No tool left behind

petegossett wrote:

Basil Exposition wrote: I want to thank one of you guys for leaving the long handled, swivel head Snap On 3/8" ratchet in the derelict MG Midget that I built into my racecar. Came in handy, though I had to get a (free) rebuild kit from Snap On to fix the ratchet.

I have that exact same ratchet, also free(though I don't remember what vehicle I found it in) and also in need of a rebuild. Glad to know there's a free kit for it.

Just call Snap On. Their stuff has a lifetime guaranty.

Basil Exposition wrote:

petegossett wrote:

Basil Exposition wrote: I want to thank one of you guys for leaving the long handled, swivel head Snap On 3/8" ratchet in the derelict MG Midget that I built into my racecar. Came in handy, though I had to get a (free) rebuild kit from Snap On to fix the ratchet.

I have that exact same ratchet, also free(though I don't remember what vehicle I found it in) and also in need of a rebuild. Glad to know there's a free kit for it.

Just call Snap On. Their stuff has a lifetime guaranty.

Cool, I was afraid I'd have to try & flag down a truck somewhere.

I used to ride bicycles on street/highways. Always found tools. As a mechanic, I found tools under hood and found a Vise Grip holding something together on a car I bought.

Auto students were always leaving their/school tools under hoods/in cars. Some would fall out on road test or customers would occasionally bring them back.

Changed the oil on the Tacoma and couple of days later I noticed a larger than normal gap on leading edge of hood. Opened hood and there was the screw driver I used to change air cleaner element. Senior moment?

I've been known to do things like this. I always check to make sure nothing is missing when I'm putting away the tools. This one time is particularly memorable. I'd just finished changing the starter on my old Saab 900S, and I could not find my 12mm wrench anywhere. Finally a couple years later next time I pulled the battery out, there it was in the tray.

Then there was the time not long after I started working at my current job, a lumber yard. I'd been sent out to do a pick up/return, and when I get back and strat to put away the lumber what to I find on the back bumper of the truck but my tape measure. It had ridden there for the couple mile drive back. That I did not expect, especially because one of the intersections I had to cross is really bumpy.

I'm an aircraft mechanic and that is the biggest no-no a mech can do. My dad was also an aircraft mechanic and taught me when I was real young to always clean and put away tools doing a quick inventory of what was used before even trying out the work just finished. Was a requirement to use his tools in the garage. I inherited his tools and still use them. Most are Craftsman dating back to the late-50's to early 60's. Most aircraft repair sites have a toolbox inventory process in place. Usually a shadowed toolbox, a lead checks for empty slots every time you close your box. Will admit to loosing tools while using them though. I just lay it down and then it isn't there when I reach for it again. Usually find them though. Have found tools in cars I've bought or on the side of the road. That's how I got extra 10mm sockets.

There was one time on aircraft though. I took over as Flight Engineer on a helicopter shortly before scheduled maintenance also inheriting the toolbox assigned to the helicopter, there were a couple missing tools, flew it for a several hours into scheduled maintenance then tore the aircraft apart for maintenance and found every missing tool.

NickD wrote:

cmcgregor wrote: That's impressive! It took me an embarrassingly long time to discover that my front end clunking noise was a screwdriver sitting the the (rather convenient for tool storage) tray at the base of my Miata's windshield. Most of my tools have done stints in various locations like that, but I can't think of a single one that I've found still stuck on a nut.

I've also left tools there. I once had a long 3/8" extension fall out of the front fender of my Miata while I was out on course at an autocross. It wasn't mine, so somebody else must have done the same thing.

I left a tool in my miata rain tray too. I wasted a TON of time trying to find that noise. Might have even replaced a set of perfectly good sway bar end links in the process.

Beer is a tool right? Way way back, when I had my Sonoma, I got home from fishing and found half a can of beer still sitting on my back bumper. No idea how it survived with my gas to floor brake to floor driving style at the time.

I have a bad habit of leaving my sockets in the trunk. The miata has a hole in the trunk floor, those 3 inch round things int the middle of where the spare belongs well one is missing, somehow, magically, nothing has fallen out yet.

In reply to wlkelley3:

In the AF we also were very strick about lost tools of course. If a tool was missing at the end of the shift everyone stayed until it was found. I'd get pissed searching aircraft ribs blindly with a magnet upon hearing a click only to find it was some other tool lost long before but not reported.

