Custom made shop tools

Moparmat2000 said:

The fabrication skills dont matter, what you made that works is what does matter. I started this thread as a way to help others out. You come up with a tool to help you do the job, weather its something made of welded steel, or wood, or something else.

Years ago i was a dealership mechanic at a chrysler plymouth dealer. Back then we used to work on a lot of 8 valve 2.2s. When doing a turbo engine head gasket it was much easier and quicker to leave the cam, and intake/exhaust manifolds along w turbo attached to the head, and pull it off the block as an assembly. Of course this make it pretty freakin heavy. I came up w 2 tools back then along with a bottle of whiteout. First tool i made from angle iron bolted together with padding on either end that would set on the top of the firewall and on top of the radiator support. It had a hook with a bungee cord. I used it to hold the timing belt under tension so it would stay on the crank and intermediate shaft sprocket that drove the distributor. After marking the belt and cam sprocket with white out , i would loosen the belt tensioner and slip the belt off the sprocket using this tool to hold the belt up

Second tool was an old pair of head bolts. I had a 10mm pair for 1985 and older, and an 11mm pair for 1986 up engines. I cut off the bolt heads, and rounded them off, then cut a screwdriver slot in the top of each. I would loosely thread them into the block one at each end, set the headgasket in place, then have another mechanic help me pick up the head with the cam, turbo and both manifolds attached and set it in place using the old headbolts as removable guide pins. Once i got the other 8 headbolts in place, i would use the screwdriver and spin these out and pluck em out with a pair of needle nose plyers then install the last 2 headbolts and start torquing the head down. It would cut 5 hours off a headgasket replacement. Working piecework they still had to pay me for those 5 book time hours i saved.

These werent elaborate tools, they were made out of old headbolts, and angle iron strut material 2ith prepunched holes in it, some ductt aped on pipe insulation and a bungee cord. When i left the dealership, i gave em to one of the other mechanics i was friends with.

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Moparmat2000 said:

Grabbed some master cylinder lines off a junkyard 4 wheel ABS truck, and bent em into a bench bleeder setup. Got some plastic caps to thread into the ports as well

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PlayingWithTBI said:

Here's one I'm sure a lot of you have done. A buddy of mine needed help replacing an A/C line on his Jeep, he happened to have an old chest freezer laying around so, we removed the compressor(don't flip it upside down or you'll lose all the oil), I made a mount for it, soldered a fitting I had in my tool box, and wired it in with a switch.

It'll draw the system down to around -28". I'll run it for about 1/2 hour then, shut it off and leave it over night (1 hour will do if you're in a hurry) to make sure the system is sealed before charging it.

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