Tools You Need to Get Started 101: Part 2

Safety Equipment

First I have to cover and stress SAFETY EQUIPMENT. Not bubble boy levels, just simple but important stuff with a touch of the why.

Gloves

Not the “mechanics” gloves either. I'm mainly talking Latex and Nitrile, but there are others (each has a different list of chemicals they will or won't keep out). The easiest concern to understand here is solvents (gasoline, diesel, brake/carb cleaners, etc.) as they can absorb straight through human skin almost instantly too much of the time. The premise of keeping stuff that is not skin, out of your skin, holds true for everything you will work on.

Side note here, same idea goes for your lungs; try to keep things that aren't air out of them. I stress these things as they are easy and cheap to do. I've watched my husband's uncle, father, and father's best friend die to extremely aggressive cancers related to these exact things. Latex/nitrile gloves tend to be cheap, and so is holding your breath or covering your mouth/nose with your shirt when blowing off dusty components.

Gloves come not only in different sizes, but also different thicknesses. These thicknesses are rated in mils. Not millimeters, mils. For reference, a mil is one-thousandth of an inch thick. Comparing glove thicknesses to toilet paper is fairly apt. 5-6 mils thick is similar to 2-ply toilet paper. Below that, is 1-ply. If you've never used it, you don't want to. Above 5-6 mils is your super plush 2-ply or 3-ply. Yes, it protects your hands more, but you lose a lot of feeling of what you're doing.

Safety Glasses

Next in personal safety is glasses; impact rated safety glasses. These can be so affordable that some places hand them out for free during things like events. Two huge downsides are you might need to go through several different brands/models to find a set with minimal gaps between them and your face, and they'll usually fog up at some point. My preferred is actually to look through motorcycling glasses and goggles. Motorcycle parts stores and dealerships tend to have a selection of these (in the $5 to $20+ range) to try on before buying. They also usually have some kind of material to form a gasket to your face (keeping crap out of your eyes even better), and tend to have anti-fog coatings on the inside of the lenses. Motorcycle or non, you will find impact rated safety glasses (and goggles) in clear, tinted, sunglasses, and even polarized sunglasses versions. There are also plenty of ways to help keep them from fogging up on you.

Face Shields

Very important to note here is safety glasses or goggles are absolutely no replacement for a protective face shield if you are doing something high energy like using a wire wheel. I've actually seen a wire come off a wheel, go through a man's cheek just under his glasses, and embed in his eye. Thank god no one pulled out the wire and the hospital was able to save his vision (they said the eye would be permanently blind if he pulled the wire out before going). I also suggest wearing your safety glasses/goggles under your face shield any time you use it. I've had them catch plenty of stuff that made it under the face shield.

Hearing Protection

Hearing protection of some kind should also be worn any time things get loud, and not like atom bomb loud. Any sustained sound above 90 decibels can cause permanent hearing damage. Any singular sound in the 110 to 115 decibel range can cause permanent hearing damage. Car horns are in the 90 to 110 (legal limit) range, train horns are around 115 to 118, rifles are roughly 140 to 170, the average commercial jet engine is around 150, and the Apollo mission's Saturn V rockets were 203 decibels. Because of the way decibel scaling works, 160 is actually ten times louder than 150. For those of you wondering, that means the Saturn Vs were ten thousand times louder than a jet engine (according to Universe Today). Why is any of this important? Sometimes it's fun to know certain random stuff, and to explain that a single simple hammer hit can do permanent damage to your ears.

Plugging your ears with your fingers or shoulder is free, foam earplugs can be found cheap in lots of stores, and hearing protection ear muffs/head phones can be found for a few dollars more than foams as they aren't one use per pair. On this subject, ear muffs/headphones can protect a little better than earplugs of similar rating, because they can better reduce the vibrations that make it to your ear bones through your skull (yes skull, not ears). Wearing both ear plugs and muffs/phones is totally an option if you know you will be dealing with something extra/extremely loud. It doesn't double your protection, but it does add more. These days there are all sorts of electronic hearing protection equipment that are relatively affordable and do things like Bluetooth to your phone, or use a microphone and speakers to play outside sound for you and cut off above a certain noise level. Cheap ones of these can be had in the $20-$50 range.

