I know that many of you have invented or reinvented a special tool to handle a nagging problem on our first gens at one time or another. How about posting a picture of your handy work with a brief explaination of why it works.

The "s" wrench is for the nuts holding the IP.

the shepherd's hook is what I came up with to remove and install those pesky brake springs.

 

Now, let's see that thing from a couple more angles.

Thanks.

 

Are you using that for the retainer springs or the return springs?

 

I used it on the finger biting thumb smashing anti religous retainer springs. After I fought them for one afternoon.

You poke the shaft into the coil and lever the spring arm up against the backing plate. WIth one hand mind you. Then you simply slip the "bent nail" onto the spring and gently release the pressure.

 

I do believe they were invented by Satan himself. Having the right tool makes it easy though.

 

I bought a spring tool a long time ago. It has a spoon on one end to get the springs back on and a hole in the other end to put over the post above the brake cylinder and a little tab sticking out to slip the spring off when you rotate the tool on the post. Makes life much easier and I can now do a brake job without smashing all 10 knuckles. (still smash a couple though)

Edwin

 

I've got a 3 plane wrench for getting the last bolt behind the oil cooler on a 3208 Cat..........thats a 20 minute bolt all by itself.

 

For brake return spring install, I have always used a #3 or #4 Phillips head screwdriver(depending on spring hook size/wire diameter), slipping it up into the spring hook, and resting the flats between 2 of the Phillips blades onto the mounting stud on the backing plate. Sounds confusing but try it. Then just pry it up onto the stud and the spring slides right into place, eliminating the danger of direct pulling/stretching with pliers and the like, so your ka-nuck-lees(sorta like test-a-clees?) are no where near it! Removing the springs is the easiest/safest with the spring tool mentioned above, which I have, but still prefer to slip the screwdriver thing to re-install, as even with the spring tool, you are still pulling inline against spring tension, so if it slips off, watch out!! :-)

 

I made my own fan clutch wrench from some steel plate and Sch80 pipe

 

Here is the injector puller that I made a few years back.All it is, is a 3/8 X 6" bolt with a 4" piece of 1" shaft drilled for the bolt. I went to the hardware store and found a flare fitting that fit the injector threads and tapped that for the 3/8 bolt and put the jam nut above it. works great.

 

For a snap ring pliers for the Getrag shift tower snapring (Easiest for me to overfill), I took a cheap set of Companion (Craftsman knockoff) needle nose pliers, and bent the end in slightly. Makes a much sturdier snap ring pliers than anything you can buy. But it only works for internal rings. I believe I put the end on the edge of my (flat) bed, letting 1/8-1/4 inch hang over, then whacked it with a hammer to get the bend.

Daniel

 

Out of necessity, I just manufactured a fan-clutch wrench and pulley holding device out of some flat bar-stock I had on hand.

I had an extra clutch and belt-pulley for patterns.

I made a sort of C-shaped fork, with four holes that just fit over the 10MM bolt-heads on the fan pulley, and a long handle.

To hold the pulley still, simply place the four holes over the top four, of the six, pulley bolts, thereby holding the pulley still.

On a particularly stubborn clutch, simply loosen four of the bolts, slipping the holes past the bolt heads, thus sort of locking the holder to the pulley.

Don't forget to re-tighten the bolts, once the clutch is loose.

For the wrench, I lined up a bar against two opposing nut-flats, clamping cross pieces at top and bottom.

I welded two of the cross pieces at one end of the side pieces.

Then, I welded in a long handle.

I trimmed the wrench end to look and act more like a wrench.

When I get smart enough for pictures, I will post them.

I am quite proud of my nice new home-made tools, even if they didn't cost me any money.