Re: Mechanics Glossary

[raf40@oes.amdahl.com (Richard Funnell)]

This has made my day!  A lot of stuff very close to home, so to speak.

>(Stolen, without permision, form another List.)
>
>HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used
>as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car 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 convertible tops or tonneau covers.
>
>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 rollbar
>mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that
>goes to the rear axle.
>
>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.
>
>OXYACETELENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage
>cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What
>wife would think to look in _there_?) because you can never remember to buy
>lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.
>
>ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxyacetelene torch.
>
>WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
>motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from
>the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.
>
>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 the Babe-filled, "SNAP-ON
>Tools" Poster over the bench grinder.
>
>WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under
>the workbench at the speed of light.  Also removes fingerprint whorls and
>hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django
>Reinhardt".
>
>HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you
>have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trappng the jack
>handle firmly under the front air dam.
>
>EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a
>hydraulic jack.
>
>TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.
>
>PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris 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 on
>crankshaft pulleys.
>
>TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength
>of ground straps and hydraulic clutch 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 instead of a
>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 cars at night.  Health benefits aside, its 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 suspension bolts
>last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds
>them off.
>
>
>
>--
>-Mike
>mikes@specnet.com
>mks107@psuvm.psu.edu
>87 5000CS TQ - Metropolitan Washington, D.C.
>84 5000S - Boulder, Colorado
>90 80 - Bethesda, Maryland
>(hunting for the elusive Lago Blue '91 200Q)

Richard Funnell,
San Jose, California
'83 urQ
'87 560 SL