Older NAPA tool box

[ppipowerclass]

My dad and my uncle both have older ( 25+ years old ) NAPA tool boxes. My dad recently sold me one that has NEVER been used. I was wondering if anyone here could tell me anything about it? I would like to get a new key for it, so I can lock it.. It got lost in the shuffle of dad building a new garage.. And sitting around for 20+ years. Just curious who would make it. It seems like it's pretty decent quality. Any input would be much appreciated! Thank you for your time.

 

[ppipowerclass]

I don't know why I can't get the picture to work here Someone, please help.

 

[kythri]

That old, it's probably a Waterloo.

 

[Engine]

Maybe this will help. It's the way I post pics unless it's a link on a website.
Use the "Go Advanced" button to manage the attachments.

 

[Engine]

If you want the pic to show instead of the link, then click on the dropdown arrow next to the paperclip and click the link and it will insert into the reply, like this:

Save the file on your PC.
Use "Go Advanced" button when replying.
Click the attachment dropdown arrow and popup window opens.
Browse to file location on your PC.
Upload to message.

 

[Engine]

Also notice that if the file you upload is too large it will be resized. The one above was originally almost 200k and was resized by the site to about 20k so it's almost unreadable.

 

[bobcatdan]

Most Napa boxes I have seen were made by SPG International with a couple big Kennedy's as their high end big boxes.

 

[Packard V8]

I have an older NAPA top chest made by Waterloo and it's as good, maybe better, than any of the several Snap-on and Kennedy boxes I also own.

jack vines

 

[LXCam]

You can get just about any type of lock you can imagine from McMaster Carr

 

[ppipowerclass]

Ok! First, I am sorry about the delay! I was out of state, helping people from the hurricane in Florida.

Thank you for the replies. I have read other places that it might be a Waterloo box, I just wasn't sure.

I looked at the lock a little closer, I think I can replace it. But, I did find a key inside of it, under one of the rubber mats in the drawer. haha. Anyhow, I think I have a picture of it attached now!

Thanks again!

 

[ppipowerclass]

That old, it's probably a Waterloo.

I guess " old " is a relative term. I have a Snap-On box that I would consider " old ", from the 70's that is in pristine condition. It always sat in a basement, was never used in a garage.

 

[Packard V8]

Very similar to my NAPA box, made by Waterloo and hell-for-stout. I like it better than my Snap-ons.

jack vines

 

[bobcatdan]

That box is a Waterloo. The design of the the drop front is a dead giveaway.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Glad you found a key, now go get another one cut, before that one is lost again.
Locks are not hard to change out and most of the time you can find one that will work at most good hardware stores.

 

[Hyster Gareth]

That box is a Waterloo. The design of the the drop front is a dead giveaway.

Bobcat Dan is bang on the money. Definately a Waterloo produced box. They were also rebranded in orange and black for Caterpillar. Contact Waterloo with the number on the lock and they will sort you out with a new key.

 

[4x4gearhead]

Yep, looks like many toolboxes that got rebranded of that era. A co worker has a cornwell one, i believe its 40 in wide or so. Has the same lid front design, and is a rugged old top box. I have always liked that style and the drawers always seemed very sturdy in them. Nice box.

 

[ppipowerclass]

Glad you found a key, now go get another one cut, before that one is lost again.
Locks are not hard to change out and most of the time you can find one that will work at most good hardware stores.

Yeah. I might do this. I also might change the lock. I do locksmithing as a hobby. Like I was saying, I got it, was locked. So I actually picked the lock
open I will obviously keep the mechanism, but will probably put a little more secure one on it ( just a personal preference thing )

Very similar to my NAPA box, made by Waterloo and hell-for-stout. I like it better than my Snap-ons.

jack vines

I feel the same way. It is a solid box, for sure. I would also put it next to my Snap-On boxes, any day of the week. I am not a big mechanic that does it for work, but this is going to be my main box going forward. Figured I might as well keep all of my standard tools in my Snap-On box they all orginally were in when I inherited the box

Thanks again for the info! This is a great forum! I will be checking out a lot of things here.

 

[Schurkey]

Necrothread, but my situation is similar.

Older red NAPA "two bank" toolbox, 28" wide drawers on the left, narrow 8.5" drawers on the right. I've looked all over that roll cabinet and top chest for model numbers or any kind of manufacturer's marking with no success.

