Ashes to ashes...dust to dust...chrome to 11/16...

[Fat Hack]

Spent a few hours out in the garage today. Got the decklid re-aligned and the trunk pull handle in place on the old 49, then it started to rain again. Thought it'd be a good time to clean up shop and re-organize my scattered tools.

Man, what a job! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The funny (weird?) part is that when I got to sorting out sockets I found that some had vanished...and that a whole colony of 11/16" shallow sockets had taken over! There was also quite a herd of quarter inch drive 1/2" sockets claiming territory in one drawer!

Where did the missing sockets go...and where did all of those 11/16" ones come from??

(Anyone read Syephen King's "From a Buick 8" yet? I think my Chevy may be beaming sockets to another dimension somewhere and spitting out 11/16 replacemements!!)

Ha Ha...just a weird observation...I know I would never have bought so many sockets of ONE size (and not even a particularly USEFULL size at that!), so I was sort of amused by their sudden population growth!!

Anyone else have tools appearing and dissappearing in their garages??? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Anyhow...miles to go on the shop cleaning chores...wonder what ELSE will turn up new or newly missing?

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[Dirty Dug]

I just noticed I'm missing all my 11/16" sockets.

[TINGLER]

wait till the mutated monster flops outta the trunk....
then you'll really shit. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

JT.

[RileyRacing]

What about a Leatherman... has it puked up one of those yet? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Hopefully, that's all you find http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Jay

[OGNC]

Somehow I ended up with 3 oil filter wrenches in my tool box. Funny thing is that I have never purchased a single one. I have this old school strap wrench that I have used since I can remember. It is the darnedest thing...

[Bruce Lancaster]

Hmmm...11/16 is an early Ford size...
This might be some sort of population drift or racial warfare going on here...

[Hot Rod To Hell]

Pipe wrenches. Last time I cleaned and organized my garage I ended up with like 12 pipe wrenches of assorted sizes. I have only ever purchased one, and it's at work! I did have one large and one small from my dad. Maybe they had babies??? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Rocky]

Yeah, it's an omen......obey the omen and go buy the first pre 49 ford you find....preferably an unfinished, incomplete project you can exercise your 11/16ths prowess on....freaky, maaaaaaaan.............

[burndup]

There is a black hole that steals all 7/16 and 10mm endwrenches...

[polisher]

Adjusted the brakes on my Old Mack with a 9/16 socket.
Took a load from bringham to rome, reloaded with apples in Venice, back to birmngham.
Jumped under the truck to adjust my brakes and there's the 9/16 socket sitting on my frame rail where I'd left it.
If any of you know old macks, nothing ever stayed in place, meant to or not.
Guiness book of records or what?!

[briggs&strattonChev]

I cannot seem to keep track of any 7/16 combination wrenches, EVER

[shoebox72]

I think my pencils & markers have legs. I brobally get 10 a season in carshow goodie bags but i always have a hard time finding them in my garage.

I also think the mice in my garage like to pile up on the nozzles of my brake kleen & carb cleaner cans and empty them out at night. Whenever I need some I go get a can off the shelf and it's empty, buy more, use a little, go to use some days later, empty again. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Billy

[Bugman]

With the chaos left by me predecessor, my high school shop has tools appearing and dissapearing all the time. Especailly my air chuck. I only have 1, and it used to come and go. It would dissapear for 3 weeks, then I'd see it on a bench, or find it in a drawer. Now it lives in my pocket, and only leaves for 5 minutes at a time. The floor drain monster gets alot of my sockets.

-Bugman Jeff

[Rocknrod]

I lose 3/4 short sockets on 1/2 inch drive... That and 10mm hand wrenches.

I have doubles of 9/16 an 5/8ths for tasks requiring two ratchets... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[safariknut]

Every time I attempt to get my Syclone running I wind up dropping a wrench diwn into the bowels of the engine compartment.It is so crowded with stuff that nothing ever hits the ground.Using the number of years I've owned it versus the number of times I've worked on it I've calculated that the factory GVW of 3775 lbs.has now incresed to about 4276 lbs.I really dread the day it actually runs again and I will be forced to take it on a test drive.I'll probably leave a trail of tools from my driveway to downtown Detroit!

