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History Ever come across a tool that you lost...

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by El Caballo, Feb 13, 2016.

  1. Jalopy Joker
    Joined: Sep 3, 2006
    Posts: 31,174

    Jalopy Joker
    Member

    lost my mind years ago - find it now and then - next thing and I don't know what i did with it again - helps keep me going
     
    Jet96 likes this.
  2. indyjps
    Joined: Feb 21, 2007
    Posts: 5,377

    indyjps
    Member

    This summer, I found a box with a dial back timing light, soldering iron, a 750 dominator, couple sets of new sbc bearings.
    Sucks moving garages multiple times, I haven't seen that stuff for 20 years, but it's been traveling right along with me in a box maked "paint".
    I knew I had some cheap black single stage enamel and found the other stuff. Found the old enamel too, it was still runny so I hit it with reducer and it sprayed out just fine. What a day.
     
    NoSurf likes this.
  3. I can say I don't think I've ever lost anything however quite often I can't find something. It seems to be temporary, sometimes longer than other times. I just try not to get to excited. It does seem to be happening more and more the last few years.
    The Wizzard
     
    jeffd1988 likes this.
  4. Ron Brown
    Joined: Jul 6, 2015
    Posts: 1,711

    Ron Brown
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Yup...back in the early seventies our shop had young apprentices that got into a habit of picking up a tool from the mechanics toolboxes from time to time. In about 6 mos of time I had three different 9/16 Snap On wrenchs go missing, which I would replace next time the tool man came around. One day I bought a replacement wrench, and less than 10 mins back at my stall, it was gone....I had had enough and stormed into the managers office, pointed at him and screamed at him to tell those worthless little pricks to keep there hands off my tools. Man, I was spittin mad. I slam his door and yell, for everyone to hear, Keep Your GD Hands of my tools....I get back to my box, still fumin', tryin to collect myself when I realise I had the new wrench in my hand the whole time, in fact, I used it as a pointer during my tirade in the managers office.....I hid it and took it home for a few days. Yup, Im sharper than most.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2016
  5. Hamtown Al
    Joined: Jan 17, 2007
    Posts: 2,899

    Hamtown Al
    Member Emeritus
    1. Virginia HAMB(ers)

    I was trying to figure how to repair something on my car and discussing it with a pal after a club meeting. He said to use a Dremel tool and he had one I could use. Day or two later, I go borrow the tool; take it home and fix my car over the next few days and returned it within the week I thought.

    Couple weeks later he calls and asks if I'm finished with the tool? I told him I thought I'd returned it but I'd go look in my garage to be sure. Looked all over and couldn't find it and called him back that no sign of the tool.

    Told my Dad about using this neat tool my pal told me about and he said he had a spare tool with kit that I could have so took it home.

    Month or so later, my pal calls to tell me he found the tool. He only found the tool because he bought a replacement and asked himself, "Now where can I put this so I'll know where it is?" He walked over to his cabinet and opened it to store the new tool and there sat the tool I had returned! He returned the spare and all was well.

    I was glad he found it because he somehow felt I must still have it and I was wondering where the heck I could have put it that I couldn't find it!
     
    jeffd1988 likes this.
  6. Mr48chev
    Joined: Dec 28, 2007
    Posts: 33,861

    Mr48chev
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Hell If I found all the tools that I can't find that are around my place right now I'd need another tool box to keep it all in. Along with cleaning out the garage and surrounding area outside so I don't take a header tripping over something I need to go through things and collect all of my tools that are where they shouldn't be.
    A few weeks ago a coworker and I were walking out after work and she spotted a wrench frozen in the ice behind her car. I dug it out of the ice and my initials were engraved in it. It had been riding in my car ever since I changed the transaxle three years ago.
    Years ago when I worked in a shop one summer while I was teaching I stuck my car keys in a fellow mechanics tool box where the tool I had borrowed had been placed. Positive way to remember to return the tool. My theory always was that if you needed to borrow the same tool twice in a week you need to buy one off the tool truck when it came by.
     
