I must be going senile

[gregaba]

I was lucky as my dad was a mechanic from the time he got out of the army after WW11 until about the middle 60's when he went into aircraft working for Convair and the other so cal airplane makers.
From the 50's he road raced and tried drag racing in the 60's until he got tried of how the NHRA treated the Ford racers and went back to road racing.
He had a real nice assortment of tools and for the time a nice set of tool boxs.
All most every tool he had was a Craftsman and I lost a few of them when I was little, man did my butt hurt after losing a tool.
I remember when we moved back to Oklahoma we didn't have enough room to bring all his tools with us so he sold most of them to his friend for $600.00-a lot of money for the time but I sure did miss those tools when I started out being a mechanic.
Took me years to build up a set as nice as he had but I still have most of his tools we brought back with us.
Greg

[frnkeore]

My dad gave me a good start. He was a mechanic at Meyer & Welch, the Authorized Ford Rebuilder in LA Co. The "Meyer" was, Louis Meyer, owner of the Novi, 3 time Indy winner, Meyer & Drake and Ford took him away from there for the Ford Indy engine program. He worked there from the end of WWII to '52, when he went into trucking.

My dad taught me the the basics of engines and transmissions and as I said, gave me his tool box that I still have. It's at least 75 years old and the drawers work, almost as new. The specialty tools, were mostly for Flatheads, all his sockets, ratchets and speed handles were Snap On but, his wrenches varied and there was a Proto 1/4 drive set as well as varied ignition tools.

Before becoming a mechanic, some of my learning came from helping him and the rest from him helping me with the carnage I did on the family cars. Broken spider gears and bent push rods (twice) on their Edsel. Trans, clutch (twice each) and engine on the '61 Falcon and other "stuff" I can't recall.

Like Greg, I lost a few, of his tools, in my grade school days.

[CV355]

I started out with the $99.00 Craftsman tool set. No specialty tools but the other mechanics were real good about loaning any special tool I needed but I all ways returned them cleaned as soon as I finished with them.

Same here.  My father got me a 154pc Craftsman tool kit in the injection molded box for my 17th birthday.  Prior to that I just had Kmart-brand odds and ends, and borrowed tools from him when I needed to. 

When I bought my first house I realized I needed an actual toolbox, so a coworker sold me his vintage SnapOn box (KRA58B) along with some mongrel-brand lower box for $100.  That filled up quickly and I needed more space, so I kept an eye out on Craigslist.  One morning, I spotted an ad for a triple-stack Craftsman box, called the guy, arranged to pick it up that afternoon.  I got there, it seemed sketchy.  I opened up the drawers and it was filled with mud and tools.  The seller said "yeah all that can go with it, I don't care."  $200 later, we had the triple stacker, though I always suspected it was stolen or something.  Fast forward to a few years ago, and I was selling off some of my firearm collection to fund a major house repair that insurance wouldn't cover.  Most people on Gunbroker and Armslist were stingy, so I started offering "Trade plus cash" deals.  I wound up with three large SnapOn boxes including a Classic 78 and a KRL double stack, a Husky rolling hutch, and a Kobalt stainless.  The entire back wall of my garage is this never-ending caravan of toolboxes... filled with mostly Craftsman and Harbor Freight.   

Any time my wife and I are walking through a store and there are toolboxes, she says "NO, absolutely not, no more toolboxes, you have more than most shops!"

I was lucky as my dad was a mechanic from the time he got out of the army after WW11 until about the middle 60's when he went into aircraft working for Convair and the other so cal airplane makers.

All most every tool he had was a Craftsman and I lost a few of them when I was little, man did my butt hurt after losing a tool.

I know how that is...  My father actually hit a point where he wrapped a chain around his toolbox and locked all of the drawers shut because I left a screwdriver out on his workbench when I was a kid.

[gregaba]

In the 60's before our move back to Ok. we moved to Escondido Ca just north of San Diego for dads job.
They had just opened a brand new hi school [Orange Glen Hi.] and I was in the first class, we didn't have any seniors the first year.
We had a new auto shop but no tools and after about 3 weeks a couple of trucks showed up while we were in class.
When we went to auto shop it was full of brand new Proto tools.
They gave us everything including the specialty tools for the mechanics shop and paint shop.
They were the nicest tools I had seen up to that time and I had no ideal what some of them were for. We had a 2 month period where all we did was learn how to use them.
Proto tools were not in Ok. back then and I never saw any until the 90's and I went and bought a few that I really didn't need but I remembered what they did for us and wanted to support them. Stanly Tools bought them out a few years ago and I have not seen any lately.
Greg

[gt350hr]

  Head gaskets are the toughest  to buy "reasonably" especially MLS ones. Forever it was cheaper to buy a pair of FelPro race head gaskets cheaper from Ford than a single from FelPro. The rest of the gaskets are reasonable at places like Rockauto , especially rear main seals.
      Randy

[Falcon67]

I have a bunch of RACE sets for 351C and W engines I bought at a swap meet for $2 each LOL.  Head gaskets  for the race cars run $80+ each. 

