Dear Good Hours.
I will admit it. I was wrong.
For years I would watch car guys using air tools and impact wrenches and think “Those sound nice, but I’m ok without them.”
This summer I had a repair job on my daughters car that went very bad. Replacing the fuel lines turned into replacing the entire exhaust system up to the exhaust manifold, including replacing the studs that bolt the exhaust to the manifold.
In the midst of the frustration, I had a trio of nuts, frozen to those manifold studs, and every trick I tried failed to get them to budge. Longer and bigger wrenches. More leverage with a pipe over the wrench. Hauling on them until I was lifting my own, prone weight off the ground.
Frustrated, I decided to throw money at the problem. I went out and bought a battery powered 1/2” impact wrench. I felt sick walking out of the store with it, but it was my path forward.
And it worked, it broke those frozen bolts free, and I was glad about that, but still,
But still.
I wished I had rented the tool somehow instead. I wished I’d found someone I could borrow one from instead. I wished I’d wrapped the whole thing in Saran Wrap to keep it pristine clean so I could return it when I was done. (I never would have done that, sometimes I imagine all variety of underhanded and criminal activities and never do them.)
But then I lived with the tool for a while. I did a couple of break jobs on two of our cars, and came to appreciate it for taking off tire lug nuts. Ok. Ok. It was nice.
Then, earlier this week I offered to teach my sister how to change the brake shoes on her big “ol truck, and like often happens, what should have been a simple puddle rolled shit deep. It culminated on the last tire, where when we took it off we saw the trailing arms were in super bad shape. Trailing arms are important suspension bars that help tie the tire to the frame of the vehicle
Here’s the wheel with the new arms in place. Shiny powder-coat black and brand new gold colored grade 8 bolts and all. Sexy no?
Ya, I don’t think so either, but it’s a job done.
The upper arm was already broken, the lower arm had a hole rusted through I could poke a finger through. It’s a good thing we caught it when we did, it could have been catastrophic at highway speeds.
But as I moved through the job, I found myself more and more appreciative of having this impact wrench. I’d prejudged it as something I didn’t really want. Like the tile cutter I bought for my first home remodel project and have moved around for almost 25 years since. But it’s turned out to be so much more helpful than I expected. I’ve found that weird emotional attachment to it that I have for all my good tools, and there’s the problem still.
It is the cheeper store brand model from Menards, and I know all the arguments for and against, so maybe the tool will last me a lifetime, and maybe it will shit out on me this winter. The trouble there is when it does, I will be compelled to replace it.
I’m pretty sure I’m as much a servant to my tools and they are to me.
Love Derek
Ratione et Passionis