Jack Stands

And for the love of god, jack stands! Find (research, PF and others have tested them), buy, and USE jack stands. If you are going to be under a vehicle, use jack stands. One corner of the average car weighs enough to turn your skull into a dropped egg. SUVs, trucks, and larger vehicles have enough weight in one corner to make your whole body like that at once. I've personally had five different jacks fail on me, twice while I was under the vehicle. At the very least if you pull a wheel/rim and put it under a location that can support the vehicle's weight as close as manageable to you, like a jack point, the frame/subframe, engine cradle, etc., this is free and could save your or a loved one's life.

Bonus Suggestions

Not going to say helmet, elbow, and knee pads. BUT. A moving blanket or large piece of cardboard can make a gravel driveway a little less spiky or an asphalt/tarmac/concrete driveway a little softer on your back. A cheap foam kneeling pad or mechanics pad makes any surface nicer to kneel or lay on.

Okay, maybe helmet, elbow and knee pads aren't so bad: wheel chocks. These are always useful when changing a flat tire. At least here in Pennsylvania, you're never on level ground with a flat. Ideally, these should always be used anytime you're using a jack or jack stands. Parking brakes can fail. If left in gear, engines can turn. If left in park, parking palls in automatics can snap. Yes, wheel chocks do slide or in general might not be big enough for your tire/vehicle combo. That's why like with nuclear weapons, you use multiple safeties to prevent an accident should one or more fail.

On to Actual Tools Now

Since we were just talking about jack stands, a jack and jack stands are on the list of tools you definitely need getting started. Get a jack, AND JACK STANDS, rated for the weight of what you are lifting. Do not be a Darwin Award winner and try lifting a truck weighing 4 tons (8,000 pounds) with a 1.5 ton (3,000 pound) rated jack. I highly prefer the jack to be rated for the full weight of the vehicle minimum, and the jack stands to be rated at double the full weight of the vehicle as jack stand rating is the pair combined not each. Is it because overkill is the only kind of kill worth doing? No. It's because it's your life on the line, and because for every foot of fall an object has, it hits the ground with double the previous foot's energy. So if your 2,000 pound Miata falls three feet, it hits the ground with 16,000 pounds of force.

Take this stuff deadly seriously, and not deadly in 40 years serious like the gloves, deadly today serious. A $40 12-ton (24,000 pound) jack might sound really appealing now, but they are skinny compared with a floor jack both in where they touch the ground and where they touch the vehicle (a.k.a. not extremely stable). They won't fit under something that doesn't have eight to twelve inches of ground clearance either, so I wouldn't recommend them for beginners. However, they can make a fine emergency jack for larger vehicles as long as you know where to lift from and are mindful of it being easier to tip over.

Important notes:

• Jack ratings tend not to be how much it can lift, but max weight before its safety valve bleeds off excess pressure (potentially letting it down all the way with you under it)

• Whenever you're using jacks, try to be on level ground, make sure the parking brake is on, for automatics make sure it's in park, for manuals make sure it's in gear. A low gear, like first or reverse. Wheel chocks are also a good idea on top of these safety measures. If you have a 4WD and want to be extra, you can also make sure it's in 4WD. 

• When you have a vehicle in place on a jack or stand give it a reasonable 15 to 30 pound shake to make sure everything is good and stable before taking anything apart or getting under it

• No rule saying you can't leave a jack under a vehicle after jack stands are supporting it. Should a stand sink or fail, the jack might save your life. Best to have the jack touching or supporting a SMALL amount of weight in this case.

Using an emergency jack to change a flat tire is a perfect segway here into breaker bars and torque wrenches. These can, in emergencies, do both their own jobs and each others'.

Breaker Bars

First up are breaker bars, nothing fancy with these. Just a long, solid steel bar you can attach sockets to. No sensitive calibrated components or ratcheting mechanisms to break, so they can take a LOT of force without breaking (things get scary with 30+ degrees of flex on a 2ft one), but more importantly they tend to be long to make loosening really tight things easier on you (mechanical advantage, a.k.a. long lever). If you have ever heard of someone putting a pipe on a ratchet to be able to loosen something really tight (sometimes called a cheater bar), this is it factory. The handle of hydraulic floor jacks can be used this way in emergencies if you don't have access to a breaker bar.

Torque Wrenches

Next is the torque wrench, these are for putting things together with a fairly specific amount of tightness. Usually specified as Pound-force foot (lbf-ft) or Newton meter (N-m), but there are others such as Pound-force inch (lbf-in) and Kilogram-force meter (kgf-m). Every nut, bolt, and screw on a vehicle has a tightness (or torque) specification. I preach using one of these on everything with enough space to fit it. There are many myths and good practices with these. Torque Test Channel over on YouTube is a decent place to learn some of these and see which is which using test equipment. If you do need to use one of these to get something loose, at least set the torque to max first to help prevent damaging the internals.

