Technical Tools/ Things found on the road!

Today I had to go over the viaduct in my home town, to avoid a train and was pissed as usual. But....my good luck..... saw these tools laying on the road. Had to go to the post office, by then the traffic on the viaduct had cleared, and I thought” maybe those tools are still there! “.......Naw...... well let’s check....... they were still laying there waiting for me!
I got them!
Then I got to thinking of all the tools and things I had found on the road over the years and thought I’d ask what other HAMBERS had found on the road? Well??







Bones

 

Good score can never have to many channel locks
And thumb screws are always handy.

Found a 24’ ladder on the road years ago
Still have it!
Lol

 

I found a nice fiberglass step ladder on a curve on my way to work.

 

I found (still have) an old steel Craftsman tool box 20+ years ago. I keep it full of tools in my camper.

 

Some are not as lucky with what is found in the road. HRP

 

I have found a few tools including a square just a couple weeks ago. The funniest one was riding with a buddy about 30 years ago down the highway in a 55 Nomad. All the sudden, he slammed on the brakes and pulled onto the shoulder. I assumed something was wrong with the car. He said “Did you see that chain back there?”. Almost crashed the car to get it, but we scored a skinned up chain...

 

rubber and ratchet straps, too many to count goose decoy, chains, tackle box, two wheel weed trimmer, cooler, ladder(kind of funky), kayak, life preservers, a wallet (that I returned to the address on the license, guy was drunk as all get out) and a whole bunch of shoes that I just passed by (never could find a pair).

edit: guthriesmith, that sounds like me but I've never been to Oklahoma.

 

I found (by the side of the road) this Rollok fuel delivery elbow used by tanker trucks to fill gas station fuel tanks and converted it to an outside light. Very expensive.
Look here: https://www.jmesales.com/opw-60tt-top-seal-rollok-delivery-elbow/
The smaller light is made using a flower pot.

 

Ok have found a heavy tow chain and a ratchet with 5 sockets in the middle of the intersection. I usually only find screws and nails in my tires at Home Depot

 

WOW, I don't know which one to pick. The fork in the road joke or the fact that its giving you the finger.

 

Lol...I had the same thoughts...

 

My two major "road prizes" were a 318 dodge long block engine laying in the left turn lane at an intersection. Happened to have our P/U and another guy was there flagging us so we didn't hit it. Hard to believe but my wife,that guy and myself picked it up and put it in my truck.Went to a fire station and called the police to see if anyone lost it, and the guy came in about 20 minutes that had reported it missing. He had picked it up from the machine shop after a $2k rebuild and was glad to get it back. Had put it on pipes under a cradle to roll in the back of his p/u and put some nails in the floor to keep from moving which didn't work. He had one of those toppers that the rear had a swing door, and also the back lifted up like a tailgate. It popped the back open and dropped the load when he took off and didn't know it til he got home and found the bed empty!

The other was a generator on a curve on an on ramp to I-275 I was in my tractor-trailer and couldn't pull over to get it!

 

I've been forked a few times, but not like this.

 

Funny,glad I

swallowed my beer first

 

LOL!! To add insult to injury, that fork looks like it's giving the finger.

 

Best find was a 15/16 Snap-on wrench. Second best was a 16" crescent wrench.

 

I have found a pry bar, a 2 ton chain hoist
and a kimber 45
I did find the owner of the 45


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In 45 years of building freeways, streets and sitework, it was amazing the things we would find or dig up. Paving on the freeway was always a trove of tools and hardware along the shoulders and medians. Screwdrivers and pliers most common, and anywhere they had been putting up signs had 5/16 and 3/8 nuts, bolts n washers everywhere. Chains- oh yeah. Transport drivers are usually in a hurry to get off the road, and out of four holding down a dozer, maybe only 3 get picked up- and they are high-spec transport chains. Starting a new job I loved to get on the grader and strip grass etc., along temp fences was usually good for a few 4lb short handled sledge hammers that the fence guys lost, and would pop out of the windrow as you went- found a lot following tractors, too. Paving crews were good too, they would strip everything they could, shovels n rakes n such out of your pickup, but they usually left more laying on the ground at the end of the day than they snatched in the morning- just drive the site and pick 'em up lol... Leftover new steel and lumber left laying around, and the building supt would say can you get rid of that for me?

 

When I was an early teenager (early 70's), I rode all over Garland Tx on my 10 speed bicycle. I had a toolbox full of wrenches, ratchets, screwdrivers, pliers, etc that I picked up along the way. Also, I had some really cool hubcaps that I decorated my bedroom walls with that I found along side the road. I still stop and pick up chains, large chunks of scrap metal, those ratchet blocks that fall off of flatbed trailers and such, as long as it isn't putting myself in peril out in the middle of North Texas traffic.

 

All you have to do is drive on HWY 85 through Atlanta and you are guaranteed on finding a aluminum ladder. HRP

 

I'm still lookin 4 the 10mm socket I lost years ago.

 

Lost apartment key epidemic?

 

Craftsman tool box in front of my in-laws house. 1/2” drive set with deep wells too, wrenches, pliers, ball peen, screwdrivers and some misc.
I left it with my father in law for a week, nobody asked about it so I brought them home.

 

You wouldn't believe how many large vehicle parts, bumpers, hood- bed liners aplenty, and driveshafts. Starting up a new freeway widening one day, stripping the grass with a D6 dozer, and BANGBANGBANG... a heavy truck driveshaft wound up in one of the tracks

 

One half of a full lumber tarp on the Florida Turnpike. Carried that 85 pound sucker almost 1/4 mile to where I got my semi parked.

 

I was thinking WTF - what the fork?

 

I found a 14' aluminum boat in the center lane of a local freeway early one Sunday morning. Then I saw two guys running back to retrieve the boat. A little farther was their long bed pickup with the tail gate down still down. Amazingly, the boat did look particularly damaged as I drove by at 6o mph.

 

Too many tools to count. I have been picking them up for years. One of my best recent finds was a driveshaft lying on the shoulder of a 4 lane highway a while back. I went back, just in case I might be able to make it work on something. I don't know what it was off of, but it was the perfect length to go between the 2004r trans and the 9 inch rearend in my 34 truck! With new Ujoints, its in there now.

 

3ft long aluminium pipe wrench virtually undamaged.
A plastic wheel barrow in the verge grass. Imagine at highway speed if the wheel barrow had met a vehicle going the other way!!!

 

It wasn’t a Snap-on 3/8 deep socket lost in Pennsylvania was it? I found one on the road a month ago....


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