CAR HUMOR
10 Best Car Repair Tools of All Time
There are only 10 things in this world you need to fix any car, any place, any time.
1. Duct Tape: Not just a tool, a veritable Swiss Army knife in stickum and plastic. It's safety wire, body material, radiator hose, upholstery, insulation, tow rope, and more - in an easy to carry package. Sure, there's prejudice surrounding duct tape in professional competitions, but in the real world, everything from LeMans-winning Porsches to Atlas rockets and attack-helicopters use it by the yard. The only thing that can get you out of more scrapes is a quarter and a phone booth.
2. Vice Grips: Equally adept as a wrench, hammer, pliers, baling wire twister, breaker-off of frozen bolts and wiggle-it-til-it-falls-off tool. The heavy artillery of your tool box, vice grips are the only tool designed expressly to fix things screwed up beyond repair.
3. Spray Lubricants: A considerably cheaper alternative to new doors, alternator, and other squeaky items. Slicker than pig phlegm, repeated soakings will allow the main hull bolts of the Andrea Doria to be removed by hand. Strangely enough, an integral part of these sprays is the infamous Little Red Tube that flies out of the nozzle if you look at it cross eyed (one of the 10 worst tools of all time).
4. Margarine Tubs with Clear Lids: If you spend all your time under the hood looking for a frendle pin that caromed off the pertal valve when you knocked both off the air cleaner, it's because you eat butter. Real mechanics consume pounds of tasteless vegetable oil replicas just so they can use the empty tubs for parts containers afterward. (Some of course chuck the butter-colored goo altogether or use it to repack wheel bearings.) Unlike air cleaners and radiator lips, margarine tubs aren't connected by a time/space wormhole to the Parallel Universe of Lost Frendle Pins.
5. Big Rock at the Side of the Road: Block up a tire. Smack corroded battery terminals. Pound out a dent. Bop noisy know-it-all types on the noodle. Scientists have yet to develop a hammer that packs the raw banging power of granite or limestone. This is the only tool with which a "Made in Malaysia" emblem is not synonymous with the user being maimed.
6. Plastic Zip Ties: After 20 years of lashing down stray hose and wiring with old bread ties, some genius brought a slightly slicked-up version to the auto parts market. Fifteen zip ties can transform a hulking mass of amateur-quality wiring from a working model of the Brazilian Rain Forest into something remotely resembling a wiring harness. Of course it works both ways. When buying a used car, subtract $100 for each zip tie you find under the hood.
7. Ridiculously Large Craftsman Screwdriver: Let's admit it. There's nothing better for prying, chiseling, lifting, breaking, splitting or mutilating than a huge flatbladed screwdriver, particularly when wielded with gusto and a big hammer. This is also the tool of choice for all oil filters so insanely located that they can only be removed by driving a stake in one side and out the other. If you break the screwdriver -- and you will just like Dad and your shop teacher said -- who cares, it has a lifetime guarantee.
8. Baling Wire: Commonly known as MG muffler brackets, baling wire holds anything that's too hot for tape or ties. Like duct tape, it's not recommended for NASCAR contenders, since it works so well you'll never need to replace it with the right thing again. Baling wire is a sentimental favorite in some circles, particularly with the Pinto, Gremlin, and Rambler set.
9. Bonking Stick: This monstrous tuning fork with devilish pointy ends is technically known as a tie-rod separator, but how often do you separate tie-rod ends? Once every decade if you're lucky. Other than medieval combat, its real use is the all-purpose application of undue force, not unlike that of the huge flat-bladed screwdriver. Nature doesn't know the bent metal panel or frozen exhaust pipe that can stand up to a good bonking stick. (Can also be use to separate tie-rod ends in a pinch, of course, but does a lousy job of it).
10. A Quarter and a Phone Booth: See tip #1 above.
* If it won't go - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway....
Car Acronyms
ACURA:
- Another Crummy, Useless, Rotten Automobile
- Asia's Curse Upon Rural America
AMC:
- vAll Makes Combined
- A Major Cost
- A Mutated Car
- A Morons Car
- Another Major Catastrophe
AUDI:
- Always Unsafe Designs Implemented
- Accelerates Under Demonic Influence
- Automobile Under Demonic Influence
- Another Ugly Deutsche Invention
- Always Undermining Deutsche Intelligence
- Automobile Unsafe Designs, Inc.
BMW:
- Big Money Works
- Bought My Wife
- Brutal Money Waster
- Break My Window
- Break My Windshield
- Babbling Mechanical Wench
- Beastly Monstrous Wonder
- Beautiful Masterpieces on Wheels
- Beautiful Mechanical Wonder
- Barely Moving Wreck
- Big Money Waste
- Big Money. Why?
