11mm the most useless socket in the world?

[WittHay]

The replacement Carter fuel pumps for the small Cummins diesels use a 11mm for the metric studs. 9mm is used on grease fittings on German equipment. 14mm for the various fuel line bango fittings on European diesels.

Presently I use every metric size from from 7mm to 19mm on various non auto stuff except 12mm with 18mm being the most common and 19mm the next.

 

[f121]

8, 9, and 10mm were used daily, along with 14, 15, 9/16, and 5/8 when I worked in a bike shop.

What sort of stuff did you use the 9 and 14 on?

 

[rhys99]

What sort of stuff did you use the 9 and 14 on?

Japanese motorcycles use lots of 14mm , brake caliper bolts, shock bolt etc

 

[DGersic]

What sort of stuff did you use the 9 and 14 on?

8 and 9 were for cable pinch bolts on brake calipers and derailleurs. 14 were front axle nuts.



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[joel63]

I work on two Toyotas and a Ford truck.
Sizes rarely used: 9mm, 11mm, 15mm, 16mm, 18mm.
Sizes frequently used: 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 19mm, 21mm.
Once in a while: 13mm for the oil pan drain plug on my Ford Ranger.

Where do you use 21 mm on Toyota or Ford?

Not a challenge, just asking so I'll know if I have have to get one.

 

[Yarpo]

They’re doing you a favor. Now you can still bleed your brakes after misplacing your 10mm.



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Also 11mm blenders on c300 mercs

 

[TEKWRX]

I mainly work on my Subaru, so I could probably get by with just 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm for most jobs (not counting suspension of course)

 

[Formula]

I use my 11mm sockets all the time. Especially on GM i shaft bolts and driveshafts.

 

[plinker]

Where do you use 21 mm on Toyota or Ford?

Not a challenge, just asking so I'll know if I have have to get one.

Lug nuts most likely.

 

[MikeF2316]

I've used my 11 more than my 9. But rust can cause you to need sizes that aren't normal.

I see 12 and 14 lots. Today I took 3 idler pulleys off a V8 Volvo. Needed a 12 on one, a 14 on the second and a 17 on the third. And to make it interesting, the third was a nut and left hand thread! And all 3 idler pulleys were identical.

Volvo used to use 17 and 19 lots - those have been replaced by 16 and 18. In fact I got a new control arm (only way to get the ball joint) that had new nuts and bolts with it. Used a 17 and 19 on the old ones, and a 16 and 18 on the new. And that's why I like to have every size!

 

[joel63]

Lug nuts most likely.

Ah, got it.
Thanks.

 

[twinturbo]

Use 11mm on BMW. Intake manifold and some other things. 9mm on bleeders.

 

[Engineer61]

I think 31mm is the least used, most sets don't even include one and it isn't a standard head size for any type/size of bolt. But GearWrench put one in my set of deep impact sockets so maybe it's used on something somewhere.

 

[DGersic]

I think 31mm is the least used, most sets don't even include one and it isn't a standard head size for any type/size of bolt. But GearWrench put one in my set of deep impact sockets so maybe it's used on something somewhere.

It exists, so somebody somewhere has needed one.

Could also be handy for pounding on to what used to be a 32mm before rust got to it.



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[ProTinkerer]

Just put together a charbroil charcoal grill and it mainly used 11mm.

 

[anndel]

Where do you use 21 mm on Toyota or Ford?

Not a challenge, just asking so I'll know if I have have to get one.

Wheel lug nuts on Toyotas are 21 mm

 

[JulianMorrow]

Where do you use 21 mm on Toyota or Ford? Not a challenge, just asking so I'll know if I have have to get one.

Sorry I missed this, but as the others noted 21mm = lug nuts. I usually pop a 21mm on my old GM impact wrench (which only came with SAE sockets), but sometimes i'll use a breaker bar. Grunt!

