Strangest place you have found a tool?

[Jim Diesel]

Well the heading says it all.

For me, it was when i was an apprentice pulling down a Mack 5 speed, tripple counter shaft gear box and right there inside the bottom of the box was a 6 inch wobble extension in 1/2 inch drive. Not a single mark on it from any teeth and no damge to the internals of the box.

 

[DieselDent]

Found a 3/8 ratchet with a 1" socket down inside the cowl of my '70 Chevelle behind the drivers side kick panel. Looks like it was there for many years, still have no idea why they would need a 1" socket any where near there.

 

[woody 73]

Had to rent a gas pole chain saw one time (almost killed the wife with a falling limb don't ask) and climbing to the top of the house I found a screwdriver inside the gutter not mine.

Another time (different house) I had the roto- Rooter company clear out the basement drain and that guy pulled out pliers, screwdrivers ,knife, Children's toys , small balls, glass marbles and other trash (all not mine).

I figured that the people that put on a new roof must have lost the first tool and because my second house is over 80 years old it must have held many different families over the years with children and adults that lost things.

 

[toolman9w]

Adjusting the overhead on a customers truck,3406E Cat and found a injector height tool laying on the head. Only a couple of scratches but still in spec.

 

[stokefire7]

The road.

 

[slow]

Found a 3 ton floor jack in the middle of the road. That gets one of the "odd" finds. I had to swerve to not hit it, then i was like "nice, i could use a second floor jack"

Found a 3' prybar left in our mercury villager minivan after having a trailer hitch installed, it fell out of the car about 100' after leaving the shop to a big "thud" and a WTF from me and my dad.

pulled over and returned it to the shop, less than happy.

Ryan

 

[NUTTSGT]

Other than finding a wrench in the spare tire well of the Mustang, alongside the road was a Cman screwdriver.

 

[Nick Danger]

I was seven years old, hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains with my dad. Found a Crestoloy side cutter. I still have it.

 

[astroracer]

A 9/16 combination wrench, in a tire.... My tire, NOT my wrench...
A GearWrench ratchet combination wrench, in the parking lot in front of the building where I work.
A 12" lg. S.O. 3/8 extension in a car in the junkyard.
A pair of Vice Grips (real ones) in the back fender well of a car I was parting out.

 

[Squddle]

I found a 12mm wrench sticking out of a tire that came in for a flat repair. It was bent into an "L" shape.

 

[egnorant]

1/2 x 9/16ths wrench inside an OLD adding machine carry case. There was a dead bat in there too!

Working with a guy when he found a K-Bar locking knife in a concrete block...not in the void but cast into the concrete. Less than 2 weeks later he dropped in in a fresh pour of concrete so now it lives under someones fireplace.

Finding tools anywhere in cars is just too normal unless you count the needle nose pliers in a diaper bag in a junkyard car!

Bruce

 

[methomas70]

Walmart

 

[Arkansas COB]

Last January i found one of them nice aluminum 2 wheelers laying in the road. The good kind like UPS or Fed-x uses. Looked brand new.

 

[G_P]

Does a knife count as a tool? If so, I found a German made bone handled bowie type knife stuck in a telephone pole. Saw it as I drove by and quickly turned around and grabbed it. Was expecting it to be one of those gimmicky junk knives but was plesantly surprised to find out it was a very nice and well made blade.

 

[bwringer]

I was in a junkyard "shopping" for some other parts when I spotted a Corolla with the same color interior as mine. I needed some air vents, since my wife messed up the ones in my car trying to shove some stupid cell phone holder into the vents.

I needed something strong, flat and thin to pry the vents out without damaging them, but I didn't have a knife or a small screwdriver with me. I walked around behind the car to think -- perhaps I could find a small piece of scrap metal...?

Right there in the trunk was a butter knife.

Somehow, the universe provided exactly the right thing at the right time.

