The innovative or useful tools thread - Recommendations etc.

[PhillipM]

The suction bleeding kits have come so far down in price it's worth getting one of those instead - then it can be fitted to almost everything.

[petrolbloke]

tapkaJohnD said:

petrolbloke said:

Nothing too fancy but this has come in handy recently:
http://www.diy.com/departments/mac-allister-1/2-sp...

Unlike most sockets, you can get a spanner on the top of it. That then allows you to get a hex bit through the socket to stop the strut from spinning round when you're trying to undo the nut. 21mm is the right size for my Octavia mk1 and Clio mk2 and probably a fair few other cars as well. Cheaper than buying a swan neck spanner and probably easier to find.

It's a convention that spark plug sockets have a hex on top, as well as the rubber sleeve inside
This MAY be so that a spanner may be used if the square drive on a ratchet wrench would touch the top of the plug, but that's a guess.

John

Sounds like a reasonable guess to me! When I said "unlike most sockets" I meant normal 21mm sockets, but also this is cheaper than other spark plug sockets and has a 1/2" drive rather than 3/8". I took the rubber grommet out for my re-purposing.