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You're right about the "..it's your knucles" part!! That's why I mentioned the "made in China/India" bit. I once tried to loosen a stubborn alternator pivot bolt with a 1/2" open-end wrench which was plainly marked "Made in India." When I continued to apply torque to the wrench (by hand...no cheater), the jaws spread and it went right around the corners of the bolt head. I ended up with badly cut knuckles out of the deal. After my wife finished cleaning the grease out of 'em with hydrogen peroxide, she bandaged my hand and I immediately rifled through my tool box and threw away all Indian andor Chinese manufactured wrenches I could find.

I have a cheap Chinese ratchet that bent on me once. One of the fancy caps disappeared off one lug on my old Jeep, and I tried to then put a 3/4 in socket on the remaining nut in order to swap it out with a good one that held the spare on the carrier. Anyway I inserted the socket then stood on the ratchet handle thinking it would take the wieght and turn the nut. The handle went down and thinking I had loosened the nut I bent down to grab the ratchet only to find it was the handle that bent, and the nut hadn't moved. I still have that wrench and still use it as the bent handle seems to give me more leverage on smaller jobs. But other than that this particular ratchet doesn'tget used for anything of any importance.

Even the Craftsman are POS theese days.
I have had at least half a dozen of their ratchets
go belly up on me. Forget the Chineese or the Tiwaneese,
whatever happened to the good old days of Made in Japan.
Remember when we said that all they made was cr@p?
Now we have Sony and Toyota, some of the best on the planet.
Anyhow back to tools.
Vise grip (couple of sizes)
Channel lock
!/2" socket set
small and BFHammer
linemans pliers
bailing wire
cheapo DVM
Duct tape
Spare points
hi lift and bottle jack
I also carry a 12V high vol compressor and a gell battery pack
J.B. AD6WX

Oh Yeah forgot
3/4" breaker bar
3/4" drive socket for lug nuts ( I forget what size)
3/4 to 1/2" socket adapter
3' cheater bar
J.B. AD6WX

I bought a dedicated tool bag for the truck today for the tool kit I am assembling. Was gonna just buy a cheap duffle bag at Wally World but for the price, it was a better deal to just head over to Home Depot and buy a dedicated tool bag. Only cost me $13.00. Unfortunately the tool kit I am assembling is not going to fit under the seat, so I just will have to keep this kit on the passenger side floor. I'll toss a jacket or towl over the kit to disguise it I guess. I did put the bottle jack I bought under the seat, and will surely put soem other items there such as tow rope, etc. I raided my home tool box for a few of those aforementioned FORD tools that I also added to the kit. I figure I'll add as I come up with ideas or read them here. Little by little. Oh, BTW I bough ta spare set of points and condensor last night and added them to the kit. Didn't realize how much they were going to cost as it was a long time ago when I rebuilt my distributor, $22.00.

Hi Nick,

Why not hit the local flea marts, garage sales, classifieds, etc. for some gently used quality stuff?

It's not surface rust, it's "patina"!

Dave

Farm auctions are another great place to find quality tools at a bargain price. You'll find a lot of purely junk tools there, too, but you don't have to bid on them.

If you have a local auction "barn" that does consignment sales, that's another good place to find what you're looking for.

In either case, watch what you're doing with your hands. For example, if you see a friend in the crowd, don't wave to him. You might end up being the high bidder on something you don't want! (I speak from experience!)