Modifying your tools

My benchtop grinder has a nifty flexible worklight that is in a great position to not only provide task lighting while grinding, but also to shine on whatever is going on next to it on my bench. The problem is, the way it was wired, it was only powered when the grinder was on - the light leads were powered after the main switch. So, like any warmblooded GRM-er, I opened 'er up, rewired the light, and now its powered before the switch off the main power plug. As long as the grinder is plugged in, the light works (has a small thumb switch on top of the bulb housing).

This isnt the first time Ive fiddled with a tool - my miter saw can now cut up to 55°, rather than the 45° it originally started with, and I have done work to other things like drills and the like to stiffen them up or whatnot.

Share your tool mods - we can all get inspiration from each other, and Im curious what clever little things you all have done to your workshop.

I needed to put a fringle (I'm not a body man) in a repair panel. I needed to make two 90 degree bends the thickness of sheetmetal away from each other.

I milled 1/16" off some 4340 squares and welded them to a pair of vice grips. It doesn't have the polish of the Eastwood item shown, but it doesn't have the $80 tag either.

Dan

I took a set of cheap t-handle allen drivers and welded sockets on the end. They're really handy for spinning off bolts.

Bill at FM has an entire drawer of 13mm wrenches have been ground up and bent and otherwise harassed. Something to do with his sordid past of working on VWs.

I have a soldering iron I turned into that device the Men In Black use to remove fingerprints.

I've welded pieces of rod to spare extensions to make T handle socket drivers... I've also made a few scrapers, prybars, etc to fit a specific situation from scrap stock.

I cut the handles off very small screwdrovers so's I could chuck them in the drill for small screws

I've modified screwdriver tips with the grinder to fit a particular type of screw mo betta

drilled out the mounting hols in my small vise to accept monster mounting bolts - better safe than sorry....

Once in an act of desperation, I a steering u-joint and an spare short extension became one for the sake of getting to some ridiculously difficult to reach bolt.

Common in aircraft maintenance. I have several "special" tools modified to make a task easier. Including cutting an open end wrench in half to get a length that would fit in a tight area, welding adapter or sockets to box end wrenches to make an offset to torque nuts in tight locations. A few other hand made tools for specific functions on the helicopters I worked on.

I have a nice 40-year-old Jacobsen 3/8" chuck that I have moved from electric drill body to electric drill body as they wear out around it.

Mostly I modify my tools by beating on and/or pipe-extending them until they aren't tool shaped any more.

Made this to tighten the jamb nuts on a Lamborghini Murcielago shift linkage which a previous mechanic left loose during engine installation.

ansonivan wrote: Made this to tighten the jamb nuts on a Lamborghini Murcielago shift linkage which a previous mechanic left loose during engine installation.

I dont know Mr. Sears counter person, I was just tightening a bolt when blamo!

ansonivan wrote: Made this to tighten the jamb nuts on a Lamborghini Murcielago shift linkage which a previous mechanic left loose during engine installation.

You guys work on Lamborghinis?? I'll have to keep that in mind for when I finally get that Miura. (heh, yeah right)

Oh, as far as tools I've modified: the only thing coming to mind wasn't even a tool to begin with, I just used it as one. A radius rod off of a Honda Accord that I scrapped got turned into a really handy pry bar. It seems to get used more often than the actual pry bar that I have.

I had to cut the light off mine. The vibrations tended to make it slowly move backwards until the light was pointed at my eyes and I shredded my fingers on the wheel and dropped the part never to be seen again.

I have a box with ~50 screwdrivers that I had reground when I was working part-time as a gunsmith. Also have a bunch of reshaped open-end and box wrenches, a few of which I remember why I modified them.

I have ground a few open ended wrenches thinner, and I have a specially shortened 15mm box end that can loosen the 3 injector pump nuts on a 6.5 with the late model dual thermostat crossover. Other than that, I hate cutting up tools.

I've still got 4 custom bent wrenches for pulling the carburetor off a 1983 Nissan Stanza. Of the 4 nuts, one could be pulled with normal tools. One of them required two wrenches bent in opposite directions. It took about two hours too get the carb off...the second time. The engineer should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, and raped by a large animal.

Any time I get the urge to buy a Nissan, I just look at those wrenches until the urge passes. It takes about 10 seconds.

I HATED that car with a red hot burning passion.

I wouldn't know where to begin. I have even made tools for a specific purpose. Like a spanner wrench used once.

Osterkraut wrote: I have a soldering iron I turned into that device the Men In Black use to remove fingerprints.

That didn't require much modification...unless you added a fast acting Novocaine dispenser option.

I pulled the guard off an angle grinder so I could fit the cutting wheel into tighter spots. It is now much better at removing that pesky skin between knuckles.

I can't even think of where to start. Soo many mods.

In reply to Toyman01:

My wife's first car was an 88 Stanza, and her mother was still driving it until last year. As the family mechanic, I share your Stanza related pain.

Anyone who's worked as a bike mechanic has several sharpened bike spokes in their toolbox, too.

Of course I modify my tools...I shop at HarborFreight

Everything gets modified into a hammer?

yup!

I have a Jeep and a Volvo hood release cable handle that have been soldered and bent into a window crank clip release tool. A very senior mechanic made the one out of the Volvo 122 cable. He's been gone for over a decade, but I think of him everytime I pop a window crank off.

Keith wrote: Anyone who's worked as a bike mechanic has several sharpened bike spokes in their toolbox, too.

At College a friend used an old spoke to clean out his water cooled smoke generator.