I need at least one and probably two or three drawer slides. Ideally, I'd get a small mountain of the rubber bumpers within the drawer slides, too. The local NAPA can't find any listings for the older boxes. Gave me a 'phone number for Balkamp, "because Balkamp made the NAPA boxes".

Drawer slide is stamped "Accuride"; but nothing on the www.accuride.com web site looks like what I have. I have the suspicion that they won't sell slides or repair parts for the products they OEM to other customers.

I also see zero rubber bumpers for the Accuride slides on their web site. There was a time that I bought rubber bumpers from Snap-On to fit my KR1000, but I think those days are long gone.

Bought plain ol' "hatchback car" gas struts for the lid on the chest. They're slightly different from the originals, but they're the same open length and work wonderfully.

 

[1982fxr]

The first box in this thread is an older Waterloo Magnum, which was their best.

Do you have a pic of yours?

 

[Schurkey]

The first box in this thread is an older Waterloo Magnum, which was their best.

My NAPA chest isn't a drop-front like that one. And the NAPA emblem is different.

Maybe just a different model, maybe a different manufacturer.

Do you have a pic of yours?

I'll post two or three tomorrow.

 

[1982fxr]

Waterloo Magnums weren't all like the first one.

Plus it might be something else entirely.

 

[Schurkey]

As with this entire web site, the photos show up if I pause "Ghostery", a tracker-blocker.

The whole thing is a little shy of six feet tall with the lid shut. Well over 7 feet tall with the lid open. About 45 inches wide more-or-less. The photos make it look like the chest is less deep than the roll cab. No, the chest is the same depth as the roll cab. It's just lifted up higher--there's a couple of welded-on rectangular tubes under the chest. They're somewhat visible in the photo of the handle. There's a sheet of particle-board/fiber board on top of the roll cab that the chest is perched on.


The lock cylinder for the chest locks the lid. There's a goofy flip-lever (Left, unlocked, Right, locked) under the lid that locks both banks of drawers.



Lock cylinder for each bank. All the lock cylinders are keyed-alike. The missing drawer is the one I need the slide for. The slide is 21 1/2 inches long closed, 44 inches long open. The NAPA 819-5576 gas struts seem to be a perfect fit. The lid does not open to full 90 degrees, but I think that's intentional. The weak struts I took off were the same way--lid didn't fully open.



Does the emblem help to establish time or manufacturing origin?



Maybe the roll-cab handle design helps to figure out who made it.

 

[Fedwrench]

The bottom cart has an unusual drawer layout. It doesn't strike me as Waterloo made. I think it's either Remline or MBC (Metal Box Company) sourced.

 

[1982fxr]

Hmmm that kinda stumps me.

Drawer pulls look correct for Waterloo Magnum. Bottom box handle is similar or identical to my 46" 2 bank Magnum 2000 I had.

Most of the bigger Magnums I've seen have a locking system where you pull a lever that runs cables inside the box to lock it.

I can't rule out Waterloo. Or Remline, MBC, etc.

 

[1982fxr]

If you think the locks are original you could call Waterloo to see if they are their codes...

 

[UncleScam]

As with this entire web site, the photos show up if I pause "Ghostery", a tracker-blocker.

The whole thing is a little shy of six feet tall with the lid shut. Well over 7 feet tall with the lid open. About 45 inches wide more-or-less. The photos make it look like the chest is less deep than the roll cab. No, the chest is the same depth as the roll cab. It's just lifted up higher--there's a couple of welded-on rectangular tubes under the chest. They're somewhat visible in the photo of the handle. There's a sheet of particle-board/fiber board on top of the roll cab that the chest is perched on.


The lock cylinder for the chest locks the lid. There's a goofy flip-lever (Left, unlocked, Right, locked) under the lid that locks both banks of drawers.



Lock cylinder for each bank. All the lock cylinders are keyed-alike. The missing drawer is the one I need the slide for. The slide is 21 1/2 inches long closed, 44 inches long open. The NAPA 819-5576 gas struts seem to be a perfect fit. The lid does not open to full 90 degrees, but I think that's intentional. The weak struts I took off were the same way--lid didn't fully open.



Does the emblem help to establish time or manufacturing origin?



Maybe the roll-cab handle design helps to figure out who made it.

Hello. My box looks very similar to this. I was posting trying to find replacement drawer slides for the full bottom drawer. The current slides are from Accuride but I am not having any luck finding replacements. Just curious if you may have any suggestions? From my key I'm wondering if this really is a Waterloo box? Thank you.