 

[AustinChamp]

while it seams that 11mm is used , may i ask about 25mm sockets and wrenches

 

[tbird71]

ok so this morning i was upgrading some tools (got a new box so i had to get more tools lol) and i picked up a set of standard and metric swivel head 3/8ths sockets then ran into a snag. The rail i wanted to put them on would only fit 13 of the 14 total sockets and i really wanted to use this particular rail. My solution was to just leave one of the least used sockets off (yeah . . . freaked me out at first to but i am adjusting to the thought . . . .) My choice was the 11mm, first because its nearly a lateral fit to a 7/16ths and second because in my 35 years of wrenching i have never ran across an 11mm nut but have on countless occasions grabbed an 11mm in a pinch for a 7/16ths . . . . so my question to you guys is is there an actual 11mm nut out there??

Spent 2 hours this afternoon trying to line up my socket to my Yamaha seat bolt nut, I could have sworn it was 10MM well, finally I went and got an 11mm socket and guess what...It fit PERFECT so these are some rare things an 11mm is good for but I always have 7/16 (maybe thats what the nut was all along LOL

 

[VolvoRyan]

As mentioned, 11mm pops up a lot on brakes going back to the 70's or 80's.... and since it's brake fittings that may be rusty/frozen, I have 11mm singles from Snap-On.

-Ryan

 

[Steve_P]

This came up a while back when someone here said that sizes like 9, 11.... 20.... weren't used, so you could save $ and not get sets with no skips. Because obviously it's more efficient to stop work and run to the store in the middle of a job for that 11mm socket- not. There's a reason that most of the better brands don't have skips in common products like sockets and combo wrenches.

Saying that, I don't think I've ever used a 9, 11, 20 mm; but I have them. Because better to have and not need, than vice-versa IMO. I don't work on European stuff, so 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21 are the most common for me.

 

[mikegt4]

Just used a 11mm socket this week, mounting bolts for the ABS unit on a 2009 Ford Focus. 11mm socket followed by a universal joint, a 3" extension and a 1/4" drive shorty ratchet. Only enough room for a few clicks at a time for what seemed like an eternity. And that was the one bolt that I could see out of 3.

 

[94EG8]

Ford used to use a lot of 11mm nuts

 

[chris142]

I say 9mm. I have never used my 9 mm wrenches or sockets on anything.

 

[chris142]

No. I think 20 mm is useless for anything other than filling a peg on a Hansen rack.

Chevy truck engine oil cooler lines are 20 mm

 

[F-22]

11 and 9mm are common in old DIN standard screws. Probably not very common in the USA, but if you ever worked on an old NSU car or motorcycle you'd see loads of them. Also any fine threaded fastener typically had a different head size to the normal pitch metric fastener of same diameter.

And they loved to use fine threaded fasteners in the past. I am just working on a 50s NSU Max at the moment. Stuff like the bolts mounting the engine to the frame or various random bolts in forks have fine pitches. Fine pitch M8 had a 14mm head, while regular pitch had a 13mm head. 9mm was sometimes used for M5 screws. 11mm is just DIN standard M7 screw which used to be used a lot more.

M7 is actually a somewhat useful size and makes sense it exists. Since surface area increases a lot with a slight increase in radius... M6 and M8 are probably the most useful screws overall on motorcycles, and the M7 sits right between them.


I suspect 9mm on M5 was used cause in the past, the screws were super low quality steel, rated 4.0 or 5.0 today (when pretty much any screw on cars and bikes since the 70s is rated at least 8.8). Those heads would strip very easily. Plus the tools were much less precisely made, and the small 8mm wrenches even more so. So a 9mm head maybe prevented it from stripping out the head too fast?

 

[Fedwrench]

Chevy truck engine oil cooler lines are 20 mm

True but, unless you've cut the line, you're not using a socket to loosen the fitting.

 

[Ton ton]

I tightened a grease fitting with an 11 mm nut driver. Nice snug fit too.

 

[bwringer]

My VW has a ton of them. It's pretty common with all German autos.

Now that I think about it.. my Yamaha motorcycles as well as my KTM use them too.

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I have an elderly Kawasaki motorcycle, and I swear that bike has nothing but 11mm nuts and bolts holding it together...

Uh... sumpin' ain't right there. I've never encountered a factory-original 11mm anything on a Japanese motorcycle or car.

