5 Odd Things Mechanics Use To Fix Cars ~ Video 

You know those Snap-On pocket screwdrivers that say "Not to be used as chisel, punch or prybar?" What they don't want you to know is that it makes a fantastic punch, chisel or prybar.

Desenex foot powder sprayed evenly on a cylinder head will show you the micro smallest of cracks if you aren't sure if it is or not. Spray it on, wait about 45 minutes , the powder is so fine it will fall in a crack invisible to the naked eye. Old school machine shop tricks.

Odd thing I will use on a car: Dental floss. Especially for nuts, probably useful for smaller bolts too. Tie your nut/bolt with dental floss one end, reel out a hand length or two, and lightly tie the other end to a finger on the hand you're going to reach into that blind/hard to reach area you have to thread the nut/bolt into. If you thread it right, the threads will cut the floss. If you drop it ... well, now you don't have to chase the sound of the plink, or figure out what part of the Bermuda Triangle of lost fasteners and tools it fell toward under the vehicle. Learnt this trick for putting nuts back onto retaining U-bolt/clip used on truck winches, to keep the nuts from plinking down into the snow while reattaching a new line to a winch on bed trucks. Oh, or summer - rust covered nuts look suspiciously like the rest of the dust and dirt on the ground.

Beard love. I do like the blue for timing stuff. Timing belts are like the archer fish. They live in deep dark places and are rarely seen. I've learned from scuba diving that blue is one of the last colors to go mute as light decreases.

a small piece of paper on the head of a screw shoved into a socket to keep it from falling out when in a tight spot and magnetic sockets are not at hand, quick and simple

On a hunting trip. I blew the water pump gasket on my f250 hb, Had plenty of beer with me, so cut out a whole new set of Bush beer gaskets! Never had to replace them again! My Firebird has a twelve pack thermostat gasket that's been on there for about five years now!

Get an old saws all blade, make it super dull, grab 2 large thumb screw hose clamps, install blade as normal, attach can of spray paint to blade with clamps, and then on a slow to moderate speed...use saws all action to shake can of spray paint thoroughly with little to no effort.

I use nail polish to seal welch plugs in carburetors on chainsaws. Each mechanic in the shop is assigned a color, so that if a saw comes back with an unfixed issue, we can see who did it the first time.

When building a rotary engine i use vasaline to hold apex seals and springs in place. i keep different lengths of pipe to fit over a half inch ratchet to use as breaker bars. PB blaster works well as gun oil. used pantyhose and shoelaces as belts to get home on hairspray and a lighter to seat a tire on the bead plastic wrap doesnt stick to jb weld after it hardens can be used to make temporary oil pan when you drag a hole in yours 300 miles from home also can be used to fix holes in metal sunroof. didnt know anyone else used the binder clip idea. there are hundreds out there. share your tips to help the new guys. keep this thread alive

Of course you don't use binder clips to stop coolant leaks while you're driving, that's what vise grips are for. I've heard nail polish also works for loctite to keep screws loosening

i had a 77 honda civic loose a rod bearing on my way home from MD. drained the oil into my emptied out tool box, pulled the pan and cut a piece of my leather belt to fit the crank. took quite a bit of shaving and trimming. installed it in place of the bearing. made it 350 miles home driving 75 like always. it did start knocking again about 30 miles from the house, but i made it..

my buddy once used a stick and a rock to hold a transmission in place while he put the bolts in. caveman ingenuity.

Re. the nail polish. Besides some other trades I'm also a locksmith and I have lipstick in my tool box that I use as a marker. When you have a deadbolt that's not lined up you open the door and apply lipstick to the edge of the bolt, then retract the bolt and close the door. Shoot the bolt at the door jamb and when you open the door you'll see quite clearly where to grind and how much. I use a die grinder with a carbide burr to grind the striker plate. Buy the cheapest redest lipstick you can find because the deadbolt doesn't care about quality cosmetics.

There are a whole bunch of things I get from dollar stores. Tooth brushes for cleaning in tight. Combs for separating lots of wires in a loom. Map pins, T pins and stick pins, for back probing, making gaskets, and picking at things. Super glue for sealing up cuts on my fingers, works a whole lot better than a band aid. Green scotch bite scouring pads, for cleaning surfaces and for improvising small breather filters. Emery boards, for good grounds and corrosion touch up. Bungy cords to hold items out of the way. Chalk and crayons. Golf tees for plugging vacuum lines. Multi colored zip ties for marking items. Weekly pill boxes for sorting those really small parts. Disposable box cutters. Binder clips for pinching of vacuum lines while still installed. Magnets to hold the binder clip that holds the tech specs to the hood. Spray bottles with diluted dish soap, used to find leaks in tires, AC systems, it will also reveal bad spark plug wires and it helps for low level cleaning. Paper clips have too many uses to list.

