History Ever come across a tool that you lost...

...but now that you found it, you can't remember the where, why, or how that you got it?

Take this for instance, I'm sorting out my garage and found this engine analyser from Montgomery Wards with the original COD invoice from 1981. I have no recollection of where I got this or why, other than there isn't a tool I'll pass up at tag sales and whatnot. Anyway, it is a cool piece of 70's to 80's technology, and I think I'll read that manual to see just what it will do.

Image by El Caballo posted Feb 13, 2016 at 2:25 PM

 

I have a beautiful set of MAC combination wrenches and lost the 3/4" one a year ago. I tore my shop apart a couple of times looking for it, but never located it. A month or so ago I was looking for something unrelated to cars or tools and looked in a cabinet in my basement, where I store some stuff in and there was my wrench! I have no idea how it got there, but was sure glad to find it!

 

I have a small milling machine that I have owned for a number of years.
The other day I realized that I couldn't remember any of the details of buying it; who, when, etc.
It made me feel old.

 

found a knife I lost in a 302 15 years ago when I removed the intake a couple months ago

 

I shouldn't even admit to this but I have a real nice timing light in a box that I have no recollection of. I suppose I got it at some auction. There are other things that I don't remember buying, that's why I have more than one copy of some movies and music CD's, nothing like bringing a new DVD movie home and the wife telling me, "We already have that", I don't even remember watching it. I even forgot about a Buick that I bought until I walked around the barn one day and there it was. I think I'm a little absent minded.

 

My problem is that I lend shit to people and then forget who. Someone out there has my Jack-All....

 

I remember a while back when I used my Dodge A100 pickup harmonic balancer as a tool to hold up the corner of my house. I had forgotten what I did with it. When I was just about finished with my engine rebuild, I started looking for the balancer. I thought I must have taken it to the wrecking yard with a bunch of other stuff I dropped off. I was frantic! I went to the back yard where my wife was working and as I was telling her that I was going to the wrecking yard to find it, I turned around and THERE it was!!!! You can see it peeking out from under the house on top of the bottle jack....

 

I was given a basic toolbox by my grandfather when I was a teenager....just the basics, and a box!... I used to park my 41' Ford in the shade out under his ''big ole' tree'' in the front yard all the time. I was tinkering on my 41' back about summer of 1977...and remember dropping my open toolbox. I thought I 'scooped' them all up, and went on my merry way.

Come about 2010....and I was cleaning the yard up on a visit, and where the old tree is still standing...kicking around, picking up trash, and I found my old pair of needle-nose pliers!!! Crusted and rusty...but I knew they were mine! I have them now in my home garage toolbox many states away where I live, ''still'' rusty & crusty, securely 'retired' in my ''special'' drawer to remind me of where 'that' tool, and I, have come from....it's sentimental, I know!...but I like a bit o' sentimentality now and then to keep me smiling just a bit more than I normally would.

What's really cool....is that old pair of pliers, is the ONLY tool left from my grandfathers toolbox he gave me! The box and rest of the tools were stolen years ago!--- Ray

 

That's really bad.

 

So many people can't remember that they borrowed a tool and never brought it back. I was in a guys shop last summer. I thought that he borrowed my serpentine belt wrench set a year before and he said I showed him mine and he bought one so I started thinking that I loaned it to someone else. He was using "his" set on the water pump on his car and I saw my name engraved on the case and the tools in it. When I pointed that out to him he said he thought for sure that he had bought a set. We looked it up online, he paid me for it and I engraved a receipt in the case because I had bought a replacement set.

It's always good to engrave your tools. At least they know who they "borrowed" it from.

 

How many times have you lost that 9,16 wrench an found it an hour later in your back pocket.

 

This is MY problem as well. I loan stuff to people all the time , try to give them all the time they need to do the job, then I forget about it till I need it. Then I forget who has it or have to pull friggin' teeth to get it back. Someone I know has my damn fancy adjustable advance timing light for several years , but noone has stepped forward wanting to admit it . I've had to borrow one a few times that I've needed one , because I can't swallow having to pay up for another ...

 

I hate it when you let someone borrow something, and they don't bring it back, you end having to go get it. Let a guy borrow my engine crane a few years back, he kept it a good while, then a job came up and I needed it so I had to go get it. Since then, my stuff doesn't go any farther than my driveway unless it's with me.

 

lost a 8mm 1/4 drive socket working on a O/t in the drive 3 years ago , never could find it as it fell into the frame members , was out last week doing some clean up around the place and found it sweeping the curbside by the neighbors , yep mine has my engraving on it .

