Tool Sets

[gimpyrobb]

What, are you 12? Seriously?

6

 

[liliysdad]

6

Luckily, my kids knew better than to use that word before they were that old.

 

[Dave455]

I appreciate everyone’s input. Also, I didn’t mean to mislead anyone about my truck. I don’t have to work on my truck, though it’s a 1988 so that may start to happen soon, I just seem to get into some sort of little fix-it job every time I go visit family nowadays. Recently, replaced tires and tubes on a bicycle, put a bunch of child’s furniture together, and another time reinstalled a belt and adjusted the tensioner on a riding lawnmower. So, I kind of decided I need to have a decent little to set of tools to take around with me as I despise to try to work on something without the right tools. Especially when I know I have the right tool in my shop at home, the only problem is, I ain’t home. Thanks,

Whether you need the tools to work on your vehicle, or not, really just becomes a matter of fine tuning the contents.

I find that about 60% of the times I need my “road box” it’s a vehicle I’m working on. Maybe my own, but more usually someone elses.

The good news is that there’s a lot of crossover. Screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches in popular sizes - all universal tools.

This is basically the contents of mine. Old picture, and changed a little since, but these things constantly evolve. Disregard the actual brands (there’s a lot of U.K. stuff here) but the critical thing is that the tools are, for the most part, “ mid grade”. Something quality, that’s not going to let me down when I only have one, but without a huge investment that I’d be worried about leaving in a vehicle overnight.


I’ve said this before, but I find that a selection of repair materials is almost as important as the tools. The cost of these is negligible (most of what you see below was grabbed from my shop) you just need to invest an hour in assembling the stuff.

I also have a box of PPE stored by my road box. Nothing exotic, just some knee pads, protective goggles, disposable dust masks, and several different pairs of gloves (disposable gloves, chemical resistant gauntlets, and something to provide grip / mechanical protection.

Most times, that rides along with the tool box and has been just as useful!

 

[AEAdam]

Luckily, my kids knew better than to use that word before they were that old.

Hopefully someone reported that post. Odds are high people here have disabled family members, kids and they don’t deserve to read stuff like that on tool forum talking about toolkits.

And it’s all so disrespectful.

 

[Zewnten]

It’s HF’s lowest line, and has used Chinese manufacturers where the better lines are Taiwanese. My opinion, it has value as a starter set and a self contained toolset. For folks more serious, who may eventually abandon the set, I think they can do better piecemeal. I’d want better wrenches, better screwdrivers, better pliers etc. I think you can do okay with Pittsburgh sockets. Just need to know their limitations.

That said, there are smaller sets that could cover basics, opening the door to choose the other bits. As I said earlier, the value really lies in the set. If you want a single set, this could be a good fit. I’m inclined to make up my own sets using Milwaukee packouts.

Might have chaged but about 2 years ago a lot of the Pittsburgh pro was still Taiwan made, almost everything in the 300 piece kit was Taiwan.

 

[AEAdam]

Must have changed but about 2 years ago a lot of the Pittsburgh pro was still Taiwan made, almost everything in the 300 piece kit was Taiwan.

Good to know.

As we all know, HF has gone to a good, better, best marketing model with Pittsburgh in the good category. If you went to HF and handled screwdrivers for example, I really doubt many of us would choose the Pittsburgh models.

Again, the value of that 301pc set is the set itself, not so much the enduring quality of the tools.

When I moved to England, I made my own sets. This was 15 years ago. If I had it to do all over again, I'd use packouts. These are small parts boxes I bought at the Container Store.


This little 1/4" drive set was crazy helpful. Probably my favorite. I don't have great pictures of the other 2 kits. But the concept was each set had sockets, screwdrivers and pliers sized appropriately for the work I did with those sockets. In the 1/2" kit, the screwdrivers were replaced with pry bars. The pliers were stacked 2 or 3 high.



I never had an awesome way to store wrenches. I kept them in a, get this, white canvas tool roll. I also had my trusty Bosch 1/2" impact gun and some other bits and bobs.