what is left.
Had a very weird but very faint rattle in the front fender of a Jag sedan I was restoring. Took someone hitting that fender to solve the mystery. The fender contained a large number of nuts peculiar to Spain, a bunch of decaying Spanish newspaper bits and lots and lots of Bondo and nylon mesh. I couldn't say whether the nuts built up in the fender by driving through nuts on the grounds with an existing hole or whether they were a very peculiar idea for fender filler - EUREKA! I thought of a third possibility just this moment. The car was sitting in a shed for 5 years. Critters!!!!
You've helped solved a cold case mystery that's bugged me for over 40 years. Who put the nuts in the fu&ing fender! You can't imagine how surprised I was when these brown, acorn looking nuts came pouring out of the hole I knocked into the bondo to repair it. Good work, detective. I don't know why but it feels good to resolve a mystery concering a car long gone from my garage.
That just ain't right! I'll bet it took a long time to figure out, too, since it could land and resonate in any number of different places in the tank. Was it small enough to fit in the filler neck? Angry neighbors and moonbats in general like to put things in people's gas tanks.
You've given me a terrible revenge idea, though. Instead of wrenches, pour some ball-bearings into the gas tank of a neighbor who's offended or injured you. A few large bearings rolling around should create some seriously troubling noises.
There was a "One Step Beyond" or some such TV program from my youth about a wrench left inside a submarine hull by a Nazi slave laborer that drove the crew insane.
replacing lost tools. found
I love finding that old tools that went missing didn't fall in the trash. I found my favorite pair of Klien romex strippers that I lent to a friend. Then I discovered he was also cutting CATV with a copper-clad steel core. )-: Many nice little nicks in the unnotched section of the blade.
When it went missing I bought a slightly different, but better replacement that can pull the outer jacket and the inner conductor jackets off 12 and
10/2 Romex in one motion. Takes some experience to figure out how to rock the blade carefully to "dig in" before you pull (hard - actually now harder than my old wrists will allow) and do the one-pass multiple wire strip. I had read about it and wondered what kind of a job it did so I got one and found out it DOES work and under production pressure, it's got to save at least 30 seconds per strip.
I have to ask: Is that a builder thing, sealing up tools in the wall? I had enormous trouble in this house with a long flexible bit I was trying to drill from the wall switch down to the sill. It skittered, it chattered, it got hot but never caught. When I finally opened up that stud bay through the plaster, there was a broken off hammer head and other debris lying on the sill plate. Is it a house building ritual to bury broken tools in the bowels of the house they helped build?
All professionals do that. Photographers carry at least three cameras, cops almost always have a backup gun, etc. (-; How professional can you look if you have to stop work and say "I can't find my (whatever)" and go on a scavenger hunt for the missing item? Tools break all the time and you know if you're somewhere where a tool can fall into an open sewer or a cesspool, one of those little buggers on your toolbelt is going to make a run for it.
I wish someone could tell me where I put the box and accessories for my super duper Automobile Multi meter. I know I put it somewhere "I'd be able to find it later"
That brings back a memory. I checked a circuit breaker panel one time, in a wall. Below were a diags and some other tool. Magnet on a string, and they came home with me.
. Christ>
found all sorts of craftsman hand tools in the walls.
some were new but others worn, i had sears exchange them/
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