  7. You know he probably tells the story at least twice a week since.
     
  8. DDDenny
    Joined: Feb 6, 2015
    Posts: 19,132

    DDDenny
    Member
    from oregon

    That's some good shit right there, I don't care who ya are.
    You can't make this shit up.
    Fuuuuuunyyyyyy
     
  9. Bandit Billy
    Joined: Sep 16, 2014
    Posts: 12,286

    Bandit Billy
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    In a twist of fate (and the OP's intention), I own a pair of wire cutters (why do they call it a pair when it is only one tool?) a pair of channel locks (again) and a Stanley screw driver that I discovered on the floor of a 72 formula Firebird that I was driving as a daily back a few dozen years ago. The A holes took my stereo system but must have been scared off at some point and in their hurry they left without their tools of the trade. I was pissed off at the time loosing a sweet cassette deck and a graphic EQ but I have experienced more enjoyment from their tools over the decades that followed than that stereo ever would have provided. I miss the REO High Infidelity tape though that was in the deck.

    Hind sight is sometimes the best sight.
     
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  10. jack_pine
    Joined: Jan 20, 2007
    Posts: 353

    jack_pine
    Member
    from Motor City

    My boss got in his car and turned on the wipers. My pry bar was mixed up with the wiper arms as they moved. Banging around. I had done an alignment on his car and left the pry bar resting on the cowl when I shut the hood
     
    Stogy likes this.
  11. Stogy
    Joined: Feb 10, 2007
    Posts: 26,345

    Stogy
    ALLIANCE MEMBER


    Yes this guy had it...

    Garage_GREMLIN.jpg
     
  12. My favorite Snap On side cutter went missing for over a year?? Found it in the rf door pocket of my wife's SUV. I had replaced it but a person can't have too many.
     
  13. cfmvw
    Joined: Aug 24, 2015
    Posts: 977

    cfmvw
    Member

    I lost a 7mm 1/4-inch drive socket, couldn't figure out where it went, so I went to Sears for a replacement. One day the front turn signal bulb burned out on my OT '82 Pontiac J2000, so I bought a new bulb and got my 7mm socket and driver to replace it. Got the first screw out, but for some reason I couldn't get the socket to fit over the second one. Bent down for a closer look, as I was removing the screws blind, and there, still on the end of the other screw, was my original 7mm socket. It had been there for over two years from the last time I had to replace that bulb!
     
  14. hotrodharry2
    Joined: Nov 19, 2008
    Posts: 794

    hotrodharry2
    Member
    from Michigan

    I like all of us have misplaced tools, replaced them and find them the next day or a year or two later. Having an adult son who borrows tools from good old Dad, I've come up with a self funded program, if he borrows something, I keep track of it and add it to my Christmas shopping list. He knows the game now! Funny it's slowed down now, think he wants something more than tools for Christmas? I'd say he's getting to old and I'll focus on our Grandson's toolbox when the time comes! lol
     
  15. I was doing alignments around 1977 and lost my 3/4" open end box swivel wrench. This was the one that adjusted the camber-caster eccentrics on the Mopars. Figured I left it under a hood and it fell off on the road... gone.

    2 years later the car is back... for an alignment. This enormous deja vu moment runs through my head. I pop the hood and look... the wrench is still on the passenger side eccentric bolt and leaning on the exhaust manifold. Blew my mind that nobody saw that in all that time.
     
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  16. Found my feeler gauge set (After I bought a new set of course) in the channel at the back of the hood opening, hidden under the rubber seal. Must of been there for 5 years.
    I used to repair washing machines, and lost my 3/8 open end spanner. I opened up a machine at a customer's house about 3 years after I had done the last repair to it, and found the spanner which had "become one" with the baseplate and rusted to it.
    I loaned a wheel puller to a bloke in my car club, after about 6 months I remembered it, And asked him about it. "I returned it to you" he said. I was sure he didn't. Another bloke in the club about a year later says " yeah, I borrowed XYZ's wheel puller" . I asked if I could see it, and sure enough , it was my old one (Home - made). I asked if he could pass it on to me and I would "return" it when I was finished with it. I had it for a while until I loaned it out again, never to be seen again!
     