Hammers

Keeping with the heavy hitting tools, one you'll definitely find a use for is the miniature sledge hammer a.k.a. mini sledge, or in some cases engineer's hammer, blacksmith's hammer, or a drilling hammer. Hammers are way more useful and common in vehicle repairs than the uninitiated may think, and the right one for each situation is much like Goldilocks's porridge. However, the right one can get you by in a lot of cases as “good enough” for a while. You're looking for something in the two to four pound range; it's a balance of heaviest hit you can manage and small enough to fit the work area. Space is a serious luxury you won't have most times. Even handle length will matter a lot.

My personal Swiss Army hammer is a short handled, 2.5Lb mini sledge I picked up for like $10, and friends dubbed Mjolnir (a.k.a. The mighty Thor's hammer) over the years. Not much else to be said here besides don't break what you are trying to fix. You can always hit it harder the second or fiftieth time, and their uses are limited to your creativity.

Pry Bars

I can't mention mini sledges as an absolutely needed tool without mentioning pry bars. Archimedes said “Give me a long enough lever and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”. That's pry bars, and it's true. While I do have a five foot one for really stubborn things, you mostly can get by with a small set fairly well, and huge ones usually require a shop lift not a floor jack to use. Most sets can be hammered on, which you will need to do for at least some things.

Wrenches

While a good starter set of sockets and ratchets will likely come with wrenches, you will very likely need a separate and more complete set, or two, at least. Wrenches are not nearly all created equal, and I highly suggest doing research before buying (like PF or TTC for example). There are also many different types of wrenches, some with extremely specific jobs in mind like line wrenches. There are also wrenches that are not wrenches. Like crowfoot wrenches that have no handle because they go on ratchets like sockets do, and plier wrenches. Yes, I'm serious about the plier wrenches, and they are so much better than using an adjustable wrench in a fair few cases. They can sometimes be better than using the right wrench even.

I know I'm trying to make it so your head doesn't spin just thinking about looking at tools but looking at all the different type of wrenches will definitely do it, especially since all companies carry different selections of designs and some designs are only available form one or two companies. Thankfully, traditional style wrenches will get the job done most of the time.

As stated in the article about tool kits, if you are planning on ratcheting wrenches, have a set of traditional wrenches too because ratcheting ones are fat and won't fit nearly all places you need them. On the same vein, wrenches like sockets come in both 6-point and 12-point closed end/box end versions. This goes for both ratcheting and normal wrenches. 6-point takes much more force to round off something/slip, but you have fewer choices of where the wrench has to be in order to get it on a nut/bolt. This means it's generally not a great idea to buy 6pt normal wrenches as your only normals, and that it's not really an issue for ratcheting wrenches. The flip side of this is on larger fasteners the ratcheting mechanisms might fail before a 12pt normal wrench rounds something, although most mortals can't apply the force required with just their two hands on the wrench.

Quick mention of some of the other wrenches here. Ratcheting open end wrenches (open end has a ratcheting mechanism). Strap wrenches. Chain wrenches. T-handle wrenches. High offset wrenches (great for getting a strut/shock rod nut off). And the big red wrench also known as the hot wrench, which is a torch (because red hot bolts are easier to break loose, and it can't be tight if it's liquid).

Extending Your Wrenches

On the note of wrenches would be wrench extenders, for when your hands alone are not enough to break loose a stuck bolt with that short wrench. You can buy or make these. Best budget option is to improvise with your other wrenches till you buy or make one. This can be done by interlocking a box end of one wrench and an open end of another, but will not work in as many situations as an actual wrench extender.

Pliers

Since most basic tool kits worth buying have bit drivers and bits, a set of screw drivers falls a tiny bit less important than a set of pliers. There are a lot of different type and size pliers, but a general purpose set should be useful for most of your needs. You should probably have a set of side cutters, slip joint pliers, tongue and groove pliers (“channel lock”, it's actually a brand's name like Velcro), and needle nose pliers in a set/kit at least.

Pliers you should be aware of but shouldn't need just getting started are snap ring pliers. Not a lot else to say here other than you will find uses for them, you will be creative when you don't have the right one/size, and there are advanced toolbox ones like hose spring clamp pliers.