 

[Cypherian]

As was said finding tools in vehicles is pretty common I have found several sockets, 12v tester various wrenches etc. But strangest place I found a tool was behind a kitchen cabinet I was taking down I had pulled everything out shelves and such and took the doors off. I unscrew the cabinet from the wall and take it down I hear something metal clatter on the counter set the cabinet down and look thinking I had left something in the cabinet or on top lol would not surprise me. Well it wasn't mine !! Someone had apparently dropped a 12 inch square blade behind the cabinet betting when it was installed 20 years prior . It was in poor shape and no name brand so it got chunked in the scrap metal pile. I always wondered if they knew they did it or if they spent for ever looking for it then or at the next job :}

Cypher

 

[twertsy]

6 (set?) nut drivers in the passenger cowl / side kick panel of my '70 Goat. Someone above said a Jack in the road.......well, one found me in the wee early hours headed to PT in the Army..............tore the underside out of my Z24 26 years ago.

 

[mtnkid85]

Ive gotten the usual wrenches, screw drivers, etc from cowls and fenders.
But my favorite was a large ~36" crow bar inside a wall that we tore the drywall off of. Some one leaned it in the stud bay then the dry wall got hung right over it. Poor guy probably looked for his crow bar high and low!

 

[jakemac]

A flatbar in the wall of a traveling exhibit.
The exhibit had come back from a 2-1/2 year tour to be demolished. It was left in the wall when the exhibit was built. The flatbar had the owners name on it. It was mine ! I couldn't remember where I lost it, and had been looking for it the whole time.

(truth be told, a coworker found it and returned it to me)

 

[Farmall450]

A flatbar in the wall of a traveling exhibit.
The exhibit had come back from a 2-1/2 year tour to be demolished. It was left in the wall when the exhibit was built. The flatbar had the owners name on it. It was mine ! I couldn't remember where I lost it, and had been looking for it the whole time.

(truth be told, a coworker found it and returned it to me)

Good thing you didn't piss him off previously

 

[fastbike02]

I was replacing the rear quarter on a neon I had bought to resale and found a body dolly inside the rear quarter once I got it cut off! Apparently it wasn't the first time the car had been wrecked

 

[Empty Pockets]

I was recently changing a windshield wiper blade on my Freightliner. I climbed up on a steer tire to reach it, and found a 3/8" Craftsman USA extension in a plastic tray above the firewall.

It will go in my collection

 

[Lassen Forge]

Old car stuff...

The house we were looking at years ago in Oakland, the back yard had been landscaped about 50 years before... anyway, was looking around, looked down in this fake well, and found a Model T crescent wrench... rusty but otherwise pristine, the jaws weren't even tweaked. Took it for a sign, put a cheap bid on the house... and got it. Lived there until we moved here.

Current house, was going to pull the hubcaps off the old car to do the wheel bearings... and couldn't find my Hubcap Wrench (on a Ford T they're a really specific thing, without one you can ruin a hubcap right now...)... 2 weeks later, we were surveying where we were going to have the new well sunk, and I kicked the ground - and a copy of said wrench was buried just below the dirt, a little bent and rusty, but it straightened up nice, and still use it.

I realized - I was meant to live where old tools disappear.

 

[jeffmoss26]

Was working in a drop ceiling when a Malco scratch awl fell out and onto the floor. It's now in my toolbox

 

[Leaflessshadetree]

I called the police to report a stolen license plate. The cop told me that it probably fell off. He gave me a funny look when I asked if the screwdriver I found laying on the bumper might have knocked it off. Yes it was still sitting there and no I hadn't touched it. The cop picked it up handled it for a while and then claimed it as evidence. I told him he'd better bag the screws as well.

 

[G_P]

Some pics of the knife I found.

 

[creativecars]

Someone else's tool... in my x-girlfriends box.

 

[APEowner]

How long will it be before someone posts the xray of a wrench up someones ****** that went around the web a while back?

 

[slow]

Someone else's tool... in my x-girlfriends box.

well played

 

[djjsr]

Standing out in the garage one day just looking out at the street. I heard a clink and saw something hit the pavement. Turned out to be a 13mm Craftsman combo wrench. Nobody around, no cars or anything, it just fell out of the sky. I picked it up, looked up and yelled, "Thanks, but I really need a new torquewrench".

