Episode: 1718
Title: HPR1718: What's In My Pickup Toolbox
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1718/hpr1718.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 08:11:22

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This is HPR episode 1,718 entitled What's In My Pickup Toolbox.
It is hosted by 50 and 50 and is about 26 minutes long.
The summary is What's In 50, 150's Pickup Toolbox.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
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Howdy folks, this is 5150 for Hacker Public Radio and this is going to be my first recording
picking something from the suggested recording slip.
So today's topic is What's In My Pickup Toolbox is what you want, right Ken?
I never can remember.
Okay, well right up here in the leading annual beat up toolbox I've got
old coffee Ken full of stuff and let's see what we got in there.
I've got some blue RTV gasket maker and of course that's never in a good second time.
We try to use it's all done and you guys take a nice through the bottom to get any
out.
Some perm attacks.
That's just as bad.
A little piece of fuel iron hose left over from probably putting in a filter.
Looks like I got three wood chisels and what I use those for mainly I don't do wood working
that that's for scraping gasket material off a surface.
Got a couple big long punches, a pair of small vice grips, pair of these scissors.
I don't know if you'll find these.
I used to have a bunch of these and they're the sheet, so those are made out sheet metal.
You get from those bargain tool bins and they look like cheap as heck but shoot they cut
through anything.
I've got a little wire brush here or a stiff plastic brush for cleaning parts so I've got
the mail end of a trailer coupler, a sharpie which is nice for riding on stuff.
Another piece of old worn out hose I've taken from off of something.
I've got a driver for a small socket set.
It looks like a screwdriver but it's got a quarter inch socket head on one end, the
looks like I've got an inline fuse for this new, not the old round bus fuses but the
plastic ones now.
Cars have a Phillips screwdriver, a narrow knell is in there, small nuts, some electric
fence insulators looks like, I'm not going to get here to bottom of this, oh yeah part
part of it.
And the current tester looks like a whole bunch of stuff, washers and fuel line cutter,
some fuel parts and stuff, more hose, okay this is off of a grease gun, cutting a couple
of parts.
Okay, let's call that good for that can, let's see what's underneath here, looks like
an old relay for something, some fuel filters that going on ain't good so they don't know
if they're good or not.
Oh broken set of wire strippers, you know the cutter part is broken, they still would
strip fine but of course you've got to, if I want to cut the wire I've got to buy another
set anyway and we'll get to that so it's in there, big big Phillips screwdriver, see box
in, Ranch 15, 16 spy, one inch, another big flat head is screwed up, a really really
big punch and fit that in that can, piece of an old bearing, you can use those for bushings
and stuff, little bitty tape measure, you guys probably hear the cat she's hungry, aircraft
type hose clamp that's the only kind I'll use, oh there's a little clevis, huh, it's
been under that can so I had no idea, I still, I had that or what I ever got for in the
first place, I'm going to clevis, that's completely the wrong kind for, no not a clevis,
it's more like a, oh I almost say parachute strap, that's not either, one of those deals
it clicks open, see pretty much empty box of quarter inch sockets, it would have been
full but got left open in some place and all the sockets jiggle off on the ground, can
a WD 40, I've got the sides on another container, vice grips, can't get by on the farm without
vice grips, a couple pairs of those, oh the sneech screwdriver got quiz, it had to get
various different heads but instead of being one of these ones where you take the heads
out and you turn around or whatever, you pump this thing like a shotgun and then turn
it and then it's got like an internal magazine with seven different types of heads in there,
more vice grips, big old pin out of something I used to be on stuff with, one of the big
old long rods, well both of them should be in here, some place that I used to slide in
when I threw the ramps on my car trailer, you set the ramps and slide the bar in the
whole room and they're in here so they won't jiggle off the trailer, when it goes down
the speed wrench socket and that's a you know low crank type socket wrench, you don't have
much leverage but you can go fast with them, fencing hammer, if I had a dollar for every
one of those that I planted I'd retire, about a 15 inch pipe wrench, another old dried
up to the current tax, big set of channel lock pliers, my remote starter button, that's