Screwdrivers

Screwdrivers are tools everyone should have. You don't need things like the two foot long one or z-style offset ones just starting out, but they do need to not be made out of butter. Not only are some sets made better than others, some are specifically made to be able to put a wrench or socket and ratchet on them if things are guten-tight. Other things of note here are you will definitely use your flat head screwdrivers as chisels or pry bars at some point (a matter of when not if), and long screwdrivers are the cheap/old school mechanic's stethoscope. Think a serpentine belt idler pulley bearing is bad? Put a long screwdriver on the center bolt or someplace really close with it running and press your ear to the screwdriver handle. Smooth swish sound means its fine, loud growl like rocks in a blender means it's past toast.

Other than that, there are more than just Phillips and flat (slot) head screwdrivers. For example, JIS which is an improved version of Philips and almost guaranteed when dealing with something made in Japan. If you are buying your screwdrivers separately, I highly suggest considering a set of these as they work with Philips screws as well as the original or better and way better in JIS screws than a Phillips screwdriver would. Torx and allen/hexes were covered in part one. Torx plus is not like the JIS story (will not fit in a traditional torx screw/bolt), and any other specialty screwdrivers other than the safety version are exceedingly rare.

Drain Pans

You will need drain pans. Depending on what you are doing you may need a coolant drain pan or oil drain pan. No, they are not all equal. For instance, some double as a storage/transport container that you can close while you take the fluid to a recycle/disposal location (many auto parts stores do this) where they will be drained and the container handed back to you (if you want) as these are the more expensive ones.

There are fluid extractors that can vacuum fluids out instead of draining them (some cars actually don't have oil drain bolts because they were designed to be drained this way (Great way to screw over the average person and shop), but these are not nearly as cheap as drain pans.

No matter what you are draining, make sure the pan you are using is bigger than needed. A.K.A. don't use a 4qt pan to drain 4qts into unless absolutely necessary; it's going to make a mess if not perfectly level and when you move it. While most cars hold about three to five quarts of oil, trucks and SUVs can hold two to five GALLONS of oil, so figure it out before getting started. As for how to hold/transport it without the combo drain pans, the large jugs that the fluids came in (pretty much any of them bigger than 1qt) work fine when empty and usually have large openings to make pouring back into easier.

Oil Filter Sockets

Speaking of oil, you need the socket for your oil filter. Trust me, you won't really appreciate these until you are used to it and don't have it (like changing a family member's oil). They are not expensive and easy to find. Even 3D printed ones work if the filter was installed correctly (not severely over tightened and the O-ring lubricated first). In the rare cases the sockets are impractical to fit in the work area, there are also oil filter wrenches (strap wrenches) and oil filter pliers that will help get the job done. I personally put off getting a filter socket for many years until I dealt with an improperly installed oil filter on a motorcycle I purchased, and only a socket would fit around the filter. Never going back.

Funnels

Whether it's topping off a fluid or refilling after draining, most people will want/appreciate a funnel. They can make life easier and faster, or in the case of automatic transmissions, are often thought to be the only option. There is a wide range of prices, sizes, and shapes. Many are available for under $10, some around $1, and they are easy to make in a pinch.

Making a funnel is straight forward when boiled down. It should have an output hole smaller than what you are trying to fill, an input hole big enough to make it easier for you to pour into, and preferably move the input hole to a location easy to pour into. I've made them by cutting the bottom off of water bottles, soda bottles, or milk jugs, or rolling up things like magazine covers, and even construction paper when needed.

While the obvious advantages of not making a mess and easier to fill would be the first thoughts for why professionals use them, its often not the main reason. The number one is speed as they usually get paid by the job not the hour, meaning the more they get done the more they get paid. It might not seem like much, but imagine needing to add 3 gallons of oil. Now imagine a funnel that holds more than 3 gallons and screws into the engine. You fill it up and can put away your tools or do other work while it's draining. The last advantage I'll mention is the ability to put some kind of a screen or filter in the funnel if you are forced to re-use a drained fluid in a pinch. It sounds like a minor note, but this is usually why I pull out or make a funnel to use.

There are two major down sides that come to my mind when thinking of funnels. The first here is the major annoyance when they make a huge mess when they don't drain fast enough, erupt like a volcano, make you overfill something, or tip over in the middle of everything. The second is my main reason for rarely if ever using one. Dirt/dust/debris. Once you use a funnel, it will become a magnet for anything in the air like one of those old ionic air purifiers. An offshoot of this is cross contamination of fluids, which can be really bad. Coolant in the engine oil will dissolve main/rod bearings. Brake fluid in the engine oil will damage oil/valve seals, in some cases dissolving them. Oil in the brake fluid basically does the same as brake fluid in the oil. Oil in the engine coolant can make a foamy sludge that will clog anything and is really hard to get rid of. Make sure to clean your funnels just before use, or get accurate enough to not make a big mess when pouring without using one.

