Received these explanations from a bus nut friend who doesn't post here much, so thought I would pass along.
Ed
Tools Explained
1.DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
2.WIRE WHEEL:Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh sh*t!'
3.SKILL SAW:A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
4.PLIERS:Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
5.BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
6.HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
7.VISE-GRIPS:Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
8.OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.
9.TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
10.HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes , trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.
11.BAND SAW:A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.
12.TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.
13.PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
14.STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER :A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
15.PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
16.HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.
17.HAMMER : Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.
18.UTILITY KNIFE:Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.
19.
SON-OF-A-BI*CH TOOL: (A personal favorite!) Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'Son of a BI*CH!' at the top of your lungs.
It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
Hope you found this informative.
yep, gonna have to repost on some other forums ;D
I did the "sum-beetch" tool thing once. I was building a BMW race engine and had bought a ridiculously expensive adaptor to make the distributor lay down sideways instead of stick straight up. It taught me some engineering lessons I have never forgotten... The bore of the adaptor was tapered just a little bit, and it tapered so that there was about a quarter thou less clearance at the bottom than the diameter of the distributor shaft. I was fitting it together, I hadn't put lube on the shaft, and it cold welded itself to the adaptor so hard I couldn't move it. I did everything short of destruction, and while I was wrenching on it with a two foot pipe wrench I just lost it and that pipe wrench sailed across the room as hard as I could throw it, it went right through the wall and hit my air compressor!
Taught me the power of tapers, the word "gall", that cold welding existed, and that you should always start with the last thing you were going to try to fix something, not the first thing (the inverse power of obnoxious effort, or pull out the big gun first). In my case it was heat the adaptor to almost melting and then use the two foot pipe wrench and a 24 oz ball pien hammer. The distributor flew around 20 feet when it finally popped out.
I think Peter Egan came up with the first version of that list when he was writing at Road and Track in the 1970's, at any rate that's the first time I saw it. I always like it!
Brian
Brian
This thread is way off topic of buses but might be fun...My most intense sum-beech moment was about the 4Th time the red wasp dive bombed me I took a wild arching downward swing at him with the very big framing claw hammer I had in my right hand. The hammer slipped out of my hand and cracked me on my right kneecap, wanting to throw up and suddenly unable to stand I dropped to the ground and yes-sir-ree put my left palm right on the stricken wasp who promply stung the crap out of me. Insult to injury.
Took several years before I could look back on the incident with any humor at all ;)
Heres a few more to slip in between the lines
TAPE MEASURE: This device is used to measure length. It should be
immediately dropped onto concrete several times so that measurements made
with it will then agree with every other TAPE MEASURE in the world.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes
until you die of old age; with the proper accessories, used to destroy
perfectly good wood in many ways.
CHISEL: Multi use tool - good for making deep cuts in the hand.
CORDLESS DRILL/POWER SCREWDRIVER: Used for rounding out Phillips screw
heads at high speed.
NAILSET: Used to make small, round depressions around the head of a finish
nail. Principally used for decoration.
CLAMPS: These come in two sizes: too small and loaned to an in-law.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2
socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.
8-FOOT LONG 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic
jack handle.
PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbors to see if he has another hydraulic
floor jack.
PHONE (alt.): Tool for calling your brother-in-law to see if he has your
CLAMPS.
TABLE SAW: Used to make wood slightly narrower than necessary.
MITER SAW: Used to make wood slightly shorter than necessary.
THICKNESS PLANER: Used to make wood slightly thinner than necessary.
JOINTER: Used to make the too thin, too short, too narrow wood perfectly
straight. Very useful for making two sides of a board perfectly straight
but non-parallel.
SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for
spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog**** off your boot.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known
drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a
drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin,"
which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside,
it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate
that 105-mm Howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours
of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is
somewhat misleading.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning
power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that
travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty
bolts last over tightened 58 years ago by someone at ERCO, and neatly
rounds off their heads.
I have EVERY ONE of those tools!!!!! ;D ;D
And have used them extensively!!! :) :)
I can report from experience they all work as described!! :( :(
TOM
Quote from: bevans6 on November 22, 2011, 01:45:01 PM
I think Peter Egan came up with the first version of that list when he was writing at Road and Track in the 1970's, at any rate that's the first time I saw it. I always like it!
Brian
Peter Egan, boy those were the days, they sure killed that magazine.