Had the power steering belt snap on a 1963 Lincoln. Used the leg of a pair of panty hoes as a makeshift belt. Lasted only 6 hours, but made it home!

you forgot the number one used item,a wire coat hanger,really? How could you forget the almighty coat hanger?

I've used a garden hose to start spark plugs in hard to reach places especially.

When I was in high school my 85 Mercury Topaz that had something on it fail which controlled when the fan would come on, which caused it to overheat. So I bypassed that part and wired the fan directly to the battery with lamp cord so it would run all the time. I then put a household light switch in the positive line to the battery that cut the power to the fan and prevented the battery from running down overnight. Cost of repair: about a 50 cents at the hardware store. Drove the car just like that for at least a couple years after that until it went to the crusher.

Get yourself some Scotchbrite pads to clean with and get rid of those steel shedding Brillo pads.

Acid brushes, toothbrushes, and q-tips to whisk dust out of vents and the nooks & crannies of a dashboard (when detailing)... Those longer q-tips for cleaning VCR heads (OMG I'm dating myself here) work great for cleaning spark plug wells. Oven cleaner on a white car that had not been waxed or washed in 14 years... Old Swingline desk staplers are great for sagging headliners (with the cardboard backing)... Styrofoam coffee cups work great for solving small interior squeaks. Aquarium airline for windshield washer hose... Had a vaccum-operated HVAC system go bad in my Cavalier, I used aquarium airline, some tees, and a gang valve to select different modes for the HVAC to blow... I once used a power inverter plus a home cell charger to charge my phone because I didn't have a car charger... I used a long piece of steel brake line and a plastic woodsplitting wedge to help a friend locked out of her Subaru, and a sapling branch to solve a lockout in my mother's Pontiac. Part of an aluminum TV rooftop antenna for a lockout on my Cutlass Ciera, and another time, an antenna mast from another car. A pegboard hook to solve a lockout on my Mighty Max. A diode to power the low beam on one side when the high beams were selected because a high beam went out. I used a regular house on-off switch for headlights in a pinch. Bingo magnets (yes, dating myself again) work great for going for metal parts just out of reach. Old dog bowls are great for keeping loose parts in. I bought a marked-down foam exercise mat I lay on when under the car - best $7 thing I ever purchased. Ziploc bags are also great for keeping track of screws when you're taking apart an older car's dashboard. A coffee brewer basket & good coffee filters will get larger particles out of fluids you plan to reuse (like stray dirt and debris). I have low-wattage sound systems in my cars wired with heavy-duty outdoor extension cords - I use the plug ends up by the amp (the plug, after all, has three connections that I use for constant 12V, ground, and remote) so if I need the trunk space, all I have to do is unplug the RCA cables and the plug. I wired it the same across three cars that I owned, so the amp and subs were switchable from car to car, plug and play. I wired a friend's car the same way so he could borrow my system while I was on vacation once. BTW, don't try this with monster systems!!! Only little things. (Well, I have a 1000-watt setup, but I never get anywhere near that output, so I'm ok with it.) Of course, there's the old paperclip trick for OBD-I GMs. :-) I have a #194 bulb socket from a marker light for some car I used to own, I use it as a test lamp. It was free! LOL There is a special degreasing agent that some food franchises use to degrease equipment which I have found works far better to degrease hands and engines than anything commercially available. It's purple and distributed by a major company that has a lot of huge subsidiaries. I don't wantProctor anyone toAnd thinkGamble I am advertising or anything. Here's a tip: I wrapped exhaust header tape around parts of my aluminum AC line to get me an additional four degrees of cooling power, the compressor operates less frequently, thus slightly saving gas.

sewing needles are pretty useful, especially for unclogging or pointing washer nozzles.

used to use disposable ear plugs (the foam ones) to plug small hydraulic lines to keep out contaminates.

Charles another great video!! As a new mechanic/technician i learn a ton from you.Thanks for sharing all of these valuable tricks and methods I'll definitely be getting those clips and nail polish for my tool box.

nail polish works as lock tight too

The generic empty squeeze bottles from a grocery store can be really handy if you don't have a transfer pump for ATF or if you have to fill a brake/clutch reservoir where it's hard to fit a funnel and/or dot3/4 container. Also, turkey basters and "flavor injectors" are good for getting old dot3/4 out of the reservoir before bleeding/flushing.

For M20 And M30 BMW IAC valves, I haves used a penny with a 6mm hole drilled through it to meter the air. Clamped into the intake hose it stops erratic idle.

