At least Porsche 356 toolkits are affordable…

$16,000 for a tool kit for 356, and yet the 10mm is missing.

Someone was blessed with more money than brains.

I was looking on SAMBA the other day at the old black plastic handled screw drivers that came with the VW Bug tool kit.  The ones where one end was phillips and you slid it the other way and it was a straight screw drive.  They now sell for $60 - the older wood handled ones were listed for $100!  Makes SnapON look right reasonable!  Hazet wood for $140!

Helping a friend last week clean out old lady's shed for scrapping iron.  I found a mint 1930 Ford Model A jack and a Black Hawk corn sheller.  Same Jack on ebay for $199 and the shucker for $140.  He was going to scrap for 7 cents a pound - so maybe $2.  Now what do I do with them (old profession pitching horseshoes found too). 

@MusbJim posted:

$16,000 for a tool kit for 356, and yet the 10mm is missing.

The 10 is with the 14, but otherwise - yeah.

It looks to me like the 16 resident patients at the Santa Cruz (CA) Psychiatric Health Facility were granted time on a computer and 10 of them ended up creating a bidding war for this tool kit. The 11th bidder was from Brooklyn and his lone $7,600 entry musta been merely for "shitz & giggles."

I’d rather have a replica Hazet that fits in your spare tire.
~$300 everywhere.

We had the one from our ‘60 Kombi kicking around forever, but since we were all kids, they got scattered to the wind. After I did some digging, I found the pliers (just like the ones in the BaT auction) in one of my tool boxes. I’ve been interrogating my brothers about the location of the 21-36 box end wrench because as the only air-cooled owner, by rights it should be mine.

No luck so far. But I know one of them has it, and I’m pretty sure who and I’d take a WAG that it’s sitting in the bottom of a tool box he hasn’t seen in years. (Packrat)

@WOLFGANG posted:

I was looking on SAMBA the other day at the old black plastic handled screw drivers that came with the VW Bug tool kit.  The ones where one end was phillips and you slid it the other way and it was a straight screw drive.  They now sell for $60 - the older wood handled ones were listed for $100!  Makes SnapON look right reasonable!  Hazet wood for $140  

BMW motorcycles had those, too. I’ve got 2-3 of them. They suck. Any $10 4-way is an infinitely better tool. I have two Stanley’s: A regular 4 way and a pen sized 4 way miniature.

@Stan Galat posted:

The 10 is with the 14, but otherwise - yeah.

DANG! Missed it. I guess that kit is worth $16,000 after all.

@MusbJim posted:

DANG! Missed it. I guess that kit is worth $16,000 after all.

Glad to help. Will that be cash or card?

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@dlearl476 posted:

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...BMW motorcycles had those, too. I’ve got 2-3 of them. They suck...

BMW must have been putting the same junk tools in their cars at the time, too.

All three of mine ('68, '71, '74) had them along with a slip-joint pliers, a few nondescript open-end wrenches and one tool that, while crude, was indispensable - a long spark plug wrench that fit down into the deeply countersunk head.

The non-business end had two holes into which the screw driver fit to apply leverage.

Junk tools maybe, but it's comforting remembering a time when cars were simple and sturdy enough that the ham-fisted could muck around under the hood without doing serious damage.

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@Sacto Mitch posted:

.Junk tools maybe, but it's comforting remembering a time when cars were simple and sturdy enough that the ham-fisted could muck around under the hood without doing serious damage.

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Like the meme says “Owners manuals used to tell you how to adjust the valves, set the timing, gap the plugs and points. Now they tell you not to drink the coolant and touch the hot exhaust pipe.”

There wasn’t a lot of stuff you couldn’t do to a VW with those tools.

@Sacto Mitch wrote: "one tool that, while crude, was indispensable - a long spark plug wrench"

Hot Rod Jimmy has a "Hazet" tool kit in his original '58 Speedster.  He found the tools piece meal over the years and his brother stitched up the roll-up tool caddie and it looks every much the part of a real Hazet for one helluva lot less.  He had it out at a recent Cars and Coffee and was grumping that you could loosen the spark plug with the long plug tool, but that the plug often fell off onto the heat shields  and hid for you to find.  I convinced him to come home with me and I could magnetize the thing for him.  He was skeptical until I zapped it and now he wants a mag/demagger for his shop, too.  

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Gordon, that spark plug wrench had a spring metal clip welded inside that grabbed the plug.

It may have been a junk tool, but it was a German junk tool.

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I aways thought the most valuable tool provided was the hub cap remover.  Now they seem to be over $10 on ebay!  When not being used, squirrels can use them for a vigorous game of horseshoes.  My 914's sparkplug tool had a foam core - it was efficient in hold the plug for removeable.

I still have a pair of the pliers that came with my Dad's '63 Bug. They are durable as heck.

I also have a stamped steel spark plug wrench for 13/16" plugs. It is not German, I think it might be from an old Ariens lawnmower or snowblower. It was my Grandfather's. Anyway, it got Kelly Frazer's plugs out and back in one year at Carlisle with no issues. It resides in my tune-up box for all youse guys: compression gauge, assorted feeler gauges, point file, tach/dwell and timing light.

@DannyP posted:

I still have a pair of the pliers that came with my Dad's '63 Bug. They are durable as heck.

I love those pliers. Especially the wire cutters on the side. They were perfect for cutting baling wire which, along with Duct tape, was an essential part of the repair kit for “Maybelline” my 64 bug.

@DannyP wrote: "It resides in my tune-up box for all youse guys: compression gauge, assorted feeler gauges, point file, tach/dwell and timing light."

"Point File"??  

Man, you're OLD!   🤣

@Gordon Nichols posted:

@DannyP wrote: "It resides in my tune-up box for all youse guys: compression gauge, assorted feeler gauges, point file, tach/dwell and timing light."

"Point File"??  

Man, you're OLD!   🤣

I'd imagine I'm 10-15 years to the good side of whatever age you are, Gordon!

Some of that tune-up stuff was my Dad's, and a few tools were my Grandad's. I did have to retire(throw away) the Craftsman inductive timing light when it crapped out. I bought a cheapie replacement at Advance/Zone/Pep/O'Reilly.

With EFI, you only need a timing light once. You need to dial in the degrees of offset to get 0 degrees in the ECU to match physically to exactly 0. After that, it's a couple mouse clicks.

"My mother used a timing light on me once. Just once": let's see who gets that one!

@DannyP posted:

"My mother used a timing light on me once. Just once": let's see who gets that one!

I'm guessing Johnny Dangerously.

But it sounds la lot like; My mother used a wooden spoon on me. Except it was multiple times because I often didn't learn my lesson.

"Do you realize your name is a preposition?" ---Marilu Henner

2 points for my man Robert.

@DannyP posted:

"Do you realize your name is a preposition?" ---Marilu Henner

Now I've got to know, to whom was Marilu speaking?

Michael Keaton as Johnny Dangerously. Marilu played Lil, Keaton's love interest in a sometimes stupid, sometimes funny sendup of 1930s gangster movies.

It was 1984, and the line I quoted above was Joe Piscopo's character.