- Big Money Works
- Born Moderately Wealthy
- Breaks Most Wrenches
- Bring Many Wrenches
- Brings Me Women
- Brings More Women
- Broken Money Waster
- Broke My Wallet
- Broken Monstrous Wonder
- Bumbling Mechanical Wretch
- Blasphemous Motorized Wreck
BUICK:
- Big Ugly Indestructible Car Killer
- Big Ugly Imitation Chrome King
CHEVROLET:
- Can Hear Every Valve Rap On Long Extended Trips
- Cheap, Hardly Efficient, Virtually Runs On Luck Every Time
- Cracked Heads, Every Valve Rattles, Oil Leaks Every Time
- Constantly Having Every Vehicle Recalled Over Lousy Engineering Techniques
DODGE:
- Dear Old Dads Garage Experiment
EDSEL: - Every Day Something Else Leaks
FIAT:
- Failure in Italian Automotive Technology
- Fix It Again, Tony!
- Feeble Italian Attempt at Transportation
FORD:
- Frigin' Old Rebuilt Dodge
- Fix Or Repair Daily
- Found On Road Dead
- Fast Only Rolling Downhill
-
First On Recall Day
- Fabricated Of Refried Dung
- Fails On Rainy Days
- Fantastically Orgasmic Realistic Dream
- Fatally Obese Redneck Driver
- Fault Of R&D
- Freaky Obsolete Racing Device
- Fireball On Rear Denting
- First On Road to Dump
- First On Rust and Deterioration
- Fix Or Recycle Dilemma
- Flipping Over Results in Death
- Flipped Over Roadside Disaster
- Follow Our Rusty Dogsled
- Foot On Road Decelerates
- Forced On Reluctant Drivers
- Formed Of Rejected DNA
- Forwarded Once; Return Denied
- Forward Only; Reverse Defective
- Forlorn, Old, Ratridden Dustbin
- Fork Over Repair Dough
- Fouled Out Re-done Dodge
- Frequent Overhaul, Rapid Deterioration
- Free Or Reduced Drastically
- Frequent Opinion: Really Disappointed
- Fumes and Odors Readily Detectable
- Funny Old Rattling Dump
- (backwards) Driver Returns On Foot
GEO: - Good Engineering Overlooked
GM:
- General Maintenance
- Great Mistake
- Garbage Motors
- Generally Miserable
- Grossly Misconceived
- Gluteus Maximus
GMC:
- Garage Man's Companion
- Gotta Mechanic Coming?
- Generally Mediocre Cars
- Get More Chickens
- Gets Mechanics Crazy
- Gods Mechanical Curse
- Got More Crap
GTO: - Gas, Tires, Oil
HONDA:
- Had One Never Did Again
- Hang On, Not Done Accelerating
- Hallmark Of Non-Descript Automobiles
- Hallmark Of Non-Destructable Automobiles
HYUNDAI: - Hope You Understand Nothing's Driveable And Inexpensive...
JEEP:
- Just Eats Every Part
- Junk Engineering Executed Poorly
MAZDA: - Most Always Zipping Dangerously Along
MG: - Money Guzzler
MGB: - Might Go Backwards
MGF: - Might Go Forward
MIATA: - My Intention: Always To Accelerate
MOPAR
- Most Often Picked At Races
- Move Over People Are Racing
- Move Over Plymouth Approaching Rapidly
- Move Over Power Approaching Rapidly
MUSTANG: - Motor Under Strain, Transmission Almost No Good
OLDSMOBILE: - Overpriced, Leisurely Driven Sedan Made Of Buick's Irregular Leftover Equipment
PINTO:
- Put In Nickel To Operate
- Paid Inspector Nicely To Overlook
PONTIAC: - Poor Old Numbskull Thinks Its A Cadillac
PORSCHE: - Proof Of Rich Spoiled Children Having Everything
SAAB:
- Send Another Automobile Back
- Swedish Automobiles Always Breakdown
- Sad Attempt At Beauty
- Sorry Auto, Always Broken
- Shape Appears Ass-Backwards
SUBARU: - Screwed Up Beyond All Repair Usually
TOYOTA:
- Too Often Yankees Overprice This Auto
- Torturous On Your Old Tired Ass
- The One You Ought To Avoid
TRIUMPH:
- This Really Is Unreliable Man, Please Help!
- Tried Repairing It Until My Parts Hurt!
VOLVO: - Very Odd Looking Vehicular Object
VW: - Virtually Worthless
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