Since so many of us like to upgrade our cars, I thought I'd pass this along:

:-) neil
1988 360TE AMG
1993 500E
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HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as
a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we
are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard
cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes
containing seats and motorcycle jackets.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their
holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling mounting
holes in fenders just above the brake line that goes to the rear wheel.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle.
It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more
you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they
can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable
objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a
brake drum you're trying to get the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2
socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal
bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your
beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you
were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the
workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and
hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a motorcycle to the ground after you
have installed your new front disk brake setup, trapping the jack handle
firmly under the front fender.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a motorcycle upward off a
hydraulic jack.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor
jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading
mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is
ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.

TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength
of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that
inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the
handle.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a
car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery
is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop
light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not
otherwise found under motorcycles at night. Health benefits aside, it's main
purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm
howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle
of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style
paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the
name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power
plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by
hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last
tightened 60 years ago by someone in Springfield, and rounds them off.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you
needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.

Hilarious.

That is actually from one of the articles written by Peter Egan in Road and Track Magazine in his Side Glances column.

__________________
Paul S.

2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior.
79,200 miles.

1973 280SE 4.5, 170,000 miles. 568 Signal Red, Black MB Tex. "The Red Baron".

Another Gem from Peter Egan

So here—borrowing a page from Jeff Foxworthy—are a few other signs that you might be a car guy:

1. You pick up the morning paper and the headline reads, “Alien Death Ray Incinerates Millions.” You set the front page aside for later reading and go straight to a Sears insert that says, “Presidents’ Day Craftsman Tool Sale.”

2. You’ve owned at least one brand of car that your local insurance agent has never heard of, and you have to spell it twice. Or three times, in the case of the Innocenti Mini Matic T1000.

3. There was no way on earth you would have missed the opening night of a Clint Eastwood movie called Gran Torino, regardless of content.

4. You have a whole drawer filled with cruddy, slightly rusty “take-off” hose clamps, which you will never use again. Unless you need to get an engine running at midnight when the auto parts stores are closed.

5. You have neighbors who wonder why you can never get a rebuilt engine running before midnight. And why the garage doors have to be open…

6. You spend Sunday watching three different types of racing on Speed Channel, and on Monday morning someone at your office says, “How about those Bears?” and you don’t know whether they’re talking about football or a fire in Yellowstone.

7. You own a “cherry picker” engine hoist that’s all spattered with overspray from a defective nozzle on a can of chrome-aluminum spray paint that also hit your Cobra poster.

8. The left fingertips on the rubber glove in your bead-blasting cabinet are all worn away from holding small carb linkage parts. Your fingerprints don’t look so good, either.

9. Jay Leno’s garage seems like an island of enlightenment and perfect sanity in a world gone mad.

10. Opening a velvet-lined micrometer case creates exactly the same rush of endorphins in your brain as lifting the lid on a plush-lined case containing a triple-pickup Les Paul Custom.

11. All your blue jeans have a worn left knee because you have a hole in the left knee of your coveralls.

12. Your air compressor is slightly larger than the refrigerator in your house.

13. The only time you use unprintably foul language is when you’re alone in the workshop and things go really wrong. Which is about every five minutes
.
14. In just one evening of looking at classifieds, you can entertain notions of buying a big-block Corvette, a short-wheelbase Land Rover, a suicide-door Continental or an MG TC, all in the same brain.

15. Your bench grinder pedestal is permanently bolted to the floor.

16. There is no day so bad that the sight of a buff-colored issue of Hemmings in your mailbox doesn’t dissolve all worldly cares.

17. You are on a first-name basis with the only guy in the county who knows how to rebuild Dynaflow and Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions.

18. You own more than one floor jack.

19. The electrical parts drawer in your toolbox contains two igh-performance Lucas Sport Coils that look brand new, but you honestly can’t remember if they’re new spares or if you took them off a race car that was misfiring. So you never use them and you never throw them out.

20. You’re starting to think maybe a real car guy should have a coil tester…

21. You go to the hardware store to buy two 7/16 grade-8 locknuts and walk out with a box of 100, because “it’s always good to stock up.”

22. You own at least one Nomex racing suit that you’ve “outgrown” and one or more helmets with expired Snell stickers, preferably from another century.

23. When you go house-hunting with a realtor, you automatically reject any home without room to park a car trailer—or at least a place to hide one, if it’s one of those upscale neighborhoods where zoning laws are concocted to keep out people exactly like you.

24. Half the money you earned in your 20s was given to a man in a Snap-On Tool truck.

25. You have a surprising number of friends whose children are named for legendary members of Team Lotus.

26. You privately believe that a cheap or insubstantial toolbox reflects a kind of spiritual malaise in the owner.

27. You never completely bond with any dog that doesn’t enjoy riding in a car and looking out the window.

28. You own several combination wrenches that have been heated to a cherry red with your oxy-acetylene torch and bent to perform special tasks, now forgotten.

29. You have a wall locker in your garage containing at least eight cans of motor oil, all of different brands and viscosities (synthetic, non-synthetic, straight 50 wt. racing, etc.), left over from past oil changes where you bought one extra can, “just in case.”

30. You imagine that someday you might own an old beater of such low status that it won’t bother you to mix brands and viscosities while doing an oil change. That day never comes.

Ron is a great man damnit!

__________________
1993 190E 2.6 Sportline

Damn

About 30 years ago I rebuilt a rebuilt a turbo Hydromatic 375 Slim Jim, 62 Pontiac wagon if I recall and Dynoflow from I believe it was a 63 Riviera.

I might be the guy

__________________
To see my 129 parts for sale visit:
http://stores.ebay.com/The-Mercedes-SL-Store
John Roncallo