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[quote=”MDK22″ post=153213]Whenever I clean battery wires, aftertreatment, or deal with a lot of brake dust I use a full mask respirator. Mind you big rig techs can have as much as 16 different batteries that is a lot of ends to clean and you wind up using an angle grinder with a cookie and you should always wear gloves and put on a hat and jacket or use a long sleeve shirt as the dry acid gets everywhere….[/quote]
I keep an empty jug in my service cart for servicing batteries. Fill her up with hot water and pour it over the corroded terminals. No more dry acid to deal with. A kettle is cheap, you can also make coffee or tea and make instant ramen with it.
Get the OTC Drainplug Pro, eliminates touching hot oil and getting your hands dirty. I have also made it a habit to poke the filter and let it drain before removing it with a shop rag. Shop has a hot water pressure washer so I try my best to hose down/power wash before I work on the vehicle.
Have you tried nitrile dipped spandex gloves? My favourite ones are from Home Depot, brand is called Gorilla Grip. Give them a try, they are very comfortable! Keeps the hands reasonably clean and no more sweats to deal with!
[quote=”MDK22″ post=132283]Snap-ons are a rebrand of someone else lol.[/quote]
No, Matco is a rebrand of Trusty-Cook.
Mac uses Stanley’s one piece AntiVibe hammers.
Although similar, Snap-on uses a different design. Snap-on’s HBBD and HBFE series hammers are exclusive, you can’t find it anywhere else.
The bigger deadblow sledges are Trusty-Cooks, though they rebranded under Blue-Point.
I say this to everybody who questions my tool buying binges:
“There is simply no end to buying tools in automotive industry”.
Live with it.
Tools will pay itself, over and over again, other hobbies are sink holes that you’ll never see a return.
I prefer to work on XZN and Torx fasteners than deal with Allen fasteners.
A full set of bit socket doesn’t cost more than $300 from Harbor Freight (full retail, not considering sale prices), we’re talking XZN, tamper proof hex, tamper proof Torx, Torx, e-Torx, Torx Plus, ball end Allens, etc etc. If your box is missing any of these bit sockets you are considered obsolete as a technician in today’s repair industry and it’s time to upgrade and buy more tools.
I’ve been working illegally (so to speak, without an apprentice license and cash job) on cars for 3 years. Got my foot in the door of a small independent shop that my uncle frequents, but I found out later they are really just a used car dealer that’s doing work on the side under the table.
I want to, and need to be licensed, my boss keeps telling me that he has friends who are licensed that can sign my paperworks, but nothing has been done. I’ve given the boss my two weeks back in October, but he called my uncle and got the whole family to disapprove of my resignation so now I’m stuck here.
I’ve read up on my options, it’s either go back to school, apply for an apprenticeship license (and start from zero) or get a trades equivalency assessment. Knowing my boss does all of his repair invoices under the table and me getting paid cash to work, I think I’ve lost my TEA option. I’m also a little reluctant to go back to school full time as I need to be working to pay for my tools and other bills I’ve amassed for the career in the last 3 years.
What should I do?
I did a drum brake on a Honda Civic this morning, my boss spent half an hour beating the drum with a sledge to get it off. He gave up and went for a smoke break.
I popped the dust cap, undo the 32mm and slide the hub/bearing out without any trouble. Took me 2 minutes.
My friend went back to VW after working on Hondas for a year, “Hondas don’t break, all I did was oil change, tires, belts and brake services, BORING”
My other friend who works for Chrysler/Dodge is struggling to take lugs off with just one socket. He has a set of 19mm, 19.5mm, 20mm sockets just for wheels (told me he thought about buying 20 sockets of each size so he wouldn’t have to deal with jammed lugs in sockets). This happens on every vehicle that rolls in the bay door.
Organize tools by the jobs, not types. It is very time consuming to go through 2 or more drawers to tool up for a job.
It is very important to have a drive tool attached to every socket you pull out of your box. Swapping sockets is very time consuming, I pity the fools who buy ONE ratchet and thinks they can get away with it. My boss keeps making fun of me of having six 1/4″ ratchets, but I keep laughing at him whenever he drops a socket over the engine bay.
Buy locking extensions and flex sockets, ratcheting wrenches and cordless tools. Air hammer will also save you a lot of grief.
Buy a giant 12″x12″ magnetic panel to organize all the fasteners that you take out, this shaves off a few minutes of digging through those small magnetic part trays.
Neither did mine, I was referring to the ratchets in my previous post, not the ratcheting wrenches.
Although GearWrench is known for their ratcheting wrenches, they also make some of the finest ratchets to date. You should treat one to yourself, especially the new 120 teeth ratchets.