Mechanical tools are essential assets in the building, repairing and maintaining the mechanical world that we live in. Whether it is a grease gun or a battery-powered impact wrench, all these and other tools will make your work easier and fulfilling.
As such, repairing your own car saves you a lot of cash and time you would have spent trying to reach out to a professional mechanic. Auto Mechanic tools and equipment are your tools of trade when it comes to fixing a few parts in your car.
At this stage, we are going to highlight the best 15 topmost equipment that you should find helpful in your work.
15 Auto Mechanic Tools and Equipment List
1. Grease Gun
This tool is designed to enable you in applying a lubricant through a small opening to a specific spot. The grease gun has channels which direct you to where lubrication is necessary. Depending on the task you want to perform, you can choose from the following three types of grease guns;
• Hand powered- which is triggered by the hand cranking mechanism.
• Hand powered- there is no trigger mechanism but the grease is ejected out by pushing the butt of the grease gun
• Air-powered or pneumatic- compressed air in the grease gun creates enough pressure to eject grease out of the gun.
2. Ratchet and Socket
A good ratchet and socket set gives a range of essential hand tools to help you perform a number of tasks.
The set comes in handy with different sizes of drive sockets and ratchets for your needs. With these hand tools, you have a lifetime guarantee of a great investment.
3. Spanner and Ratchet spanner sets
This is a combination of hand tools ranging from 8mm to 19mm that should be part of your tools. With time you can upgrade by including other sizes of spanners which are more common in any form of auto mechanic repair.
Even though this set might be a little bit costly, it can save you at the time of dire need especially when working on remote parts of your car engine.
4. Bit set
It might be very frustrating when you are faced with a simple DIY task like fixing an air filter or a blind spot mirror due to the absence of essential equipment such as a set of bits.
Your work would have been accomplished if you had a multi-piece bit set to solve your problem. These set bits are of high quality and performance.
5. Vice Grips
They come in different names such as vise grips, mole grips and locking pliers. Therefore, vice grips is a multi-purpose auto mechanical tool you do not wish to miss.
They can work the same way as pliers by clamping together or holding very hot objects or those things you don’t wish to get in contact with your hand.
You can always use vice grips to remove snapped off studs and some bolt heads. These tools are very helpful and long lasting.
6. Breaker Bars
They are readily available in varying sizes and lengths and they are among those tools used frequently by mechanics.
These tools will assist you when working on a car’s running gear with tight bolts due to corrosion where it will act as leverage so you can comfortably unfasten the bolts.
7. Hammers
Your toolbox is not complete if there is no hammer. These tools come in various sizes and shape especially the ball pein hammer.
They are great tools in terms of using them with the impact driver. Besides, other types of hammers such as soft faced mallet and claw hammers can help you do more delicate mechanical tasks.
8. Torque Wrench
If you want to know how tight some nut, bolts, and fasteners should be, the torque wrench will give you that answer.
They are used in determining torque settings which is a numerical value, for the most significant parts of your car.
For instance, your car wheels require to be tightened to specific settings which are normally listed in the car manual.
9. Brake Caliper Wind Back
Changing brake pads for your vehicle should not be a complex task to perform on your car.
This compressor equipment will enable you to push back protruding brake calipers before you can decide on buying and fitting new brake pads.
However, there are different kinds of tools available in the market ranging from the basic compression tools to a complete set.
10. Oil drain pan
It is not exactly an auto mechanical tool, but this equipment is one of the handiest gadgets you should not miss among your collection of tools.
Apart from using it with oil, you can also apply its use with coolant, transmission fluid or any other form of liquid. There are two types, the open one and the sealed.
The latter should be your choice because you can seal it with a cap to prevent oil from spilling and also to act as a storage facility for oil when taking it for recycling.
11. Brake Bleeding Kit
They come in various types ranging from those that are cheap and simple to those that are a bit expensive.
The cheaper variety is just a bottle and hose while the other type of brake bleeding kits relies heavily on air pressure and it is much better and quite easier to use.
12. A nut splitter
This tool is useful in cracking a very tight nut without causing damage to the threads on the bolt or the stem where it is screwed on.
What you need to do is to slip the ring around the nut and twist the tooth into the nut to break it( the nut). The nut splitter comes in various sizes to help you carry out the task on different sizes of nuts.
13. Spark Plug Pliers
They are designed to prevent damage on the boot and wires. The tool has padded jaws to help in gripping firmly on the spark plug boot without causing any form of damage.
You can skillfully slide it onto the topmost part of the boot next to the wire and then clamp it down. Finally, twist it and pull out safely.
14. Carbide-tipped scriber
This tool will enable you to mark each piece on your car as you disassemble it so you don’t get mixed up when assembling back those pieces.
You can use it to scribe alignment marks on those parts you are disassembling.
15. Tire-step
For safety reasons when working on your truck engine, you need to have a tire-step.
The equipment can be adjusted to various heights and also mounted to stay in one position while working on your car engine.