a real neat thing when you're working on engines, it's got a couple alligator clips and you
go down on the starter and put the clips on the cell annoyed so you know you can crank
the engine over while you're there where you can look at it rather than being in the position
of having to get in or you know say you haven't have two people which I'm fresh out of you
know these last few, well last few years that hasn't been able to help on the farm so I've
had to do a lot of stuff to you know make allowances for that, roll of like 14 gauge automotive
electric wire, see what else, oh yeah one of these do hikis, this is another one of these
deals that saves you from needing two people to work on stuff, it's a it's a spark tester
and I've been using it, well I need to get back to working on this pickups, got some weird
gremlins you know the ignition just quit on me here so I got to get back to it of course
I got to put a new key in it because I don't have any of those anymore but this spark
tester is a deal, it's it's a real set, some of them just got a bulb that lights up, this
sort of simple one that you you know you can screw it in and out to adjust the gap and
then it's got alligator clips, it's really aren't big enough, you put on a ground, some place
near the engine and then you put like your number one spark plug wire, I guess it really
doesn't matter which one it is, on the snap-in on to the other end and then it crank the
engine over with your remote starter switch and you look for spark between the contacts
they'll tell you tell you give you some idea if you're getting a spark that's so good
for telling you how much spark you know how hot it is, let's see what else an old starter
button wired to some wires here, probably I was jerry wringing it at some time or in lieu
of that remote starter, what else, oh okay that's a okay that's a little fuel, no that's
a cutoff, see this truck is a dual fuel propane and gasoline and since a mechanical gas pump
ran all the time when you're on propane then you had to have a fuel cutoff between that
and the carburetor and this year Dodge had a bypass, so the whole time you're going
down the road burn propane you were actually circulating gas all the way up to the carburetor
and then fortunate back around the return, so I fixed that by switching over to an electric
fuel pump, so it's wired, so I'm mostly pumping gasoline when I'm actually burning gasoline
and part of the trouble is this little pump, it's kind of a special part, you're not
going to see it in the normal part store and it started giving me trouble, so that was
one of the reasons, I've had trouble with electric fuel pump, I saw that by going to a really
really big fuel pump, apparently the normal ones they have now aren't terribly reliable anymore,
they used to be and part of it is the tank on this truck hangs down below the frame and I want
a mount to pump to the frame, if I had a place where I could mount the pump under the fuel tank
where it would gravity flow into the pump then there wouldn't be so much of a problem but the
trouble that is of course you're going out across the dirt and the brush and all that, if you try to
hang it down below the fuel tank you're just going to wipe it off of there and have a fuel leak,
you know, ultimately you're not going to be going very much, let's say I've got some sea clamps in here,
take a big old chunk of rod that I guess he just uses a pry bar claw hammer, see, keep throwing
stuff from one end to the other, I keep coming up with the same stuff over time, oh yeah,
this is a strange wrench, it's just opening only one end, opening on that size is this an inch,
it's bigger than that, let me see if I can read the size here, sometimes you go,
that's what I think can't in the glove compartment of a vehicle, I bought, yeah, one in five-sixteenths,
that's if that's a big old sucker, one else, old tire wrench uses a pry bar, you know, you used to
get with the car, not the big square spinner wrench, which I prefer, just one for the, for the
particular nut that they gave you on the car in and the other end is a, is sort of a pry bar,
it's you'd use to get the hub cap off, so you kids have probably never seen a hub cap,
it's homemade too, I made for tightening the ball joint connection on the end of the sickle
in our old case combines, which we don't use anymore, because you can't find parts for them,
few kids, J.I. Case quit making combines in the middle 70s, so you know how old our stuff is,
but it's just, it's kind of like a ball with a screw behind it, you know, well, you had a ball on each
saw, or a ball in the middle, and then you had a socket on each side to connect with the balls,
it's a ball and socket, and then you tighten it or took it apart by tighten this big sort of nut,
well, it wouldn't be a nut because it's inside, it's threaded on the outside, so, but it's
