Hot Rods So, where DOES stuff go in the garage?

Not sure he knew it, but my uncle (my godfather) was just about my favorite person in the world. He had one fault, he was just about the biggest jokester I knew. Whenever I put something down and can't find it or end up with an air hose wraped around my leg, I look up and say give me a break unks. I know it's a poor excause, but it gets my memory off the hook! Gene.

 

Whatever you do, Don't, Don't Don't leave them in the pocket of your shirt and throw them in the dirty wash. The wife and daughter get REALLY PO'd when their clothes come out streaked with whatever color (s) Sharpie you were using.

 

Tape measures, not a problem, thanks Harbor Freight!
I gave my neighbor girl a couple of them, marked her off my Christmas list.
My headstone will read "The man had a lot of tape measures".

 

Several years ago with one of my builds I misplaced my shock mounts. Well, they were gone for a very long time. One day while moving things around one the shelf I placed those shock mounts on suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. Imagine that!
So, every time I misplace something now I just say, I know where they are, they're with the shock mounts!

 

Everytime I try to roll my toolbox, the wheel is stuck on the screw or bolt I lost. It's a double burn from the karma gods.

Lesson: look there first when you drop something.

 

I wash my garage clothes myself, and that way I recover the 1/4 inch 10 mm socket I put in my pocket, and can throw away the uncapped sharpie.
I put a disc brake kit on my truck, got one side done, was interrupted. Went back the next day could not find the replacement bearing cup for the second side. Tore the garage apart, checked the box I had all the brake parts together in 3 times, finally gave up and ordered a new bearing and cup. Two day wait for it, it comes in and the cup will not
go in. I put it in the freezer to try to make it easier to install, then cleaned up some stuff while I waited. Put away
something in the brake parts box and there was the lost one. I know I checked everything in that box 3 times!
At least it installed easier than the one in the freezer.

 

Yes, I have holders for all my sockets and wrenches. I TRY to put them back when I'm done and, at a glance, I can tell what is missing. There are some things I don't need two sets of. Wrenches and sockets fall into that category.

 

I think there’s a Stephen King novel in the works about lost tools and parts.
In the end we’ll find out that all garages and shops have secret tunnels leading to the center of the earth. When one finds the stash, we’ll see that all the tools and parts are neatly placed on shelves and labeled as to where they came from.

 

When I was a kid I was a boat racer. Learned to build tunnel boats (imagine a floating Indy Car) from an older guy who was a real craftsman.

Process was framework went together on the jig upside down, then tunnel and sponsons were skinned, then the boat flipped right side up and back on the jig.

There was a checking fixture to assure gussets went into the sponson square and at the correct angles. Then the deck went on. Normally we would gusset both sides, then do both decks. Until one Friday . . . . did gussets and deck on one side, and will do the other side on Monday.

Monday comes and we’re ready to do the other side . . . . Check fixture is nowhere to be found. Search the entire shop twice. It’s gone. Spend a couple of hours making a new one.

Months later the boat is done, out of the paint shop and I’m starting to rig it. Cut a 6” hole in the aft corner of each deck for an inspection plate. Look in the hole and you guessed it . . . There is that damned fixture!

(had to get an air saw in there to cut it in half to get it out thru the hole.)

 

Looked for over an hour for my keys in my shop ,yard and house .
Found them in my pocket !!!!

 

Or your smart phone!

 

What I want to know is: Where did all the non-car stuff that's clogging up the garage come from???

 

Couple of yrs back, was tearing down a flathead block. Keepers flying all over. When needed I couldn't find what I needed. Finally got them from a fellow HAMBer. Recently redid the shop, only one was found. Somewhere....

 

The last place I look is the refrigerator. I know it's not in there.....but I have to look.

 

Actually, that’s one thing I haven’t minded loosing so far... those crappy free Harbor Freight tape measures. Now that they don’t give them out for free anymore, I have resorted to buying higher quality tapes to replace the lost crappy ones from HF.

Even if I start losing my new, good tapes, it’s a win because all of the old HF tapes will eventually be wherever missing tapes hide.