 

[Zeke]

Nice Makita driver/drill in an attic of a commercial building. Makita 4" angle grinder laying on a curb. No one around. It wasn't gonna last long so I grabbed it. One of those adjustable t stands used an a work extension in the street. No one around. What are you gonna do?

 

[Roberts210]

I was riding my bicycle down Cerrillos Road, in Santa Fe in the 1970's and saw something shiny, stopped and picked it up. It was a Snap-On ratchet head--the kind you can put onto a breaker bar and make a ratchet out of it. Many years later gave it to a friend who was a mechanic.

A good friend found a Gearwrench geared metric wrench 14-12 mm under the hood of their car after getting it serviced. They offered it to me, but I said they should call the repair shop and offer to return it--they said they had done that and the shop said, "keep it". I can't understand a shop doing that, but that's what they said. They gave it to me, but I've never used it.

But the most memorable tool I ever found BY FAR was in 1995. I was rooting around in the glove compartment of a '53 Chevy 4-door that had sat down in the woods of our place for 30 years. I was going to send it to the crusher but wanted to get parts off it first. I was sitting in the front seat and I found old pennies and match books and other ****. It was hard to see into the glove compartment because the middle portion of a big fat defroster hose was hanging down through the rotted top of the glove compartment. But I did spy a small screwdriver and reached to retrieve it. In doing so I brushed agains the fat defroster hose and it muscled up and slithered deeper into the dash. It was some kind of huge snake. I was out of that car before you could say Holy $#!*. I later came back for the gauges, but I beat on the dash first for 15 minutes (I timed it) with a stick before reaching under there and getting the gauges. True story.

 

[AL`]

It was hard to see into the glove compartment because the middle portion of a big fat defroster hose was hanging down through the rotted top of the glove compartment. But I did spy a small screwdriver and reached to retrieve it. In doing so I brushed agains the fat defroster hose and it muscled up and slithered deeper into the dash. It was some kind of huge snake. I was out of that car before you could say Holy $#!*. I later came back for the gauges, but I beat on the dash first for 15 minutes (I timed it) with a stick before reaching under there and getting the gauges. True story.

I know that got your blood pumping. My brother once opened the hood of our '64 Chevy pickup to find a copperhead draped over the fan and radiator. He cranked the truck and those metal fan blades chopped it up. This would have been around 1979 or thereabouts.

I once found a set of needle nose pliers in a Taco Bell parking lot. It was embedded in the asphalt from heat and tires rolling over it. I pried it loose and while it had a patina on it, it was just fine. Still have it and yes, it's my favorite pair. I don't know the brand though it has red handle covers on it.

 

[TigerDude]

Found a 3/8" ratchet wrench inside a nuclear control rod control box on the sub one time. We told the skipper it was a stripped gear that was clunking, not the wrench the ET left in it.

 

[stihlntime]

A creek runs thru my place after it exits my property there is a bridge crossing the creek on the county road. My boys noticed something shiny in the water a couple of years ago. I gathered up a long handled 1/2" SK ratchet and 10 or 12 sockets and a ton on misc tools. Called the cops and they asked if they were marked, if not keep them. The tools are in my tool box.

 

[Roberts210]

I know that got your blood pumping. My brother once opened the hood of our '64 Chevy pickup to find a copperhead draped over the fan and radiator. He cranked the truck and those metal fan blades chopped it up. This would have been around 1979 or thereabouts.....

It did indeed. Kill 'em all I say!

 

[Jim Diesel]

Someone else's tool... in my x-girlfriends box.

Hahahahahah. Hope it wasn't rusty

 

[AmishFury]

 

[Bagherra]

Maglite 3 D-cell in tailboom of a Huey...just came back from civilian maintenance...

Found a Snap-On flat tip screwdriver just laying on one of docks at a marina...

 

[Pack Rat]

The strangest place you'll ever find a tool is in the hands of my daughter's boyfriend.
He won't even pass you a wrench.