I am putting together a C02 rig to fill my shifter tank.  I needed a 1/4 brass T and a couple of nibs plus a 1/4 gate valve - about $26 for all that.  The T was like $7.50, more than the gate valve.  Prices are just out of control. 

[RustyCrankshaft]

In the 60's before our move back to Ok. we moved to Escondido Ca just north of San Diego for dads job.
They had just opened a brand new hi school [Orange Glen Hi.] and I was in the first class, we didn't have any seniors the first year.
We had a new auto shop but no tools and after about 3 weeks a couple of trucks showed up while we were in class.
When we went to auto shop it was full of brand new Proto tools.
They gave us everything including the specialty tools for the mechanics shop and paint shop.
They were the nicest tools I had seen up to that time and I had no ideal what some of them were for. We had a 2 month period where all we did was learn how to use them.
Proto tools were not in Ok. back then and I never saw any until the 90's and I went and bought a few that I really didn't need but I remembered what they did for us and wanted to support them. Stanly Tools bought them out a few years ago and I have not seen any lately.
Greg

I've bought Proto and Stanley/Proto tools for a long time and we still use them a lot at work. Usually you have to go to an industrial supply house like Grainger, Atlas, etc. to find them. A lot of times they're reasonably priced and most are very good tools.

Grainger carries most of the Proto line, but you can find better deals from other vendors.

[gregaba]

I really liked the Proto tool line, I am still using the ones I bought in the 60's. Back then the tool makers really made a quality tool, not like now.
I really hate to look for a tool or machine and find out they were made in china. The quality just isn't there.
Chriss where are you scuba diving in Texas, unless you live on the coast the pickins seem to be a little slim. I used to dive in my teens in San Diego until we moved, about the only thing I miss [well the women were nice] about Calif.
Greg

[Falcon67]

LOL, no scuba - needed a 10 lb siphon CO2 tank for filling the 10oz air shifter bottle in the Falcon.  Seems in relation to the "senile" title of this thread, I keep turning the shutoff valve on the car bottle the wrong way while thinking I "shut it off".  Then I have to go bug somebody to fill it before the next race.  So bringing the re-fill in house to hide my perpetual screwups.

[oldiron.fe]

came back from the nam fall of 69 worked at maroni ford st.paul mn side oiler block $ 266.00 damn !!!  still making power with  old iron 10.5 pump gas 488 hi-rise center oil 670 hp still a little more @ 7000  one more on the way with more hp all old iron

[gregaba]

Fred Jones Ford in Oklahoma City was one of the major rebuilders for Henry Ford until the 80's.
When I came back from Nam my cousin worked there. He knew I was into racing and he arranged for me to buy my engines and other parts used from him.
Prices as I remember them
Used 427 complete engine-$50.00
427 Heads $35.00
Short blocks rebuildable-$25.00
Aluminum intakes $5.00.
I bought parts there until my cousin got a better job around 74 or 75.
Never got a used engine or short block that I could not rebuild and the thing is I only bought 5 of the engines and a lot more heads and intakes then anything else.
Wish I still had them.
Greg

[gt350hr]

Proto used to be Plvmb ( plumb) Made out here in Ca. back then.

[frnkeore]

Yes, that is correct. I still have Plvmb tools in my tool box, that I got from my dad. Including a 2 jaw puller that I just used Sunday.

[gt350hr]

  Yes I inherited a bunch of them too. They actually outlast the Proto stuff LOL. I have Williams ( pre Snap on), Herbest? ( maybe pre Craftsman) Chrom a loy , and some others. All gone the way of the Dodo bird.

[cleandan]

The senile part is we pay the price and move on when a portion of me thinks we should say...Ah, no, keep your gaskets at that price...but what are we gonna do otherwise?

I fix a lot of small engine things.
First, the carb rebuild is becoming an extinct process with the new mindset being to replace the carb outright rather than rebuild any portion of it.

The problem here is a small carb for your 25cc weed whip costs about $100 and they have you both ways because they charge around $25 for even the simplest carb to engine block gasket.

If...if you can source a carb gasket kit it will cost around $65 and NOT contain all parts needed to fully rebuild the carb.
You still have to purchase a float seperately. The needle and seat seperately, and often the idle mixture screws seperately...making the real cost of a full rebuild about twice as much as simply replacing the carb with a new carb...a crappy Chinese replacement carb at that.

When laid out on the bench I just can not understand how these ten or so parts equates to such a high price any more than I can understand how the cost of a complete replacement carb is cheaper than buying a couple replacement parts.