MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - New tools for every MG garage

DRILL PRESS:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

wire wheel brush:
Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Oh, sh*t!"

SKILL SAW:
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS:
Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER:
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS:
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH:
Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race..

TABLE SAW:
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. Can also be used for instant vasectomies if the user is standing behind the material.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:
Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW:
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST:
A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name
implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER:
A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR:
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER:
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit. Guaranteed to round the edges of a knock-off nut, when a copper or rawhide hammer can't be found.

UTILITY KNIFE:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use..

MEASURING TAPE
Metric on one side, inches on the other. Commonly used to confuse the holder and make them try to count "big ones or little ones" or make hoses and studs too short. Refer to the skill saw and hose cutter.

Son of a bitch TOOL:
A family of handy tools that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "Son of a bitch" at the top of your lungs. It is alas most often, the next tool that you will need.
Gordon A Clark

Hi Gordon,

Very good - gave me a laugh here in snowy Yorkshire with the temperature around 20F. We're not used to this prolonged cold - spent most of the morning thawing out water pipes in the house with a hot air gun!

Cheers, John
J C Mitchell

ROFL and many thanks for the compilation. In the words of that great philosopher, Homer Simpson: It's funny because it's true.

I hope you don’t mind me gate-crashing your thread but they put me in mind of the subset: The Domestic Toolkit. aka "It'll do, coz I can't be bothered to go into the garage on such a filthy evening and root around for the proper tool / I haven’t got what’s needed, I’ll have to improvise".

These are as follows:

Sharp kitchen knife: Useful as an emergency screwdriver - works equally badly on straight and Phillips screws - but will lacerate your forefinger in record time with either. The carving knife is often the tool of choice, as it’s the one that usually looks most capable of doing the job and smaller versions tend to snap in short order. It is a multipurpose tool, which can be used on all manner of fabric, leather, wood and plastic. Also invaluable for metalwork – e.g. for paring, filing, shaping, drilling etc. - with thin gauge materials and (given time and determination) heavy gauge too. Self-sharpening - if you practice enough - though ends up looking rather raggedy in inexpert hands

Dessert Spoon: Emergency tool for transferring all forms of noxious liquids – incl, paint, solvents, varnish, glue, tar etc. etc. Various grades and sizes are to be found in the kitchen drawer but it’s best to select from the 12-place set of cutlery as these are least likely to be noticed, although this premise always breaks down … eventually.

Teaspoon: As above, but most often used for decanting small amounts of noxious fluids from or to small vessels. I’m told that the turkey baster does a better job but it now has such unsavory connotations to do with artificial insemination (in Europe, anyway) that the wife won’t have one anywhere near the premises. (Come to think of it, she’s not desperately keen on the non-artificial method these days, either).

Wooden spoon: A short section of the handle is an excellent makeshift dowel rod. Can be whittled into required diameter, as necessary (use sharp kitchen knife for best effect and you can cut your nails/sharpen your fingers at the same time). SWMBO will never notice the shortened handle on her best beech spoon if you quietly appropriate her largest pan at the same time, thus keeping everything in the kitchen in proportion.

Which leads me nicely onto:

Best kitchen saucepan - wonderful for mixing paint, cleaning small parts in solvent and melting glue or (and this gets you 500 bonus points) lead. In this last instance, “best” is a very transient term

Kitchen stove – can be applied to most operations involving melting things – should be used in a very well ventilated place and when the missus is away at her mother’s for the weekend or, in most cases, preferably the following week as well.

Standard lamp/table lamp – brilliant and highly portable outdoor floodlighting, not requiring any batteries, giving at least 5 candlepower on the end of a 200’ extension lead (more usually, 4-6 shorter ones joined together) for those emergency Sunday evening jobs on the car you just have to have running again tomorrow, but you’re round your mum’s and parked in the street. Small table lamps can be propped under your elbow whilst you’re working under the car and give only moderate burns, which usually heal quite quickly. Make sure you are NOT working in a puddle of water when you use this form of illumination and have a saucepan and some solvent ready to remove all those oily stains from the lampshade when you’ve finished – although in these cases, mums usually give their little soldiers a very indulgent smile and say: “you’re just like your dad”. Remembering the verbal hammering she used to give him when you were a nipper, you’re very pleased she’s mellowed and/or you’re no longer living at home.

Finally, the piece de resistance: The Soup Bowl. I have vast numbers of these, hidden away in my garage, each with a wonderful, thick patina to remind me instantly of the job I was doing when I pressed them into service. I used to recycle them back into the kitchen but, after complaints that the Mulligatawny always tasted of creosote, I decided to collect them for posterity and have now spent many happy winter evenings cataloguing them all. Given that the green lobby have arranged for most of the substances they contained to be banned, I believe they may be collectors’ items quite soon now.

Any offers?

Regards,

- Tom

Chelmsford, Essex, UK


Tom Bennett

Tom you neglect to mention that the use of any of the tools you list above come with an added bonus:

More room in the house, plus you can bring engine parts into the living room, just as soon as She Who Must Be Obeyed has left you for good...

Geoff Baker

Geoff , you must read David Feherety (sp).
TRM Maine

Geoff wrote:

"More room in the house, plus you can bring engine parts into the living room, just as soon as She Who Must Be Obeyed has left you for good..."

A colleague recently told me of a friend who, some years ago, consoled himself with a project after he'd parted from his wife. It was a Frog Eye Sprite which came to him on a flatbed lorry, looking like an exploded engineering drawing. He had no garage so he spent the next 2 years putting it all together in his living room.

It looked wonderful when he had finished but he had to get it out of the house by removing both the window and an adjoining section of wall.

- Tom.
Tom Bennett

This thread was discussed between 08/01/2010 and 10/01/2010

MG TD TF 1500 index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG TD TF 1500 BBS is active now.