Favorite hand made tools?
I make a new one about once a week, been an auto mechanic for +40 years now.
Most recently I made a special "very flat boxed wrench" out of a cheaper 15mm boxed wrench to loosen a camshaft sprocket on a Mazda 3 that had slipped a cog on the timing chain (variable valve timing engine). The camshaft sprockets do NOT have a keyway and there are no timing marks on any of the timing components. Owner had ran the car low on oil and the oil pressure driven chain tensioner allowed slack into the timing chain. When the chain timing (with NO marks) is off, the engine would only "fire and die" as the computer would shut down the spark and injection. Again, these engines use no timing marks and ONLY special tools can line things back up. Cams must be locked wth a flat bar (made that also) that runs between both cams along the top of the head (had that one from previous Contour timing belt failures) and the crankshaft gets locked with a pin through a threaded plug hole behind the right drive axle (axle shaft must be removed) I had to make that too! So that is 3 special tools for one car, probably never will need them again.
After aligning the components (with no marks), car would then start and run. Then I could tell the owner that he now has a rod knocking at 2500 rpm.
A week before that, I made a tool for removing HPOP (high pressure oil pump) lines on a Powerstroke Ford truck out of some old bicycle wrench. Walked the correct size flat steel bike wrech to the bench grinder and 30 seconds later had another new tool! It worked great, online price for the special tool, $80
Richard
