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Mechanic's Definitions By Peter Egan, Road & Track
- HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer
nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive
car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
- MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard
cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well
on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.
- ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used
for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of
old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting
holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line
that goes to the rear axle.
- HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija
board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable
motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the
more dismal your future becomes.
- VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is
available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding
heat to the palm of your hand.
- OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost
entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep
hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife
would think to look in there?) because you can never remember
to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX
at Fort Campbell.
- WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles,
they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from
the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.
- DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching
flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you
in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering
it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.
- WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere
under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint
whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it
takes you to say "Django Reinhardt".
- HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you
have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs,
trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.
- EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS
FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward
off a hydraulic jack.
- TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.
- PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another
hydraulic floor jack.
- SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading
mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.
- E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD
EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in
bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
- TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease
buildup on crankshaft pulleys.
- TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE
HOIST: A handy tool for testing the
tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines
you may have forgotten to disconnect.
- CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH
SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying
tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver
tip on the end without the handle.
- BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from
car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that
your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
- TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called
a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine
vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night.
Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt
light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells
might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle
of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat
misleading.
- PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin
oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the
name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
- AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning
power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed
air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench
that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago
by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.
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