I once lost a ball peen hammer down into the inner fender of an 80's Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. Sold the car with the hammer still in there...

I have two:

Went out for a test drive in the Datsun 1200, the one I'd pulled the drain plugs (in the floor) many months before. Part way down the road I heard something drop out and realized my screwdriver had bailed. Went back and spent a good 10 minutes looking for it. That was 36 years ago and it's probably still out there.

Then there was that alarming clunking sound that randomly happened on my most recent project car that drove me nuts. Turned out I'd left a ratchet and socket on a bolt down where I couldn't see it. As the car would hit bumps or turns in just the right way, the ratchet would advance several clicks, and in only one section of its arc would knock against the chassis. After hitting a couple more bumps it would advance past that point and the noise would mysteriously vanish for days, weeks, or months until it ratcheted its way back around again. Good times.

This past Sunday, I installed the driveshafts back into my Cherokee and finished rigging up my DIY swaybar disconnects, thus concluding my lift install and returning the Jeep to fully functional driver status for the first time in over a month.

In celebration of this occasion, I immediately set out for the forest roads of the local state park to test the worth of the new hardware. About 20 miles into my adventure, I came upon this steep dirt hill I had tried and failed to climb the last time I had the XJ out in stock guise. So, naturally, I had to see if I could do it now with the new lift and tires.

On about the 6th or so of a dozen attempts to make the climb, a hacksaw mysteriously appeared in my tracks from beneath the vehicle as I rolled backwards down the hill. "Huh, that looks like MY hacksaw. Oh wait, it IS."

I don't remember where on the Jeep I had put the thing, let alone what I had even been using it for, but somehow it managed to stay in place for over 20 miles on some very rough dirt/gravel/rocky roads before dislodging itself.

In reply to Stampie: Yeah, typical of hanger ops. Dad was Navy and Air Force (both as service member and civilian). I am army aviation.
Go into most aircraft QC shops there are usually hanging art made out of things found in aircraft.

One of my guys came In the office and said he couldn't find the air ratchet he had borrowed anywhere. I checked out what he had been working on and called the operators; no response, I didn't expect one but Matco air tools aren't free.

Two months later I opened the hood on a 2015 Volvo and there was the air ratchet; extension and socket still in place above the air filter housing right where he had left them. Rode safely for 40,000 miles. I was pretty happy to have them back!

I lost a 14mm socket while replacing the lower intake gaskets on a Chevy Venture. 4 years later, I was helping my son replace that same set of gaskets. There was the 14mm socked, riding in the valley between the heads.

I also lost a Fluke multi meter, above the drop ceiling, over a automatic door, in a hospital. I realised I had left it a week later, but couldn't remember which door, out of hundreds, it was above. 5+ years later, I was back above that same door and there the meter was. Even the batteries were still good.

I was putting a satellite communications site into storage during the DOD drawbacks in 2014. Any antenna that wasn't torn down was "bird bathed" which is where you point the dish straight up. When moving one of the 12 meter antennas into bird bath a wrench fell out from some of the support beams. Wasn't any of the technicians on site at the time, could have been there for years for all I know, tracking satellites the whole time.

A friend of mine left a tool on the core support, near the hood latch. He slammed the hood shut, the the tool was just wide enough allow the hood to latch, but too wide to let it unlatch, and jammed the hood shut.

For around 3 years i searched for my "best set of vise grips" and i meen searched like empty the garage searched....then i started working on a truck i had sitting in the yard...found my vices grips all rusty covered in brake fluid...I had popped a line on the ride home years earlier and folded and crimped it with the vice grips and forgot about them. There sitting in evaporust now but i think there lost....

Toyman01 wrote: I also lost a Fluke multi meter, above the drop ceiling, over a automatic door, in a hospital. I realised I had left it a week later, but couldn't remember which door, out of hundreds, it was above. 5+ years later, I was back above that same door and there the meter was. Even the batteries were still good.

I have had a list of tools eaten by drop ceilings. Screwdrivers, flashlights, etc. hospitals have a LOT of ceiling tiles!

I was working on my Malibu and making a video with my GoPro.

At some point in time I set the GoPro on the trunk of my Miata.

Went looking for it before my next track day when I realised I drove the Miata recently and it must have fallen off.

I was not a happy camper.