I recall him talking once about working under some British car in real tight quarters where you can barely move. How you lift your head and jab a bolt into your skull and in the knee jerk reaction you slam your head into the concrete floor, where upon you jerk, and shove your skull back into the bolt, wackawackawacka, until you either get control of yourself or pass out. I never laughed so hard thinking about that, and probably everyone thats wrenched on stuff can relate.
Laws of Physics of Bus ownership
As the owner of an Bus, you have undoubtedly found that,
from time to time, the thing defies all known laws of Physics.
Distinguished researchers from all over the world have spent entire
lifetimes trying to understand such phenomena. Recently, the Six Laws of
Bus ownership were discovered, thus reducing most owners'
dependency on sorcerers and prayer, to keep such Buses running.
Careless application of these laws to any individual Bus may fix the
problems of the moment, but may cause hives or allergies in said owners.
1) THE LAW OF PLEASING DESIGN WHERE IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER
"The inside of cam covers or other relatively innocuous areas, shall
be laced with buttresses, cross-bracing and all manner of esoteric
stiffness-with-lightness design, while something like connecting rods
shall self-destruct at redline plus 1.0 rpm due to a basic lack of
strength." An example of this Law is the stunningly beautiful
Lamborghini or Ferrari V-12's of the late '60's. They were famous for
wearing out all four camshafts in 10,000 miles or less. The cam's
metal appeared to be recycled coat hangers, which coincidentally are
still in short supply in Italy.
2) THE LAW OF NON-FUNCTIONAL APPARATUS
"All Buses, regardless of age, shall have at least one
system or component which does not work, and cannot be repaired. Such
a part shall never be mentioned in the Official Shop Manual, although
there may be an out-of-focus picture shown." It goes without saying
that such parts should never under any circumstances be removed, lest
the natural balance of the Bus be upset.
3)THE LAW OF ELECTRICAL CHAOS
"All Buses shall be wired at the Factory by a
cross-eyed, color-blind worker, using whatever supplies are within
reach. All wires shall change color-code at least once between energy
source and component. All grounds shall be partially insulated." This
tends to guarantee that the owner of such vehicles will eventually be
intimately familiar with its electrical system, since he will need to
trace out each wire, then rewrite his Official Schematic, which will
differ from all others in at least one area.
4)THE LAW OF PERSONAL ABUSE
"The more a Bus breaks down, the more endearing it becomes
to its increasingly irrational owner." For example, you purchase a Bus
for all the money you ever hoped to earn, and
receive a ticket for air pollution on the way home from the dealer due
to the vast clouds of smoke that follow you. Several return trips to
said dealer, accompanied by your rapidly dwindling cash reserves,
cures the smoking. But now, the engine sounds like a food processor
full of ball-bearings. After replacing every component in the Bus,
including the speakers, the noise vanishes and is replaced by an
odor reminiscent of a major fire in a goat-hair mattress factory. You
still keep trying, God help you.
5)THE LAW OF UNAVAILABLE PARTS
"All parts of a Bus shall be made of a material that
is available in inverse proportion to its operating half-life." Thus,
the speedometer hold-down screws are made of grade 8 cold rolled
steel, while the valves are of fabricated Unobtanium, made only at
midnight by an old man with a pointy hat covered with moons and stars.
Such parts will be backordered during the design phase of the Bus, and
will remain so forever. Bribes, pleading and threats will be ignored.
6)THE LAW OF CRYPTIC INSTRUCTIONS
"Any official publications dealing with repair, maintenance or
operations of a Bus, shall be written such that every
fourth word is incomprehensible to the average person. In the event
that a random sentence is understandable, its information shall be
wrong." This is also known as flat-tire English, where a sentence
flows along nicely, then-Kaboom!
author unknown
And don't forget:
Credit Card:
A small rectangle of plastic, which allows you to buy more tools you don't really need, at prices you cannot ever hope to pay, in order to impress people you don't even like.
Solder Gun:
A pistol-shaped instrument that allows you to melt solder so that it can flow on to your pants and form some awesome welts on your leg.
Quote from: artvonne on November 22, 2011, 03:45:15 PM(snip) WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Things I have learned about physics.
1. The center of the universe is in the exact center under whatever vehicle your are working on. Unless of course there is a drain under said vehicle, in that case, the drain becomes the center of the universe.
2. Any tool dropped will fall to the center of the universe.
3. If the vehicle has it's own universe, the center is in some location that can not be seen or felt.