 

[Schurkey]

Update:

I've been in a private conversation on this web site with--and deeply indebted to--Robert Smith, who has the same NAPA-branded top chest and mobile cart as I've posted about previously.

He's determined that these NAPA lower boxes were made by Waterloo starting in the late-1980s as Waterloo model number 50710SS "Mobile Tool Cart" (I'd have called it a "Roll Cabinet) in the "Magnum Plus" series. Even sent a Waterloo catalog page (attached) proving their origin. The 50813SS "13 drawer top chest" must have been a later addition to the Magnum Plus line. I have NO idea what the NAPA model numbers were.

We each (separately) contacted Accuride "Help Desk", https://accuride.zendesk.com/auth/v2/login/signin?return_to=https://accuride.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/176859&theme=hc&locale=en-us&brand_id=114095259434&auth_origin=114095259434,false,true
and communicated with Jorge Perez. Each of us got full sets of replacement plastic and felt pieces to rebuild the 48 drawer slides. (The extra-wide bottom drawer has double slides--two per side.) There are FIVE part numbers needed. I received the first three, and had to request the last two separately. Robert, I guess, got all five items at the same time:

One plastic Detent Bumper per slide, 2327-2663-YE
Two plastic Dog Bone Bumpers per slide, 2327-2959-YE
One Felt Pad per slide, 2307-2502-YE
One plastic Silenced Outstop Bumper per slide, 2327-2792-YE
One plastic Outstop Bumper per slide, 2327-2672-YE

I received extra pieces from Accuride. They sent more pieces than I needed for 48 slides.

Robert Smith's photo, cropped.


Robert removed all of the slides from his box. Requires drilling one rivet per slide. He says "the rivet is a 5/32" x 3/8" steel rivet. Stainless steel rivets are cheap on Amazon, 100 for about $10." I found that to be true. There's 48 slides on these top-and-bottom combination tool boxes, so 48 sets of replacement plastic and felt pieces, 48 rivets required.

I have NOT removed all the slides from the boxes; I've drilled TWO rivets to remove TWO drawer slides--trading a bent slide on a "main" drawer for a straight slide from a "small" drawer I don't use much. I have not installed the Silenced Outstop Bumpers or Outstop Bumpers (Yet. Despite Robert's best efforts, I'm too stupid to figure out how they fit in my slides--there is not one remaining outstop bumper or silenced outstop bumper in any of my slides.) The other items--the Detent Bumpers, the two Dog Bone Bumpers, and the Felt Pads are dead-simple to install, but require the drawers to be removed (but not the slides from the cabinet). And the ball bearings and races are in desperate need of cleaning and re-lubing.

I had to clean a million plastic bits out of the bottom of each box. The original plastic slide pieces basically disintegrated into chunks and pieces.

Accuride suggests white grease for lube. I am going against that recommendation, using JB-80 aerosol liquid lube because I think "grease" just catches and traps dirt and debris. Some but not all of the drawers have a "lip" on each side, acting as an umbrella to shield the bearing races from debris. Even so, the races were hatefully filled with garf and garfelderfarb.

Robert's boxes have different drawer slides. He's got "light-duty" slides, and "heavy duty" slides, but all of his have have fewer ball-bearings in the mechanism. There's patterns, his slides have a certain number of ball bearings, then a 3-bearing gap, then more bearings, then another 3-bearing gap, then more bearings. All of my drawer slides are identical aside from Left and Right. Mine have full sets of bearings with no gaps. We don't know why his box has different slides from mine.

My drawer slides:


His light-duty drawer slides have only two rows of visible ball bearings, the others are "hidden". His "heavy-duty" drawer slides have the four rows of visible bearings like mine, but with fewer balls.

Three of my drawer slides are bent and should be replaced. This is a matter of "abuse" via "accident", so not a warranty issue. I'm hoping to buy two pair of slides. I inquired with Jorge, and got zero response. I guess I need to contact the "sales" people at Accuride. I note that Accuride does not list "tool boxes" on their web-site. I'm concerned that they're going to consider these "proprietary" and make me get them through Waterloo. But I haven't actually contacted the sales folks, so maybe I'm just being paranoid.

There's no use talking to "Waterloo" about this. As of July 28, 2017, Waterloo was purchased (and subsequently destroyed) by Stanley Black and Decker. Rat bastages.