On a recent junkyard trip Sean and I came across this monstrosity in a Ford. Sean’s comment: “Wanna take one guess as to how this guy crashed?” Known most commonly as a “spinner knob” (or alternatively as a “suicide knob”), more sturdy and functional versions of this thing made cranking a whopping huge steering wheel around three or four full revolutions lock-to-lock easier. But with the advent of modern power steering — and a strong desire among most state motor vehicle departments to discourage the inaccurate steering inputs that lead to over-control — spinners are actually illegal in some places around the U.S.

But a non-spinning version made from nylon tape and a golf ball? That’s just an accident waiting to happen.

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Specialty tools for a given engine family drive me nuts. Is it really that difficult to design something which works with thousands of preexisting tools? Unfortunately, General Motors didn’t do that with their Ecotec engines’ oil filter caps, which are so common that nearly every mechanic is going to run into one at some point. Ecotecs have an unusual cartridge-style filter design. Instead of a paper filter element contained in a disposable metal casing, there’s an aluminum housing cast into the block which accepts a standalone paper filter, and it’s covered by a plastic cap with unusual artillery-pattern threads and a 32mm male hex on top.

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Reader Scott pointed us to his blog where he asks the following:

What are these little blue and grey caps called? What do they do? Are they part of the cooling system? What happens if they are not there?

Ellen’s 2001 Eclipse is overheating now and then. Her coolant reservoir is empty, we filled it. The radiator seemed to still be full of coolant. Near the coolant reservoir there is a metal pipe/line that looks like it has one of these little caps missing. There is also a short hose coming out of the reservoir that is not attached to anything but we assume this is an overflow hose, are we right?

Before I launch into some possible explanations, I’d like to point out that I’m not going to make fun of Scott. And I’d like to ask that you don’t either. Some of us were lucky enough to have parents or friends (or just plain situation) that gave us an understanding of basic automotive troubleshooting before we were old enough to drink legally. But some didn’t.

Our job as Toolmongers isn’t to deride them but to pass on that knowledge — to remind our less-experienced friends that they can figure it out by using the same reasoning they apply to other problems in life.

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Most online automotive service databases require an expensive yearly subscription, and the price, excepting AllDataDIY.com, is usually out of shadetree mechanics’ reaches. But free is always affordable. Chilton’s, long-time aftermarket service manual supplier, maintains an electronic database which Michigan residents can access free through the Michigan e-Library.

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You don’t own a boat or a trailer and you’re wondering what to do with your vehicle’s receiver hitch, so why not mount a grill? The Margaritaville from Freedom Grill sits on a heavy-duty swing arm that mounts in any 2″ receiver.

The grill’s 20,000 BTU stainless steel burner heats its 352 square-inch cooking surface using a 1 lb. propane tank or, with an optional adapter, a 20 lb. propane tank. The grill features fold-out side tables, a fold-down condiment tray, and even has carrying handles if you don’t feel comfortable with open flames near your gas tank.

You’ll pay about $400 for the Margaritaville Tailgating Grill.

Margaritaville [Freedom Grill]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

A reader in the comment stream from my post about Longacre Racing Products’ toe gauge asked about tools for setting the other two most commonly-referenced suspension characteristics: caster and camber. Caster is non-adjustable on the vast majority of vehicles. Unless you have a full-race car or some serious modifications, it’s never something you’ll need to worry about, since it’s built right into the suspension components. Camber adjustments aren’t exactly commonplace, but a few vehicles (like the famous Dodge Neon ACR) have factory-adjustable suspensions that allow camber tweaks, and you can buy aftermarket camber adjustment plates which permit slight shifts in a car’s suspension mounting points. For the amateur racer, more or less is generally all you need to know, but if you’re looking to repeat or record settings, you’ll need something like Longacre’s camber gauge.

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What the hell’s been going on with the Toolmonger Shop Truck Build? Well, for a while, a lot of nothing. You may have noticed that the economy isn’t exactly stellar, and honestly we just didn’t have the dough to mess with it for a while. But we’re off the dime, and the truck’s on the move again.

Once we got the engine out and on its stand we discovered we had a lot of work ahead of us. (Remember: a “free” truck is never free.) Time did a number on this truck, and its previous owner had ridden it hard and put it away wet more than once. Under the hood was just as rough as the interior and body work. In fact, it was worse.

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You’re rolling down the road and the sound of your own trailer’s driving you crazy. That unholy racket could be caused by the hitch bar being loose in the receiver. Luckily there are a few ready-made solutions that’ll dampen that clanking.

Just slip Valley’s anti-rattle hitch bracket over the hitch bar and tighten the bar against the receiver with a single bolt. Made from steel, the bracket fits most 2″ square receiver hitches. If Valley’s anti-rattle hitch bracket just doesn’t get the job done, there’s always the Eliminator from Surco. This beefy anti-sway bracket slips over the 2″ hitch bars and clamps down on both the bar and the hitch with 16 points of contact on all four sides! Surco coats the steel bracket with a rust-resistant black powder coat.

