And no I’m not talking about me or ... ummm.... get your mind outta the gutter !! at a customers today and saw this ridiculously big puller it’s got a winch to raise and lower it and is attached to a roll cart !!! what all do you guys own or have seen that’s either comically big or small?
I have a set of Pittsburgh combination wrenches from Harbor Freight that are from 1" to 2". They look like some sort of joke because they're so big. I rented a big ditch witch one time when I was cutting a trench to install a sub panel in my garage and was running the wires. The damn belt came off the auger arm and I needed a wrench that was like 1.25", so I bought that set for $50 figuring I'd never use them again. Wrong. I used those damn wrenches all the time when I was renovating the house and moving the steam radiators. Even other times, I happen across just an absurdly large nut or bolt, and I realize I actually have the right sized wrench.
It is hard to keep up with, but somewhere I have a “SUPERRENCH” that is the smallest wrench I have ever seen or imagined. It must be 1/16 or smaller.
I thought every mechanic had those! My 1 inch socket set goes up to 3 1/2 inch! Lol Along with my 600 ft/lbs torque wrench. Bones
I’m with you Bones, I too have sockets that big and a 600ft-lbs torque wrench Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Well, i was hesitant to post this, i dont want you guys to all be too jealous, but here is my super macho vise grips. normally we all know to stay away from brand X vise grips, but when i saw these Paul Bunyon sized grips i had to have them. These are "grip" brand...what ever the hell that is, 15" tall, and being so beefy they actually work. shown with the normal family of real vise grips to give the full effect. note on the far right, a German variant of adjustable pliers that work, buy some you will be happy. Now, the rest of the story, I bought these manly vise grips at the estate sale of a friend who was dying of cancer. As soon as i saw them, the absurdity of it gave a smile, and i had to have them. At some point the brother said "tom is up, go see him" Well, he was at the end of the road, sent home with a 5 gal. jug of morphine to wait for the end. So i go in to see my friend one last time and when I tell him i got the macho vise grips he gave out a good chuckle and a smile, perhaps one of his last, at the thought of the big grips. So, a double deal, I got the grips, and a nice smile to remember !
I actually use sockets this size and a 600ft/lbs tourqe wrench like this on a daily basis. I build bridges by the way. Big nuts on a bridge! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Lol, I use 3/4 and 1” drive sockets almost daily now I got sockets up to 5” ! When I was in automotive I bought a 3/4 socket set at a farm auction for something silly like 5 or 10 bucks for about 20 sockets and a breaker bar. Never used the sockets for there intended purpose, but they made great drivers for my press for doing wheel bearings and suspension bushings !!! Lol
I have worked on everything from our D-9 Cat dozer to screws in my eyeglasses. The odd thing about my 600 lbs four foot long torque wrench, was I had to buy it for my Zero turn lawn mower sales and repair business! Really! Bones
This is my Hollands 18 Vise. Don't use it often but at times it really comes in handy. Vise without stand is about 320lbs. I have seen vintage pictures on Shorpy.com of these vises in huge Steam Locomotive shops. Its probably over 100 years old. (Beer bottle shown for size comparison) These are my Amstrong 12" C-Clamps. Again don't use them often but they really come in handy at times. If you drop one on your finger while you are clamping something, it really hurts. Greg
Rusty, It opens 12 1/4 inches and jaws are 8” wide. Hollands Vise also made a model 19 which has 9” jaws. There is a guy on Garage Journal that has one. I was really bummed out when I found out someone had a bigger Vise than me Greg
Back in my previous life a puller just like this, same color green even, had a part in one of the scariest moments of my life! I was a Steam Plant Repairman at Navajo Generating Station, largest coal fired power plant west of the Mississippi. I was helping the machinists pull the coupler hub off of the High Pressure Turbine Rotor. We had that same puller deadheaded against the hub and two other guys with the biggest rosebud torches we could find heating the coupler hub. I think that puller had 30 Ton capacity. One of the guys wasn’t paying enough attention to where his torch was pointing and hit the chain wrapped around the arms and the hub. In an instant the chain snapped and one of the arms flew sideways and compound fractured the head machinist’s leg, bone sticking out and all! It was Joe Theismann instantly! That guy had a cast that went from his hip to his toe. Every time I’m doing something kinda sketchy, that’s a memory that makes me think....
Crazy story @SilverJimmy this puller was seen at a steam plant up here !! Took a tour of the place. Crazy the size of most everything. the steam generator has a 5000 gallon lubrication system with its own pump house. Just crazy the size of it all.
Steam Power Plants are just bigger in everything. In the automotive world 1/4” drive stuff is small, we didn’t have that size in the tool room. Our everyday socket set was 1/2” drive, and 15/16” was the most common size bolt head for hand tools. We had a 2 1/2” drive impact that was used to take apart the Auxiliary Turbine. It had 4’ long 2” diameter pipe handles sticking out both sides. Took a chainfall to hold it up and 5 mechanics to run it. Two on each side holding on and a trigger man firing away. It even had a trigger mechanism that resembled a Browning 1919! Took two hands to fire it off. Wish I had a picture of it. And the funniest part is that it kinda sucked, really wasn’t up to the task, but there wasn’t room to use our preferred tools, the 20lb sledge and a slugging wrench! Back in my “yout” I could swing a 20lb sledge full circle 40 times with out stopping, or missing. Good thing I retired from that fun before I was 30!
I have spent many an hour with a sledge hammer and a sluggin wrench also . All that was required was a weak mind and a back .
Looking a all of these,"big" tools,the one I have pales in comparison. This one was gifted to me by my nephew who told me the person he got it from said it was used for something on the railroad but he wasn't sure exactly what. It is stamped "N & W" which is supposed to be the Norfolk & Western railroad system. The sizes are 2 1/8th and 2 3/8ths inches respectively.Makes a nice door stop.
The Jalopy Journal
