Question about the old tools at the junkyard in Bakersfield

I was at the junkyard in Bakersfield last week looking for a door panel, and I walked past a pile of old hand tools someone had just dumped. There was a set of flat-rate guidebooks from 1998, a bunch of those old metal oil spouts, and a beam-type torque wrench that looked like it came from the 70s. It made me think about how much has changed. We used to have to look up everything in those paper books, and now it's all on a screen in the bay. That torque wrench probably did a thousand head jobs, but now everyone uses a digital clicker. I guess the basics are still the same, but the gear is totally different. Does anyone still use any of that old stuff, or is it all just scrap now?

3 comments

3 Comments

karenb977d ago

You're right, that old gear still knows a few tricks.

susan_adams7d ago

Scrap? That old gear is the good stuff. A beam torque wrench never needs batteries and you can see it flex, which teaches you more than a digital readout ever will. Those flat-rate books have fixes for problems the computer might not even list because the system only goes back so far. New tools fail when the software glitches, but that pile of metal just works. It's a shame to see it all rusting away when it still has a real job to do.

michael_green447d agoMost Upvoted

Honestly, that stuff is mostly scrap now. The new tools are just faster and more accurate, which lets you fix more cars in a day. It's cool to see the old gear, but progress is a good thing.