HDC Staff Favorites: 6 Tools We Love
This story first appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine and enjoy insider access to automotive events, discounts, roadside assistance, and more.
We’re here to celebrate the simple, defiant act of working on your own car. The opportunities to wield a socket wrench or an angle grinder are endless, and the reward is the same: the satisfaction that comes from being able to do something yourself. For some, it’s a way of earning a living. To you, we bow. For the rest of us keyboard clackers, a spell of physical work and concrete problem-solving replenishes the soul.
Recently, some of our most talented writers have shared stories from their garages. You’ll find how-to advice—who knew that you shouldn’t apply more force to loosen a bolt than to tighten it?—and tales of how we often learned the hard way how to get the job done.
All those accomplishments and misadventures wouldn’t happen without the right tools. Old standbys, handy toolbox additions, or one-offs specially-modified for the job at hand—whatever the case—certain tools manage to garner our affection by getting us out of a jam or for their relentless capability. Here are just a few of our staff’s favorites.
Knipex Cutters
Watching a salesman snip a metal file with these cutters persuaded me to suspend my cheapskate ways and splurge for this tool. That was years ago, yet they haven’t dulled and remain the most effective snips in my toolbox. Today’s price hardly seems expensive —around $35—but it proves that sometimes buying the good stuff pays off. —Larry Webster
LED Headlamp
No matter how well-lit your garage is, it’s always a struggle to see into the recesses of a car. This $20 headlamp shines light right where my eyes need it and weighs almost nothing on my forehead. The wide LED strip illuminates my peripheral vision. It even has a hand-activated motion sensor, so I don’t have to put down my tools to turn it on. —Sajeev Mehta
Scraper
When I was restoring my Chevelle with my girlfriend (now wife of 27 years), we needed to get off all the undercoating. Every scraper/putty knife was too long or flexed too much. I trimmed this one to about an inch and a half, and it worked fabulously. It’s still my go-to for scraping gaskets off oil pans and whatnot. —Davin Reckow
LED Flashlight
I found this extruded aluminum flashlight lying in front of the pits while I was drag racing in St. Thomas, Ontario. It’s probably 10–15 years old, and it’s the most well-built light I’ve ever seen. I’ve tried to buy more, but they’re available only in Canada. I might have to cross the border to get another one. —Davin Reckow
Socket Ratchet
I love this tool simply because it was a gift from my teenage son. He informed me that it was promoted by a popular car-repair YouTuber named ChrisFix (page 79), and that name was on the handle. A YouTuber making tools? Good grief. I use this ratchet so often, however, that I’ve worn Fix’s name off. Sometimes we learn from our kids. —Larry Webster
Colortune 500
This British-made glass spark plug gives you a window into your combustion chambers at work. As the tool’s name implies, color is everything; richer mixtures burn red to orange, a leaner mix burns blue to white. A plugged idle circuit means darkness. This tool is indispensable for diagnosing and tuning carbureted engines, especially those with multiple carburetors. —Aaron Robinson
Wire stripper pliers. Don’t use often, but if you’re doing wiring, they save a lot of time (and cuts). Add good crimping pliers for crimp-on terminals and you’ll feel like a pro.
Plus one on the Colortune, it is like magic peering into the fire. Twin SU’s on a ’62 TR4 defied conventional tricks, I found one running lean and one way too rich; the inlet manifolds do have a cross connection, but mostly the front carb feeds cylinders 1-2 and the back carb feeds cylinders 3-4 so I was alternating rich-rich-lean-lean (firing order 1-3-4-2)…this fixed me right up.
Great comment about a real-world example!
LED lights have definitely helped see into spots that holding a flashlight never worked well.
As a youngster I wanted to build a model T speedster. I designed a frame with a “z’d” rear and a dropped suicide front end. The fabrication shop wanted $150.00 to build it!! Outrageous in 1965!! So I bought a Lincoln 225 red box stick welder, a handful of 6013 rod and a 20’ stick of 3” channel stock. All of that was about $150.00 and I got to keep the welder!! I’ve still got the welder, and the car, I love the feeling of picking up that stinger and “running some rod”. That welder has paid for itself X10 over the years!!
Very impressive! 👍👍
Click type torque wrench…there’s something so satisfying about that light ratcheting sound and then the “clunk” feeling when you hit your setting!
The “tool” I use most and after every job is the Shop Vac. I have one in my workshop and in both garages. If it is close by, you will use it.
Totally agree on the the LED light but once your of a certain age, the light only get you part way. Need the bifocals or cheaters to see what you’re doing.
Nah, you just need to get really, really close. That’s why I have a band-aid on my forehead most of the time! 😂
Buy a complete Excato knife set and take the red scraper handle out. Put the #18 blade in it and you will never use a paint scraper for gasket removal ever again.
That’s an easy answer for me. I’m 76 years old and when you get up there the favorite tool is my pocket magnet.
😁 Oh man, how many of us know the truth in that!
Since my “modern” vehicles are circa 2000-2015, I’m really enjoying my Autel TPMS kit. One pull of the trigger and I can tell the temperature and exact pressure of any given tire without tapping the valve, and I can program a new sensor to emulate a dead one, so I have no TPMS read errors.
After a friend finished a repair, he stood up and proudly stated “I am the Ultimate Tool” Didn’t quite realize what he’d said. lol
My favorite tool is a Snap-On flex head socket with 1’2″ on one end 9/16″ on the other I bought it in 1980 from the tool truck because I had forced myself into a corner with the clutch slave cylinder on my E-Type. The tool saved me from having to pull the engine out after just putting it in.
I found other uses for it in accessing bolts that required greater than 90 degree bend such as the starter motor. It was also the ticket for accessing the timing clamp on GM engines. I paid $16.95 for it then and it was $75 when Snap-On discontinued it.
speed wrench ( ratcheting wrench ) when even your deepest deepwell socket won’t do.
Snapon vs craftsman tools, gotta weigh in on this one! When I was a tanker in the army late 70s early 80s, we had several running Russian built vehicles, mostly captured during middle east wars. Well, they were all metric, and at that time the army had no metric tools. So we decided to have snapon sell us a set for each vehicle…and started almost immediately breaking sockets, rachets, ruining screwdrivers. Fed up with their so called quality & waiting for the truck to come by with replacements, we instead got a purchase order for sears. Replaced each box of tools with craftsman…rarely had any problems after that. Just an occasional stripping of a big socket (like 45mm & up to 55mm) cause we’d have to loosen an armored bolt with a 3 foot long lead pipe cheater bar for leverage to break it free. In those cases, if sustains gonna give, it’s usually the socket 1st! Are tools tough enough for any job? Test them on heavy machinery like tanks. I’ve had craftsman ever since….
Not intended for automotive use but I’ve found that a good pair of 9-inch offset “pump pliers” can be indispensable. They serve any number of uses -you can even use them as a hammer to lightly “coax” something into or out of place