if the, the, the tube on the end of the combine sickle, which is, that's the part that goes right
and left with a sharp teeth on it, it actually cuts the plant off, but yeah, it's a ball and
socket operation, and you had this thing screwed in the end and it kept, so you can just have tight,
you get too tight, of course, it would work too, too lucid pound, pound itself apart, and this
one thing about a combine, there are just too many moving parts, and that's one of those things
you constantly had to tighten, I mean, one, you just didn't set it, when you put the thing together,
you had to go every day and see if it loosened up on you, and if it, and it almost always had,
then you had to tighten it down a little more, you know, and grease it, but, of course, you know,
this, this thing had sort of a slot, like for a screw, screwdriver, on the end of it, of course,
it's bigger than any screw you've ever seen, and we used to have thing go on a socket wrench that
would go in it, those actually designed for doing something similar on a tie rod end, it's kind
of like a really big tie rod end, if you ever seen one of those that come apart, you know, with
the nut screws apart on the end, rather than making it, you really won't see that, and it
sets really old equipment, but, you know, but it's, it's not a straight, like screwdriver deal,
either, because it has to be notched in the middle, because that's where the
greaser gets, but long, very, very stupid and long story short, I got tired years ago of having
one tool for two combines, that would always be in the wrong place, and I have to chase dad down
the other combine to get the tool, or vice versa, so it's, it's really easy solution, I just
took a chunk of angle iron and cut away from one side, so I had a, so I had a tool that would fit
down in that slot, and, and with a hand on it, and that's how, that's how we fixed that,
oh, let's see, smaller films, still fairly big, but, and a Phillips screwdriver, but,
more along, there's bigger round, oh, okay, we've got a set of Allen wrenches, or no,
these are Torx heads, okay, it's like one of those Allen, I could have really used this a while
back on a computer, but, uh, set a, set a Torx head deal, so it's, you know, you've got like from,
was a T-20, well never mind sizes, but probably any Torx head that you're going to encounter
is going to be on this thing, but it's made like one of those Allen wrenches sets,
where they, where they all fold up beside each other, see, oh, it's probably out of my old
New Yorker, uh, oh, I'd say on college, I got one of those, you know how back in the 70s,
you had these strap-on things to, you know, you had the foot-shaped accelerator pedals, you know,
was a JC Whitney catalog sort of thing, and, and I had to, you know, so I sat in one of them,
would, the big one would strap on your accelerator pedal, and then the, just get, wouldn't replace it,
just go over it, and then the other one is supposed to go down on the, uh, headlight dimmer,
down on the floor, so it's just made a little round socket and the Allen wrench, and it's,
it's in here, because the thing never would stay on, so, you know, a set screw is what I meant to say,
and you know me, I never throw anything away, probably wind up on a computer sometime,
switch or something. Let's see, what else do we got? Oh, that's an inside door handle, it fell
off the truck, so we're never really had enough priority to fix that. Let's see, we've got,
got the, a ball in the hitch that goes into receiver, because of course I got to switch back
in the course between a pin type hitch and a trailer ball type, so one, one's always in the
two of boxing, the other one, actually they're both in here, that's probably so I don't walk in,
now I've got another one back in there, yeah, this, I guess I got extra. Hacksaw, and well,
that's all you can use out in the field, and I tell you what, if you, if you saw much metal,
get you one of those saws all, they burnt, they burnt, they burned through blades, awful fast,
but man, they sure are a labor saver, big three quarter inch drive, or no, I'm sorry, half, half
inch drive, a ratchet handle, a couple crescent inches, more wire, that's, I don't think that's
still, no, that's like 12 gauge or 14 gauge, a hitch pin, more and out one, yeah, why would I keep
this, it's an old choke, thing backs off your choke when it heats up, it's got like a core wire,
it heats up when the engine's moving over, it backs the, backs automatic choke deal, that's
what it is, WD40 can with the end of it broke off, I do sometimes have success switching the
ends when I feel one can, another claw hammer, not another dried up tuba permer text,
some wire connectors, tuba gojo, I think it's 52, quarter inch ratchet handle, we're done,
then I've got another one up here in the top part of the tuba box, got the, the identical
make to that empty set of quarter inch sockets and ratchet that I told you about, so this,