Side note here. Most fluid containers have their caps offset to one side. While I have heard some theories on this that could make some sense, I personally lean towards it being for two reasons. Both are because if you put the cap at the highest point while pouring, you can tilt the bottles farther over before fluid comes out. This helps prevent the fluid from sticking to the bottle at all parts of a pour. This makes for cleaner and more accurate (both in location and amount) pours.

Ohms / Volt Meter

You should also have a multi meter/volt meter/ohm meter/volts ohms meter (for our purposes these are all the same thing). You can find these in many shapes, sizes, and prices. You are mainly looking for three things: volts DC, volts AC, and Ohms/resistance. Most wiring tests explained in your repair manual will be DC voltage tests, DC voltage drop tests, and Ohms/resistance readings. The AC voltage function is solely to test the rectifier/diode bridge in your alternator. A single volt is bad, and golden is below one or two tenths of a volt.

If you've heard of a continuity test function, it's nice but not needed. It's an Ohm reading by sound. If there is a connection and electricity can pass, the meter makes sound. That's all. It is very nice in tight spaces where it's hard to turn and see the meter readings. There are additional tests and functions like testing amperage draws or checking temperatures, seeing RPM by putting a clamp over a spark plug wire, highest number memory, lowest number memory and others on the more expensive models.

Picks and Razor Blades

I'm lumping razor blades and picks together. They are cheap and easy to find (especially razor blades). The ultra cheap picks like the $2 set from Horrible Fright, I mean Harbor Freight, are fine for lots of things, especially starting out. Nice supplemental picks to have are the skinny, dental style picks for an extra couple of dollars. Razor blades have many uses, but the first one that always comes to mind is scraping gasket material off to clean a surface.

Which brings me to an important and often lesser known note: plastic razor blades. Iron/steel has mostly gone the way of the dodo for gasket surfaces in engines, transmissions, and transfer cases for many years now. Steel razor blades can ruin one of these aluminum surfaces in a moment, but a plastic razor blade just about requires an act of god to do so. I HIGHLY recommend having some plastic razor blades, and rarely reaching for a traditional steel one for cleaning off gasket material.

Pocket Knife

Last here is a pocket knife. Just a nice thing to have on hand. They can cut, scrape, pry, pick, sometimes screw, and more. Just be careful not to use the “stupid story at the emergency room” features. For instance always cut AWAY from yourself not towards so that if it slips or blasts through what you are cutting, you don't become what it is cutting.

The Book

This must really show my age or at least my mindset, but the darn book. By that I mean a repair/service manual for your vehicle. This is a dying trend, and I understand why what with YouTube and forums these days. However to use them properly you should have a strong knowledge of what you are doing and how things work to begin with, so that you can tell if what you are seeing is correct or not. A repair manual or service manual should give you all you need, but if it doesn't, you at least have something with trust worthy info to compare what you find on the internet too.

Beyond just telling you the repairs step by step, they have explanations of each systems' job and how they work, diagnostic flow charts, diagnostic tests, torque specs, explanations of different visible wear patterns, locations of things in the vehicle, bolt tightening/loosening orders, fluid capacities, fluid types, gear ratios, spark plug heat ranges, how to use certain specialty tools (like a micrometer), and more.

You can buy the paper books, which I prefer for a few small reasons, or you can get one digitally. In fact if you own an older vehicle, the forums might have the actual factory service manual available to download for free. In fact NICO (Nissan Infinity Owners Club) is where I got the 1,000 page Nissan factory service manual for my 1998 240sx's.

I mentioned liking paper better. For one, you don't have to touch your phone with greasy hands in the middle of a repair. Other nice things are the ability to use book darts or post-it page markers, can permanently highlight things, write in your own comments/corrections (like a toque spec being wrong or increased oil capacity from a larger filter), if you get stuck in a place with no internet, don't have to deal with bad formatting/sizing, and can go with vehicle. That's not to say that digital doesn't have its own nice advantages. For instance searching for a specific word/test/specification (not nearly always there on older files), the ability to print/re-print it whenever, zooming in on images/words, portability, or lower chance of it getting damaged/lost.