 

Back when I worked in shops for a living, I used a TV tray to set my hand tools on rather than ever setting them on a car. Had that bugger in three shops before JD Fikes set a head on it one day and I showed up to work to a smashed TV tray. Found another one at a yard sale for a dollar though. Something to set your tools in or on when you are working on rather than on the car, on the floor or wherever goes a long way to keeping track of them.

I can't find the photo right now but a few years ago I took a photo of several tape measures I had at the time lined up with each other and they were off as much as a quarter inch from each other plus the tab (hood) on the ends of them caused some not to measure right on a car project. I'd highly suggest having one tape measure that you use on a specific project and not switch tapes on that project.

My bad is that when I was working as a mechanic each and every tool had it's specific spot in a specific drawer that it went in. It got wiped off and put back in that exact spot every time I was done with it and since I quit working as a mechanic I got pretty lax on that part. Now I am not all that careful as I should be at getting the tools back in their spot so I can find them the next time.

 

Lost tools? Don't get me started! All of the above. Multiples of everything. Drill motors, as an example: quarter inch 2, 3/8 inch 3, 1/2 3, 3/8 angle drill 1, 1/2 hammer drill 2. That's the corded drills. Batery drills, 5 still working, 1 with outdated batteries, hey can't toss it, it's still in great shape otherwise. Know where they all are during a project, 15, 20 % chance of finding the one that will work/fit/battery charged!

As in other tool related threads, its a sickness and we are all afflicted with it!

 

Gee, I used to have a dog that would steal screw drivers, wrenches, nuts and bolts from what ever I was working on. He would run off with them when I wasn't looking or paying attention to him. Always fun to find in obscure places.

 

When the boys lived at home I always had someone to blame. Now it’s all on me. I tell that story when were all together it’s good for a laugh.
I read all the posts and can relate to most all of them. But have to add after looking everywhere last resort is sorting thru the garbage can. And you know it’s heavy and sink’s to the bottom and that sucks.

 

I bought brand new Timken axle seals for my Q.C. at the Lebanon Valley speedway swap meet (Nov 2020.)

I wanted to take my chassis to the Central New York stock car H.O.F. (Oct 2021) I couldn't find the seals, so I bought new ones.

Just after Thanksgiving (2021) I found the first set of seals in a box labeled "Quick Change Parts"



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Funny thing for many of us we're it!!!...

Credit to All that Inspired This
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I've been absolutely guilty of this...still laugh about it today...

I DID find them indeed...What's even funnier is the fella in the store I went back into looking for them told me so when I asked if he saw them....

Now to be fair to myself I slip the pair of sunglasses right over the prescription glasses...and angle up like that when indoors...

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Now this I hate, lol. Happened to me twice last night, two tools two separate times rolled under the shoebox and stopped right in the middle. So I gotta lay my fat ass down and reeeeeeaaaaach cause it's so low.

The second time I sounded like Ralphie's dad from Christmas story:

 

I too lay things down and can't fine them 5 minutes later, however you have to hear how I lost my check book.I lost my check book for about a month before I stopped looking for it.No need to look in places where you would never have lost it.My wife thought I was stupid to loose it and stupider to stop looking for it. After two months with no check book my wife announces that she had found my check book . It was in one of her pocket books
We both wear dollar store reading glasses and have many pair because the are $1 each. One day couldn't fine any in the house. found 9 pair in her pocket book. Other wise she is a great lady'

 

I'm telling ya man, my back hurts so bad that if I dropped a tool under the car, I'd just walk over to the toolbox and get another one lmao! Carrying the magnet around fixed everything!

 

I usually only lose things when I put them back where they belong, it's so not like me. I'll look everywhere, then finally say to myself, I couldn't have put it back where it belongs and sure enough there it is. Weird how I was meticulous with tools throughout my machinist career, yet sometimes need a triple of tools in the shop to keep going.

 

This is why I have 5 caulking guns. At one time I did have them all together and tried to figure out why I had 5?

 

This time around when I took little parts off the car when I disassembled it for paint, I cleverly put them in ziploc bags and labeled them. Now when I try to put it back together, I can't read the smudged labels.

 

I have 5 in my filing cabinet drawer. It took that many to find a good quality one that works.