[DrJ]

The rear brakes on my MG are adjusted with one of them four flats on a cone screw thingys. I keep the 1/4" wrench they require in the glove box just for adjusting them because when they want adjusting they want it NOW!
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

When I was installing a new medicine cabinet in the wall in wife's bathroom I dropped a wrench down inside the wall.
Well I couldn't reach it because it was too far down and there was a wayward 3" nail sticking into the area I would have to get by anyway, so I went out to the garage to get my trusty horseshoe magnet, which I couldn't find, so I grabbed one of the 3" permanent magnet dash speakers Ive been saving on the side of my tool box for the last 15 years and tied on a 3 foot hunk of green coated ground wire and dropped it down into the wall.
Came up with the wrench a half dozen nails, some assorted dust and my Siamese cat "Gizmo" who must have got way to curious about that hole in the wall. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Anyway, the point of this is, magnets!
You can improvise where you get them.
I have ine of those magnets on a telescoping stick but it's not strong enough to pick up anything bigger than a '7/16" socket (but that should make burndup happy enough) so when I 'break" something electronic I open it up and see if there's any cool magnets in it that I might need some day, and if there is I stick them to the back of my tool box for a rainy tool day when sockets and nuts are falling into inner fender crevises.
Magnets with holes in them are the beat because you can tie a hunk of wire to them.

[james]

I've probably bought a hundred 13mm sockets and wrenches, yet they all dissappear. (anyone with an old vw know this problem). Somehow though, cheap, small,tawainese adjustable wrenches must mate on my workbench--last count I had eight of them, and can't remember where any came from!

[choprods]

I have such a crappy collection of tools -everytime I see em -I think they must be somebody elses! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gifThat ol shit cant be all I got after 30 some odd years........

[Unkl Ian]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone else have tools appearing and dissappearing in their garages???

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes,I consider money to be a tool and it's always dissappearing.
I'll never understand.

[J. Cougar]

Mine just disappear.

[desertratrodder]

I have dozens of screwdrivers, if i need a Phillips, all I find are dozens of flat blades, and vice versa. Go into the tool bag looking for a 9/16 wrench, theres 3 1/2 inchers and 6 5/8ths. You want one of those others, theyre all 9/16. I dont know what the deal is, I guess its the little tool gremlins hiding shit. I only find a lost tool when I buy another one. I just dont know http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[gettingreasy]

AWSOME fucking book, I'm not a big King fan but it is the best book I've read so far this year, Until I get SUPER STOCK! Yes I agree with everyone, tool gremlins. After that book I remembered finding a SBC distributer complete with the wires in the truck of my 61 Chevy, was very wierd I never put anthing in there only a spare tire. I asked all my buddies if it was theres and they all said yes, so I knew it wasn't any of theirs so I did the logical thing, I cut it up and now I use it for priming oil pumps. EVVIIIILLL
-Jesse

[kustombuilder]

i've had that same thing happen before Fat Hack. weird!!!

[Jester]

I've been trying for years to get my tools to reproduce. I leave the same screw driver and wrench together every night but still no luck, maybe they need some viagra.

[Humboldt Cat]

Too true about that novel. My co-worker Bill has a '54 Buick, totally sweet convertible, but sorta spooks me out to be near it. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I keep loosing my flathead screwdrivers- I don't have things centralized with a workbench, but do try to keep it in the toolbag. Even so, with as many flathead screwdrivers I have, I lose every one o' them. Nuthin' as odd as your story, though. But do you think it woulda hit ya that hard, had you not read that King novel? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
Weird stuff 'bout that dizzy in yer '61 Chevy, maybe my Phantom Helper migrated down to CENTRAL California. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[gettingreasy]

I think someone I knew "borrowed" it from our auto shop and stashed it in my truck(not that unusual)and just forgot about it. Well I know for a fact that something is always stealing my 7/16 quarter drive sockets and replaces them with an 11mm.
-Jesse

[jdubbya]

I have an abundance of 7/16" combination wrenches, and I seem to always need screwdrivers. I think the screwdrivers morph into the wrenches.