Wrenching Tips: Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains much about society on the whole. The gist is that the incompetent tend not to realize they’re incompetent. Why? Because they lack the competence to recognize it. We’d never go so far as to call our readers incompetent (ourselves, on the other hand…), but we will point out that the purpose of this series is to increase competence across the board.

Anyway, today we’re going to highlight few tools that rarely make their way into the standard Sears 354-piece tool set, but that can generate a Toy Story alien grade “Oooooooh” when they’re whipped out.

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Wrenching Tips: How to Get the Most Out of Your Local Chain Auto Parts Store

This week is thematically similar to our jaunt through used and cheap tools: something we’d avoid if we could afford the luxury, but an unfortunate reality that must be dealt with. While we wish there were a good old fashioned auto parts store (complete with grumpy old guy(s) behind the counter), such outfits are outnumbered 12:1 by Pep Boys, Autozone Kragen O’Reilly and the like. Even if there’s one near you, they tend to be open like 9 to 4, and 8 to 12 on Saturday. Hardly prime hours for scramble fixes.

Today we’ll get into a few tips to avoid pulling your hair out when all you need are a couple of $2.99 gaskets.

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Wrenching Tips: Bolting and Unbolting

This week we’ll be getting back into more tips involving, you know, actual wrenching. Like, with wrenches. Specifically, these our our tips for making your life easier when it comes to cracking ‘em loose and snugging ‘em up. 

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Wrenching Tips Bonus: Check Other People’s Work

Every once in a while, or like all the time for me, we entrust our vehicles to the [so-called?] professionals. Chances are they will do the work faster and better, and without all the spilled blood, oil and beer. I prefer smaller shops myself rather than dealerships where often you don’t even get to see the guy who is working your car.

No matter where you go however, it is always a good idea to inspect the car yourself. It’s worth doing even if you don’t know what you are looking at as sometimes major eff ups are in plain sight. My friend Baer who owns Ace Performance sent me the above picture last night. A new customer came in for a basic tune-up and the complained about poor gas mileage.  

[Source: Ace Performance]

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Wrenching Tips: How to Pick Your First Project Car

After a bit of a break (for you, definitely not me), we’re back with a Wrenching Tips that gets to the heart of Hooniverse. Were we some kind of cult, we’d require each member acquire a mostly drive-able project car so that he or she might partake in fellowship of the busted knuckle and greasy fingernail. While preaching our gospel of cheap cars and DIYness, we often hear from those who are curious, but unsure and scared to make the leap into project car ownership. The process is not without pain or cost, but our goal is to minimize unnecessary quantities of either.

Today’s advice isn’t for seasoned veterans. The goal today is to guide first-time crappy/old car buyers towards a vehicle that’ll give the right balance of “valuable learning experiences”, fun and usefulness. The goal isn’t to take some “rotting under a tree” find and spend 5 years in the garage building into the Tobacco King. The goal is to find a decently fun car for a reasonable price and alternate driving it and fixing it for as long as you please. 

Let’s get into Your First Project Car…

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Wrenching Tips: Keep Your Priorities Straight

We won’t be getting any grease under our fingernails in this week’s Wrenching Tips. In fact, we wont be doing much of anything besides changing diapers, washing bottles and trying to get some f%&*#ign sleep.

That guy right there is Carson, the latest edition to this Hooniverse family. He was born Sunday night, about three weeks early, but still a healthy 6lbs 4oz. I actually got to do a little bit of the “crazy husband driving with the wife in labor” cliche, but that’s a story for another day. The_Missus and he are doing great.

So,  this week’s tip is to remember there are a lot more important things in life. Make the most out of your more free years while you can, but remember that your car hobby should never compete with your family. Set it aside when you need to and you’ll be amazed how much more enjoyable it is when you come back. See ya next week!

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At Least They’ll Find You Handy: Homemade Tools

Ever felt like you wanted a nice car door dolly or planishing hammer, but you just couldn’t afford one? Ever want to build a chassis for your hot rod from scratch, but you just didn’t have a frame jig?  Well, you are in luck, there is a new online resource that will help you accomplish that project you’ve been working on.  Although, it will likely result in a few new projects of its own.  

Click through to get your Red Green on.

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Wrenching Tips: Let’s Go Shopping Round 2: Good Tools

Two weeks ago, we got into how to find tools on the cheap. It probably should’ve been titled “used tools” as that was the real focus, but oh well. This week is going to be a little philosophical, but the general idea is to guide you to purchases you won’t regret, either because you spent too much or not enough. For the sake of simplicity, we’re focusing on hand tools, leaving power tools for another day. We’ll go over brands on a scale of quality and some examples of what you’d buy at that level.

Yes, even Harbor Freight stuff…

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Wrenching Tips: The Concept of Vacuum

This week’s Wrenching Tips is less about tips or tricks, but wrapping your head around a very useful concept for diagnosing engines, particularly badly running carbureted ones.

Your motor is an air pump. It dedicates half of its to pulling in or pushing out gasses. In between, it converts chemical energy to motion and heat. Upstream from this pump is a valve, commonly known as a throttle. Upstream of the throttle is open air (because we’re ignoring blowers, turbos and air filters for now), between the throttle and each cylinder is the intake manifold. The intake manifold is where the magic of vacuum happens.

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Hooniverse Wrenching Tips: Let’s Go Shopping, Round 1: Tools on the Cheap

This week we’ll run the first of several Wrenching Tips about buying what you need to get the job done. Our opinions on what to get, and what to spend vary heavily depending on the intended purpose and what the actual need is. This week is all about how to spend as little as possible without buying total junk.

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