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5 Tools That Often Get Misused
Tools are the items and objects we use to complete the tasks we desire to do. At one point in human history we likely only had three tools: a pointy rock, a sharp-edged rock, and a blunt heavy rock. With those three things an industry was born, and it’s one that is today closely linked to the automotive world. We need a lot more tools than those primitive three to get any project done these days, but sometimes we might have the right tool and still decide to use the wrong one. Here are five examples.
If Not Pry Bar, Why Pry Bar Shaped?
Screwdrivers can be precision instruments. They can also be the closest thing to your hand when you need to lever two pieces apart, and oh boy, is it tempting to take that flat-blade screwdriver and shove it in there, maybe even tapping the end of the handle with a hammer to help things along.
Sometimes that works fine, but why take the risk with your tools? Screwdrivers were designed for turning forces and thus it is surprisingly easy to bend the shank or fracture the tip once you start using them in a freestyle manner. If you’re unable to find a pry bar or lever of the appropriate size for your projects, designating one tool for that task is the next best option, though still only half a step short of tool abuse. I have an old damaged flat blade screwdriver that is only used wrong these days. But most screwdrivers do not have shanks that extend completely through the handle, so be advised that any attempts to use a screwdriver like a chisel are likely to break the handle.
Designed to Twirl, Forced to Fight
Sockets are great at removing hardware, but the location of said hardware often means putting those sockets on some type of extension. These simple straight bars have both male and female ends for attaching a ratchet or breaker bar on one end and the socket on the other. That shape also makes them a perfect general-use punch. The broad tip doesn’t focus force much and makes an extension just too perfectly suited for driving out large bolts like those found on suspension hardware. It’s a tool that was designed and born to spin like a ballerina, but often has to pull duty on the offensive line as well.
“The Claw”
At some point a hammer is a hammer, but using a claw hammer under the hood just feels so wrong. Ball-peen hammers are much better for working in the tighter confines of an engine compartment, compared to claw hammers that were designed for framing houses. Ball-peen and dead-blow hammers are likely the most popular for automotive use and come in a range of sizes that help persuade stuck parts and hardware, but that doesn’t stop many people from grabbing what is handy, and I guess we can’t blame them.
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OBD Scan Tools
How could you use an OBD scan tool wrong? Well, I use mine to clear the check engine light and not much more, which quite honestly is massive underutilization of the surprisingly powerful diagnostics abilities that come with a $12 scan tool. I simply don’t want to see the check engine light, because I know the “clogged catalyst” that trips the light isn’t actually being clogged. The problem is that I don’t drive long-enough trips in the winter, and the ECU is putting in additional fuel to try to help the engine warm up and run smoothly, thus the O2 sensors are seeing readings the computer doesn’t like. So I use my scan tool to remove the code and nothing else.
It’s a Lever off the Jack, Too!
Hydraulic floor jacks make lifting our project cars easier than ever. Once the car is up in the air, there is usually (always? without fail?) some large bolt or nut that needs removed, and of course it’s somehow stuck far tighter than the torque spec would suggest. So it’s time to get archaic. Even my two-foot breaker bar is not enough at times, and that’s when the jack donates its handle to create the lever long enough to move most anything. If you’re tempted to use this trick, be careful, the force can be enough to easily strip the teeth inside a ratchet, so it’s best to stick to using a breaker bar. And even then, be sure to have solid socket engagement and a clear path for the long lever to swing in without hitting something else.
How can we not include the mother of all misused tools- the sledgehammer. Even going for one is an admission of defeat; that all reasonable and proper methods of fixing something have failed, or been discarded. It is the ultmate bodge- the hope that brute force alone will get the job done.
Guilty of many, but what I’m most guilty of is using a socket end of a wrench and hooking it to the claw end of another wrench for leverage. I have a small toolbox so long handle tools don’t fit.
Your not supposed to do that? But they fit together so good.
Brute force and ignorance will get you through any situation. 😉
Brute force has an elegance all its own.
Trying to use a very small tapered needle-nose vice grip on tightly positioned, partially exposed SAE nuts mounting a side-draft carb: Great way to destroy the nuts making it impossible to unscrew them. Then, finally ordering a set of very thin-wall vanadium steel open end wrenches, including shorties, that did the job in under a minute.
Supposedly Churchill once said: ““You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else” I should paint that quote on the walls of my garage and home work shop. My wife would appreciate it.
Forgot to mention making the assumption on a us/euro car that what looks like a Philips screw head probably isn’t- it’s more likely to be a posidrive screw. Use a Philips in a posidrive; ruin the screw head. Use a Posidrive in a Philips screw head, ruin the screw head. So it goes.
Same for Japanese JIS screws. Finally bought a JIS bit set and what a difference
I suggest you refine the hammer info as to what can happen using a claw hammer as a ball peen.
That is a dangerous thing to do. 🙁
An old New England expression: “It is a poor mechanic who blames his tools”.
I grew up in a family of carpenters, while I don’t use carpentry hammers on the car, I have used a ballpein hammer to drive a nail or two. I don’t use extensions as punches, but there is a 6″ long 3/8 extension on my tractor that I use as a pin for the trailer, It is like it was made to do that job.
Take two screwdrivers (flathead) and then pry them in opposite directions to pull stuff with stripped screws apart, it works if you aren’t weak and puny 👍
I can’t remember when I saw a flat blade screw large enough to necessitate the first driver. I’ll keep prying.
Even with a nice selection of manufacturer specific oil filter sockets, I still use my large pliers to take off an oil filter. I did buy from Mac Tools the special slip-joint oil filter pliers. I think they made them for me.
Harbor freight made an oil filter vise-grip (looks like a lobster claw): Any size filter, any angle, and wont let go!
As a shop owner, I’ve done most of it, although the greatest abuses are still going to be at home where I don’t have as many tools. But let’s face it: if we have a full set of flat-blade screwdrivers, how often are we using them on screws?? Standard screws (other than electrical wall plates) haven’t been widely used since the 60s, and when I come across them, I replace them with Phillips. Who wants to drive a slotted screw with a power drill? I have a very large Snap-on “screwdriver” that is 2 feet long with a shaft & handle the same as the prybar next to it; it says on the handle: “not for use as a prybar” (!!!) I’ve yet to see a screw that size in my business! And now that Snap-on makes screwdrivers with strikeable handles (with a metal cap made for hitting with a hammer), the message is clear.
A tool is a tool, doesn’t matter it what it was really meant for, as long as it gets the job done without damaging anything!
Once owned a fleet of trucks and often had to do repairs where they broke down. although I have a very well equipped shop I often had to make do with whatever I could get to work in the field. Once all I could afford was that one claw hammer. Then I ran across a large assortment of worn out Morse taper drill bits from very large to small and made a set of hammers using old broom stick for handles. Now have several sets of hammers from tiny to big sledge hammers and yes using one too small can just mushroom a bolt while the right big one bashes it out on the first hard lick but using the small ones for a punch with a handle will quickly destroy the ball on a ball peen. ‘Not that I would so such a thing.’ (my hammers say “somebody” did
I have never met a tool I couldn’t miss use. Many tools are multi use and just miss labeled.
Another messy, unauthorized use of a screwdriver when the oil filter wrench or socket collapses or strips the filter. Pound the screwdriver through the filter & twist it off.
I’ve had them act like a can opener when used for that purpose – then I had to use it as a punch to rotate the remaining portion of the filter base by hitting in the little round holes – – –
Yep, have done all of these including the jack handle one within the last week.