Handy Gadgets
There are all sorts of handy gadgets out there for the automotive do-it-yourselfer and car enthusiast. Pat Goss has some pretty cool products to share that are practical and clever. He's got the latest and greatest... products that do everything from a wrench that has all sizes covered, to an all-purpose scraper, to a neat little invention that keeps stuff from falling in between seats.
I get to look at some really neat stuff, and this time I've picked four items that I think, well, they're pretty interesting. First, we'll start with the Stanley Squid Bright. This is an LED light, it has two settings on it, so you can have bright or dim. It lasts for several hours on a single charge. But the big thing about it is its legs. You can adjust the legs so it will hang, so it will sit on uneven surfaces, or just about any place that you want. Makes it extremely handy.
In addition to that, when you're driving, invariably, you're going to drop something, you're going to drop your cell phone, or who knows what. Where does it always go? Well, it always goes down between the seat and the console and you're driving down the interstate fumbling around, totally distracted, trying to retrieve the item. Well, the Drop Stop fixes that. See, the Drop Stop fits in between the console and the side of the seat, so the things that drop down they land on it, you pick it up, there's no problem. It has a slot in it that the seat belt goes through, so there's no safety compromise there either. Pretty clever idea.
If you're a do-it-yourselfer and you ever do anything on the engine in your car, or just about anything for that matter, you're going to be working with aluminum. Now, one of the things you have to do before you put things back together, is that you have to clean any old gasket material or dirt that has built up. Well, one of the problems with that is that steel scrapers can actually gouge the aluminum. Well, this is the Skrapr, s-k-r-a-p-r, and it's designed so that you can clean away gasket material and dirt, and so on, on aluminum without gouging the aluminum and making a problem with sealing.
Here's something we use in the repair shop. This is a Black and Decker Ready Wrench. Now, it has four different sizes of sockets on each end of the wrench. Now we use this for oil changes in particular because the technician doesn't have to run back and forth to a tool box to get the different sizes. He always has the right size right there in his hand. Now, with the four ends, you can actually fit sixteen different bolt sizes. Now the way that works is that some metric and some standard size bolts are virtually identical. So if you machine things right, each one of these will fit one standard and one metric bolt. And it's labeled right on the side of the socket as far as what they fit. Extremely convenient, really good idea to have in the car with you in case of an emergency; it covers all the different sizes.