Unless you count all the 1/4" hardware with 7/16" heads (and 5/16" with 1/2" heads) some ignorant ******* sprinkled around my vintage Suzuki long ago. I've found inch fasteners stuffed into highly inappropriate places on many vintage metric bikes.

And it was, and is, common for aftermarket accessories for metric bikes to use inch fasteners.

T-bolt clamps, often used in aftermarket exhaust systems, usually use a 7/16" hex on the nut. Some clamps, like Mikalor, use a 7mm thread with an 11mm hex nut.

There are some carburetor jets here and there that require a 9mm socket.

Pretty much everything I work on is Japanese, so my main socket rails have been pared down to 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24mm. The other stuff is easily available in a secondary drawer, but this saves a bit of time in my usual work; I can reliably grab the right socket without even looking.

 

[joel63]

Pretty much everything I work on is Japanese, so my main socket rails have been pared down to 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24mm. The other stuff is easily available in a secondary drawer, but this saves a bit of time in my usual work; I can reliably grab the right socket without even looking.

I have a 3 drawer tool cart with nothing but the sizes you have listed here.
Yes, it does make life a lot easier when working on Asian vehicles.

As for the 23mm socket, I have used it to remove and replace the PCV valve on a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe 2.4.

 

[seber]

Technically the heads of bolts inside Miller welders are 7/16 but they are so cheap you need 11mm to keep from rounding them.

 

[dnschmidt]

11mm is great. Fits a 7/16" head better than a 7/16" wrench does. I use them all the time for 1/4" X 20 fasteners. The only thing I know of that ever used a 20mm hex was the fuel filters on GM mid sized cars like the Grand Prix I had. That was weird.

 

[dnschmidt]

man thats some good info . . . . so there IS 11mm fasteners out there lol . . .



see some of the replies here lead me to thinking theres a discrepancy in there somewhere and some of the alleged 11's are in fact . . . 7/16ths lol



its a ford . . . that marker light could be either. I have several 90's Broncos and there is an annoying mix of SAE and MM stuff on there lol



**** . . . thank god the swivel set i bought started at 10mm . . .



come to think of it i may have a narrow view point for my tool usage. My career for the most part spanned high end vintage auto restorations through the end of the 90's on to today where i build and maintain large high performance powerboats that are for the most part built around GM big block platforms and custom drivelines. I still have a full rack of Snap-On Whitworth sockets that i used once on a fifties Jag (if memory serves) that entire set is as useless as my 11mm . . . or apparently . . . i guess . . . my 9mm to lol

They were likely 7/16" fasteners. American manufacturers for a period of time used both SAE and Metric on their cars. My 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix was like that. Mostly metric but still a lot of SAE stuff they had laying around was on it. I guess this continued until they ran out of old inventory.

 

[redwrench60]

My 11mm sockets and wrenches have had the absolute hell used out of them. They have pulled untold numbers of GM truck driveshafts, and as stated, they fit a 7/16” nicely.

 

[redwrench60]

These threads always intrigue me. When I look in the drawers of my work boxes at my sockets and wrenches there are no unused ones. Every size has lots of use. Some more than others of course. That Chevy dealer tech wears out 15mm while the Toyota tech wears out 14mm. But at some point they all get used when you have to fix whatever comes in the door.

 

[craftsman creep]

16 mm 5/8 is the same size

 

[Wamsutta]

The banjo bolts fastening the front caliper hoses to the front brake calipers on a Buick LeSabre has an 11mm hex head.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Lot of 11mm on my eurobuggys. The one that I don't get is 13mm there, or 1/2" here - they're for all intents and purposes the same size... I don't need both.

 

[bwringer]

16 mm 5/8 is the same size

I've used 5/32", 5/16", 5/8", and 1-1/4" interchangeably with 4mm, 8mm, 16mm, and 32mm tools for a long time. By some quirk of reality and mathematics, the conversions are so close they don't matter.

The inch stuff is very slightly smaller, but that seems to get lost within the normal manufacturing tolerances and variations of tools and fasteners.

 

[Crazyjake8493]

Pretty sure I've used 11mm exactly once, and I can't remember if it was on my Toyota or the Kawasaki engine on our mower. I think I've used 9mm twice in my life.