If Valley’s anti-rattle bracket will work for you it’ll only set you back $20; otherwise you’ll need fifty bucks from that “friend” of yours to buy the Eliminator.

Valley Towing Street Pricing [Google Products]
Eliminator Street Pricing [Google Products]
Valley Street Pricing [Google Products]
Eliminator Street Pricing [Google Products]
Valley Via Amazon
Eliminator Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Despite the name and looks, don’t expect the alien horde to wave these around when they come for Earth. This $310 oddball is designed to spread CV joint boots wide enough to slip the narrow end over the bearings to save time. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone without the patience to remove the joint’s circlips to install the boot, so this is probably a production-only or very specialized tool. It seems to use an adjustable air supply to apply enough torque to spread the boot, but I can’t be sure since I’ve never used one.

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I couldn’t care less about a stiff left leg when traffic crawls; I am a religiously dedicated manual driver. I’ll stay away from the reasons - we’ve all heard them ad nauseum. Servicing a clutch can be a chore, but the same is true of torque converters, though the latter can’t really be serviced by less than a professional.

Replacing a clutch requires an alignment tool, which is usually included with aftermarket clutches, but not necessarily with OEM and stock-replacement clutches. And sometimes the guy in the packing department had a liquid lunch. When you need one, the imaginatively-named Clutch Tools has just about everything. Manufactured from pressure-molded plastic by Kingsborne, and available for everything Chevrolet to Jensen-Healey, Clutch Tools retails them for about $10 apiece with free shipping.

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When it comes to automotive work, there are two things every Toolmonger shy of Jay Leno has troubling handling in their garage: suspension alignment and anti-theft systems. Tools exist to handle both, but very few have these tools. For the latter, leave it to the dealer, but most suspension adjustments can be handled with simple gear like the Longacre Racing toe bar.

As you can see, it’s easy to make one yourself. The bar amounts to two adjustable points on an arm. Use a scribe and test stand to to put a fine circle in either tire, the same radius on either side, by putting the scribe and stand on the ground and rotating the tire. Then use this bar to measure the difference in the width between the front and rear extremes of each circle.

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The National Geographic Channel’s Inside show had an episode on the Science of Armored Cars. I didn’t see it, but, if the picture above is any indication, I may have missed a good one. I did a quick search of the TM archives, but could not find if Nick had covered this in his TV Tonight posts.

The picture above is Dillon Aero’s Tactical Vehicle, a customized GMC Yukon featuring their M134D Gatling gun. Those are spent 7.62mm NATO shell casings on the roof and base of the windshield. The M134D Gatling gun can fire 3,000 rounds per minute.

Did any Toolmongers see this show? If so, what did you think?

Inside [National Geographic]
Video [National Geographic]
Dillon Aero [Manufacturer's Site]

Judging by the main page, Grape Ape Racing was put together by one man. The car above is the fruit of his labors and was the testbed for many of the theories assembled in a series of superb technical articles on the site. He covers almost every aspect of the build in exhausting detail, from the conceptual to the execution stages, from calculations to crankshaft.

Several short-and-sweet articles are the site’s gems, covering connecting rods, cooling systems, engine blocks, fuel systems, induction, nitrous, turbocharging, supercharging, torsional dampers, and valvetrains. These are broad enough to show the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches, yet in-depth enough to expose the math and let the readers decide for themselves. Add a detailed blow-by-blow of the Camaro’s build, and you have some great no-cost, rainy-day reading.

High-Performance Articles [Grape Ape Racing]

Automotive aftermarket supplier Eastwood is best known for their painting and media-blasting products, which are uniformly excellent. They also retail a simple set of pliers designed for forming hard brake lines. It’s probably harder to use and less accurate than models from Ridgid, Swagelok, or Imperial, but the $30 price tag is nice and low.

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If you ever need work done on your brakes, it’s best to avoid brake shops for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that they’ll often use a Jesus wrench (the biggest Channel Locks in their box) to compress the pistons, a procedure capable of cracking cheap calipers, and almost guaranteed to mar the piston. The right way is a brake caliper compressor, a sort of high-powered caulk gun designed to slip into the pad recess. Lisle’s model 25750 is a perfect example, and pretty inexpensive at just over $32 before shipping from Amazon.

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The biggest tire I ever had to change came from a Massey-Harris 44 and was just a few inches under five and a half feet tall. Let’s just say that the experience left me with a healthy respect for heavy-equipment mechanics. Something like Ken Tool’s Serpent might have been a saving grace. Designed for mounting and de-mounting tubeless truck tires, it’s a simple but elegant twist on the usual flat pry bar, as shown by a Ken Tool product demonstration that found its way to YouTube.

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In some cases, it’s easier to remove the alternator to release serpentine belt tension than to get a wrench or ratchet on the belt tensioner. Ignoring the lamentable decision-making process that spawns such folly, there is a workaround. I first saw very low-profile bars like these at a Tuffy where I worked, and everyone in the shop borrowed it almost every time they had to release a serpentine belt on a transverse-mounted engine. The owner probably wasn’t too happy with us, but the photo above shows why the pseudo-thefts were necessary.

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