Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:42:47 -0600
Reply-To: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject: Re: LVC: Tools- tranny swap success/ Gearwrenches and Harbor
Frieght Tranny Jack
In-Reply-To: <2008fb6d0702190926y3f7c581fia3e9d410ca63a304@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
I want to chime in on behalf of the gear wrenches. They are a tool
that I thought was pretty useless until I needed one... I quickly
bought more. They speed up a lot of general nut and bolt removal and
replacement, and they can get to some things (speaking 2.1 and diesel
here) that you almost can't get any other way. I only bought the 10,
12, and 13, and I used them all the time. I don't know if they 17 and
19 would put up with the abuse they get, but I didn't think the
smaller wrenches would either--they do.
When it comes to pulling the engine or transmission, the cost of the
rest of the set might be better spend on an air wrench. It doesn't
get amy faster than that, and such work is about the only thing the
air wrench is fit for--at least the one I have.
Horrible Freight makes a transmission adapter for any jack with a 1"
hole in the saddle. It's OK for the money, but pretty useless on a
vanagon as once you get the vanagon high enough to clear the jack,
transmission cradle and transmission (I couldn't) you probably
couldn't reach the engine from the ground.
Jim
On Feb 19, 2007, at 11:26 AM, David Bohannan wrote:
> A couple weekends ago I had the pleasure of swapping my tranny out
> of one
> bus and into another...I am still debating on what to do with the
> whiny
> one...
>
> As a side note...the process I think went a bit faster than it has
> in the
> past based on my brother's gearwrenches...I am a firm believer in
> tools that
> simplify..and the right tool for the job...these wrenches worked just
> great...and really, you only needed a couple of them anyway due to the
> simplicity of the operation...For those that might not know,
> gearwrenches
> have a ratcheting box end...less time in repositioning the wrench. The
> clutch slave cylinder came out a lot faster with this tool...Lowes
> sells a
> stubby set of these wrenches that might be helpful in this scenario
> too...
>
> I have been doing some looking around to pick up a couple sets
> (metric and
> sae) but have yet to find what I want yet...they ARE spendy!
>
> In any case, just thought I would give them a plug...
>
> Also...Harbor Freight had a 850lb tranny jack for 99 bucks that fit
> the bill
> pretty well...will be paying for itself as I redo the messed up
> tranny and
> also have to replace the tranny in my Ford E150...A couple notes
> though...this jack is fairly tall...I had the van on jackstandsm
> but still
> had to roll the tranny off the jack to get it out of the van...I
> guess I
> could have put the van higher, but it wasn't really any trouble...on
> REINSTALL is where it really earned its place in my garage...it has
> 2 angle
> adjustments that allowed me to slide the tranny in- literally
> within 1-2
> minutes...compare that with the last time I did it with a scissor
> jack and a
> floor jack...what a pain that was!!!
>
> For folks like us that KNOW we are going to be working on our cars,
> good
> tools pay for themselves in just a few projects...
>
> Dave
> 85 GL "Baby Bus" daily driver
> 85 "Goldy" tranny donor...soon to have rebuilt or something else...
>
> --
> Dave - KC9FYM
> http://fjazzbass.blogspot.com
>
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