I think we lost some of those, I made one kid out of the two, I had identical because you get
these premiums when you buy corn seed, you get your corn seed free when you buy a $5,000 hat,
see what else, about to the end of the bottom part, I'm sure, I'm sure you folks are glad to hear
the word end and conjunction with this podcast, throw the two of boxes, oh yeah, don't use it much
but when you needed it, you needed, it's a set of gear wrench tools, it's a ratcheting wrench,
but instead of being a socket wrench, because the socket wrench, you're limited how far down
the bolt you can go, so if you've got something that's like all thread that you got to go away,
this thing works great because it's got socket, it's like a socket wrench, the socket are meant
for the bolt or whatever you're working on, the pass all the way through it, so like I said,
it's one of those things I probably haven't used 10 times, but when I did, it was a lot faster than
working on it with an end wrench, so you got one of those telescoping mirrors,
now this is a set of Allen wrenches here, really really big set,
assorted bolts and stuff and screws, my plastic calipers, it's this, another punch I guess,
a smaller punch this does, like a center punch, okay, tire gauge, another quarter-interratchet handle,
quarter-interratchet extension, this one I hate because the sockets never stay on the end,
it never has, since the thing was brand new, you got to wrap tape around them to hold them on
there, I guess the solution would be to buy a new extension, but of course you folks know I'm cheap,
let's see, okay, then I have a drawer here, well, not really drawer, but then slide out,
but a section here that's walled off, it's got all my larger open end box end wrenches and then
some type of thing, times you got to throw stuff in, where it'll fit, so it's also, since it's a long
compartment, it's also got my big half inch drive socket extension in there and another crescent
wrench, it looks like I stand alone, Allen wrench, not part, you know, not part of a kit, then next to
that, I have my 3H drive sockets in a small deal and next right next to the other side, I've got my
half inch drive sockets and see, yeah, the compartment's got my smaller box end wrenches, everything up
to about three quarter, I've been there, and then here on the other end, you know, sort of things,
battery cable ends and I've got to, okay, I've got an extra set of pliers in there, in case I lose
my pliers, I've got a pair of side cutters, which is a type of wire cutter, and then I have an
unbroken set of wire strippers here, and crimpers, and another Sharpie, and a flat screwdriver,
see a Hitchpin clip keeps your Hitchpins from falling out and you're going down the road and
having the embarrassing happening of whatever you're telling, go a different direction than what
you're going, and some fence insulators, it's like a plug out of a tank, and well that's it folks,
that's what's in my pickup tool box, I've been 5150 for Hacker Public Radio, and tomorrow you
have another host, if I'm certain, a podcast that's far more pertinent to your life than this one
has been, see you later. Yeah, and that right now I'm looking at my Sands Eclipse trying to figure out
how I'm, how to stop it, just so I think, you probably heard me talk while back at the
the last community news that I hadn't got any of the audio when we were working
through Centrelian, that's that's just too bad, this problem was just funny as heck, I'm not sure
how much of that we would have got anyway, because I was walking around holding the clip and trying to
hold it where he could talk into it, but you know probably if there's parts of this you don't
you don't hear very well, it's because I forgot to hold it up to in front of my face, so I'm not sure
how much I would have got to that Centrelian stuff even if I'd known how to operate the equipment,
but see that that's our own thing, I'd I'd record a podcast with a Sands Eclipse once before,
but that was with the stock software, and on the Sands Eclipse that I had last year or
well last May, it had rock box on it, and I'm still not sure, well I should have played with
them away down there to get 30 minutes to figure out how to make it record, and I just I thought well
I didn't think it was necessary, I figured I could figure out you just go into the recording section
hit record, well this is one place where the stock sensor interface wins out because I just found
it confusing, I didn't know if I was recording or not, whatever, so yeah here we go and let's see
what do I need to do to stop the recording, now I didn't I had it paused and I said so that's
paused, well you would you would know that's paused because I had it paused, bottom button doesn't do
anything, see if the home button, now we're still recording, I hit the middle button
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