 

kind of like my Dana 4 wd socket , my little brother borrowed it in 2000 , well I got it back last week , he hasn't had the truck it was for since 2002 , as for loaner tools , sorry doesn't say autozone or Stimpys rentall above my garage door ..

 

Yup...I don't really lend tools anymore at all...except a very few 'close' friends, and even that is with a finger-pointing threat in ''half'' gestures...but, after losing so many tools over the years, it gets really dumb on my part to keep loaning them and never see them again....bummer it's like that, but that is reality most of the time around my toolbox--- Ray

 

Long time ago I pulled the heads and ground the valves on my Dodge Coronet 383.
When I went to assemble it, one head-bolt came up missing.
Had to buy 1 from a guy that had a 440 (IIRC) in pieces.
To this day I don't know what happened to that bolt.
Never heard any unusual noises from the engine....it may be down in the innards.

Back when I was a "kid" I'd be out in the shop on the farm doing whatever and come up missing a tool or part that was just there 10 minutes ago.
I'd end up cleaning the whole shop and putting things away....until eventually finding it.
Dad said that was a good way to get things cleaned up.

 

An old friend of mine has been a life long car and handyman guy. He has a lot of oddball tools and will loan them out to friends. He has a system;

When you borrow a tool, he writes your name, the date and the tool name on one of those manilla card price tags that has a pigtail of wire on it. He wraps that on the pegboard hook where the tool is stored or places it in his tool chest drawer. When you return the tool, he tosses the tag.
I adopted that system after forgetting who I loaned my Army surplus tow strap to years ago....Maybe go under hypnosis to recall who I loaned it to...

 

When I started auto mechanics class at my vocational school as a junior they gave us a list of the basic tools required. I already had a few odds and ends but not much. My Dad took me to the parts store and bought me a S-K 1/4,3/8 and 1/2 socket outfit they had on sale and a set of open end and box end wrenchs. Still got them and still use them 48 years later. A few years ago we had a flash flood come up when I wasn't home. I had taken the rear wheel and drum off a Skylark I was taking the rear axle out of the replace a wheel bearing when I got called away. I had layed the 1/2-9/16 box wrench on the tire. When I got home the tire had washed away in the flood. I felt like I had lost a freind I had that wrench for so long. Went down the creek for over a mile, no sign of the tire or wrench. Two years after that I was hunting about 5 miles from home and saw something shiny on the bank, got closer and there was my tire and wheel with wrench laying right there where I had put it. I just looked up to the sky and smiled!

 

Many years ago I dug up a pair of needle nose pliers in the yard, I didn't even know they were missing, and don't have a clue how they got there.

 

I too write tool and who loaned to on a card and stick on the note board...Matter of fact I keep a daily log book..Helps me remember that I am doing stuff [especially around the house] and who owes me what or who I owe..

 

I lost my '34 chev once , I woke up in a sweat , couldn't remember the address of the shed I stored it in , real panic stuff , worried half the morning ......... fuck I hate getting old , sold the darn car 20yrs ago ..

 

I've had dreams like that ^^^^^^

 

Looks like I`m not the only one with a VERY short memory.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

When I was a kid we lived in a house with a stone driveway, my Dad used to say he had a driveway paved with wrenches. Actually not far from the truth.
I discovered years ago that if you power wire brushed a Craftsman tool and were able to make out their name they would give you a new one.

 

The worst part of it is trying to NOT look again in all the places I've already looked.
Then when it shows up, the disbelief that I didn't remember why I moved it.
This is a good reason to buy extra tools and sprinkle them around.

 

My late son used to borrow tools from my box and work on his stuff in the yard. Some made it back to the box, some didn't. He's been gone 8 years, and I still find tools buried up in the yard where he left them, sockets, screwdrivers, wrenches. Every time I find one, I know just where it came from and think of him.....

 

Sounds like a good candidate for electrolysis - a battery charger, sacrificial anode and the rest of it. Never tried it but it works slick as hell from what I've seen.

I have a few tools of my Gramps, he had a Model T, and later a Model A. I think they are from the A. Just a couple open end wrenches and the Ford script oil can.

 

I have a confession to make. I stole a pair of channel locks from the See Electric repairman working on my parents furnace in probably 1973 or thereabouts. He knew I took 'em, too. Sorry about that fella. I still got 'em.

 

A friend of mine has a similar system. He keeps a notebook by the door of his garage to write down a name and date when he loans anything to someone. I think he even makes them sign their name as well. I just try not to loan anything out anymore. I know the last few yard tools I loaned out came back in terrible shape. That'll teach me .

I like the hypnosis idea, but I might end up recalling stuff I shouldn't, ha-ha !