Thirty-five years ago, as a poverty-stricken student in Tucson, Arizona, I owned a 1963 Alfa-Romeo Guilia Spyder. It was a fun car and taught me a lot about wrenching. For example, I learned to keep my tools in the shade under the car, because otherwise they would get too hot to touch.
One of the tools that I could not afford was a 14mm Allen wrench for the screws that attached the aluminum dual-overhead valve cover. Out of desperation, I made my own tool, shown in the attached picture, out of a metric bolt that had a 14mm head and two 14mm nuts. That little item and a 14mm wrench made a nice substitute.
The home-made tool has lived since then in my tool box. Today, I dug it out and realized that it was perfect for removing the drain and fill plugs from the Mercedes differential.
The only puzzle is how I, child that I am, could be old enough to have been around making tools so long ago.
Jeremy
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"Buster" in the '95
Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .343,000 miles
Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 148,000 miles
My car
Santa Rosa population 177,300 (2026 projected)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 668,300
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970