  17. crashfarmer
    Joined: Apr 4, 2006
    Posts: 1,285

    crashfarmer
    Member
    from Iowa

    I loaned my tent to a friend and he had it quite some time so I went over and borrowed his circular saw that I needed at the time. I figured I'd give him back his saw when I got my tent back. It's been 27 years and no tent yet, I still have his saw.
     
  18. slowmotion
    Joined: Nov 21, 2011
    Posts: 3,330

    slowmotion
    Member

    A spud bar, how in the hell do you loose one of those? Last I seen it, I lent it to a neighbor busting up an old sidewalk. Asked him about it over the course of a couple of years, brought it back he says (yea right). One day rooting around for something else, it turns up where I know I didn't put it. Next time I seen him, ate a little crow on that one....:oops:
     
  19. manyolcars
    Joined: Mar 30, 2001
    Posts: 9,174

    manyolcars

    In 1967 a woman I worked with came to work riding in a blue 1950 Ford that had been customized in Missouri. This was an older woman, Very beautiful, a blonde and 'healthy'. We were 17 so the older woman might have been 23. :)
    My best friend and I knocked on her door later and bought the Kustom from her husband for $57 and drove it home.
    I dont remember why but the title was mailed to my house.
    Still thinking about it 26 years later, I found the title and called him and he gave me the car.
     
  20. gatz
    Joined: Jun 2, 2011
    Posts: 1,817

    gatz
    Member

    Finally got a good set of Craftsman Metric Combination wrenches after years of putting it off (or so I thought)
    Went to find a place in one of the Snap-On roll away drawers to store them, you know...where they'd be handy, but not in the way.
    Well, I found a good place, but there's already a set of S-K metric combi's in a nice plastic sleeve in the same spot.
    I don't know where that set of S-K's came from....but they were just like new.
    So along with a brain fart, I now have 2 metric sets; the good news is that both get used.
     
  21. tinsled
    Joined: Sep 7, 2007
    Posts: 614

    tinsled
    Member

    No me but my Pops... This was back in the early 70's...

    He had a favorite screwdriver he kept always with him, said it just fit in his hand the best. It was recognizable with two color handle. He always kept it in the chest pocket of his blue overalls, with some pens in there as well. Then one day it was gone missing. He looked all over for it but did not found.

    Some 3-4 years later we were cleaning the bottom of an old well of my grandmom's, the next door from my Pop's garage. Do you say "to dredge a well"? Anyway it was the old style well with a winch for water bucket and built some 100 years ago with nature stones on the walls, thus you need to clean the bottom with spade & buckets every 3 yrs or so to get the moss and in fallen dirt out. My dad was in there in the bottom and I was winching up the buckets of sand & dirt. One of the last buckets I found the lost screw driver as I emptied it on the lawn! We were both struck to see it again. Well, the explanation was obvious, since such heavy item easily slides out from the chest pocket when you lean forward to look down. However, he never recalled having heard a splash thus never crossed his mind it could have fallen in. The miracle was to happen to find it from the sand bottom of regulary used well after so many years. I think he still has it and uses it too, he will turn 80 this year.
     
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  22. 56sedandelivery
    Joined: Nov 21, 2006
    Posts: 6,695

    56sedandelivery
    Member Emeritus

    I no longer lend tools, period, to anyone. Last was a brass hammer I lent to a "friend". Course when I needed it, it was't there. So, I used a regular claw hammer top beat on a part. A metal chip flies off the hammer, and right into my inner, upper thigh; real close to the "recreational equipment", right through my blue jeans. I'm trying to dig this little fleck of metal out from under the skin and can't. I go to work that afternoon (I'm an X-Ray/CAT Scan Tech), and my coworker and I are using the fluoroscope to guide me in my exploration to find the thing. Coworker gets worried, goes and gets the E.R. Dr., who manages to find and pull it out. Just a little, razor sharp, fleck of steel, maybe 1/4 inch in diameter. Few days later I go looking for the guy who has my brass hammer, and he's nowhere to be found; some think he's left town, but no one knows for sure. Never have seen him again. I no longer lend out tools! Now, my wife has her own tool box, that I gave her and filled with a few basic tools. If I'm in the house and need a tool, I'll go look for what I need in her tool box, and, she has a fit every time! My garage/shop is in the back yard, and the attached garage is "hers", where she keeps her tool box. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
     
  23. I caught a guy burglarizing my house about a year ago. Shook him up and held him til the cops came. They wound up leaving the hammer he used to break my front door. I still use it with satisfaction.
     
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  24. Buddy Palumbo
    Joined: Mar 30, 2008
    Posts: 3,871

    Buddy Palumbo
    Member

    Great story ! I wish I would have caught the hillbilly pricks breaking into my garage a couple years ago . I would have smashed their hands with my own hammer . Then I would've smiled every time I used the hammer. As it stands, every time I go for something they stole, my blood boils. Someday karma will get those morons ... I hope
     
  25. Timbofor
    Joined: Dec 4, 2014
    Posts: 192

    Timbofor

    I have the exact same story, same wrench and about the same year. Only difference, it was my dad. Pops was working in a Chrysler dealership (hershberger motors, Salem Oregon) I now own that wrench.
     
  26. crashfarmer
    Joined: Apr 4, 2006
    Posts: 1,285

    crashfarmer
    Member
    from Iowa

    I HATE thieves! I had an OT Lincoln stolen. the dummies tried to change a flat tire on the rear but couldn't get it off because the rim had stuck onto the hub so they neglected to put the lug nuts back on. They proceeded to drag it down the road, flat tire and all until the wheel fell off and landed under the car. At this point they couldn't pull it anymore so they abandoned it in the middle of the road. The next morning I get a call from the Sheriff about finding my car abandoned in the road. So the Sheriff had it hauled to my house but it had a real nice big crowbar and a big screwdriver in it. I got a couple of tools but they burgered up the car pretty bad, broke the passenger door window out, good luck finding one of those for a two door Lincoln. They pulled it backward with the driver's side door open, hit a fence and sprung the heck out of the door. Pounded the heck out of the dash, I'm assuming thats what they used the big crowbar for.

    I wish I could find out who it was. :mad:
     
    283john likes this.
  27. Mike51Merc
    Joined: Dec 5, 2008
    Posts: 3,856

    Mike51Merc
    Member

    When I was about 3-4 years old my grandfather gave me a toy toolkit that contained a saw with a metal blade (imagine selling a toy like that today). Anyway, the saw was taken away from me and I never saw (no pun) it again until 35 years later when we emptied grandpa's garage when the house was sold (it had fallen behind the workbench). It now sits in my garage as a nostalgic piece of my youth, even though I never got to play with it much.
     

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    Last edited: Feb 15, 2016
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  28. Truck64
    Joined: Oct 18, 2015
    Posts: 5,325

    Truck64
    Member
    from Ioway

    These are all that's left of my Grandfather's tool kit, from I believe a Model A, though not certain of that exactly. Good wrenches, though I never remember to use them. The oil can gets used fairly often. The half bar of Ivory he kept in the glovebox, flat tires were a common occurance back then and needed to wash his hands. He was a travelling salesman for the Red Wing Pottery company in the midwest region, this was a good job, especially by the time the depression rolled around. ImageUploadedByH.A.M.B.1461556645.378486.jpg
     
  29. fordor41
    Joined: Jul 2, 2008
    Posts: 1,011

    fordor41
    Member

    not auto related but I was using a knife to cut plastic pipe to plumb my well and broke the tip off, about 1/4". I found the tip 30 yrs later, in the jet at the bottom of the well, plugging the orifice.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2016
  30. When I was still working at the local Chevy dealer I lost a snap on magnetic bolt tray. I looked all over the shop Couldnt find it. 8 months later I had a suburban come in that I had put a tailshaft seal in the transfer case, come in to now get the front axle seals replaced. Put it up on the lift and there is my tray held onto the trans cross member. Been riding along under there for 8 months upside down!!!
     
    Truck64 likes this.

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