I use 12 inch surgical forceps sometimes for holding screws in super tight places, to help thread them, and to pull and hold wires. I've found more uses for them than I thought I ever would when I first acquired them.

Great tips man! I like the binder clip one

Clothes pins to identify location for spark plug wires, vacuum hoses, wiring loom etc. Clothes pins are very secure and needless to say, easy to remove. These worked great for removing a distributor cap on V8 engines. I have them numbered L1 to L4 and R1 to R4. Still come in handy on V6 engine plug wires.

I use a wood stick. From a broom handle about 400mm long. I use it to diagnose injectors and injection pumps in diesel to hear the injector working. It works like a stethoscope .. i press the wood on the injector or pump and at other end I press my ear or temple onto the stick and hear/feel if something is funny in the injector. But I've refined my method with an actual medical stethoscope, and since the face of the stethoscope does not fit metal parts well... I have a "probe" - an engine valve where the face sits on the sensing part of stethoscope, and the tail is pressed on the injector-pump-whatever I need to hear. It's always funny when the client looks confused about what is happening. Either as a wizard with a wooden stick, or an eccentric nut with a stethoscope and a valve in the other hand- I should get a white lab coat when i bring out the stethoscope :).

I love you and all the mechanics on youtube. between you and my dad which he is an old school backyard car enthusiast. I have repaired everything from my transmission to just changing spark plugs. Kudos for enabling the DIY in me =) peace!

I’ve used an old rubber floor mat as a gasket, I’ve used a removable car jack handle for leverage while removing a tire, I’ve used a condom as to check for a exhaust leak, I’ve used a big ass rubber band to seal my window so water wouldn’t leak in, I’ve used rubber cement to keep a crack in my windshield from spreading, nail polish as locktight, used a old tool box and metal lines as a (very dangerous) extra fuel tank (when I was 17) to go cross country. And to top it off I’ve used zip ties, duct tape to hold a bumper on

Seam ripper, great for quickly cutting wire looms etc for testing, like hooking my low amp probe for scope testing. T pins are a must for me.

Metal clothes hangers are where it's at

Loved your Video. Good stuff thanks.

Also for heavy duty guys. Plumbers putty for hydraulic rams. Makes reinstalling the piston into the cylinder way less tedious

I use the bar from my floor jack as a cheater bar. Not sure if that counts as weird but it has gotten the job done on more than one occasion for me.

chevy/gmc obd1 code scanner = paper clip

Sweet! That nail polish tip is gold.

My most used odd tool that saves me tons of time? A gatorade bottle! I poke a hole in the lid, find the right vacuums line, stuff through hole, drill a small vent hole, and I got a one person brake bleeder/flusher. Put some clean fluid in the bottom, open bleeder and pump slowly. The fluid in bottom keeps air from getting sucked back in. BTW I LOVE watching your videos! Keep up the good work!

One of my secondary air injection valves busted open, and exhaust gases were blowing out under the hood. I poured some anchor cement into the valve to seal it up, and it has been fine for 50k. Turns out the rear valve is enough to blow enough fresh air to lite up the cat, and keep my Downstream O2 from setting any codes.

i guess it's not so much a tool but a decent headlamp is crucial to most any job i'm doing. being able to see as clearly as possible is basic but vital to every situation.

Love it! I never thought of any of these things. Thanks!

Great video man! You just got a new subscriber!

Balloon attached with a rubber band to the end of a compression test hose or a leak down test hose. the other end will be screwed on the the spark plug hole, let's you know when ur on compression stroke when doing a cylinder leak down test.

Love it HM! Being a DIYer, this probably isn't very odd, but I like to use some yellow mustard as lube when I'm using my tap and die. It always draws comments from friends I'm helping when they see it with my fluids/chemicals, 'why the **** do you have mustard here? Keep up the good work my friend!

Love the nail polish and the binder clipper idea. Exellent! Thank u... both fast and cheap.

one thing I use when working under a car is flash light glasses not only do they keep dirt out your eyes they illuminate the exact spot you want to see and they are very bright

Silly putty (or play dough) holds Ball barrings or small screws to whatever I stick the wad too. Great as an extra hand under the car because silly putty comes off clean and sticks to everything (clean or not). Buy 3 for a dollar or so at the checkout line at Walmart.

Replaced a starter motor with a washing machine motor. Believe it or not, it fucking worked! xD

Good video. I feel like this only scratches the surface of the weird things we use.

Awesome channel dude, Awesome.

Riveting a ground wire to ignition wire pullers in order to not get electricuted during the next power balance test on that old car.

another use fer that nail polish..... when u crunch ur fingers and lose a nail........ pour that nail polish on the uncovered fresh skin..... reduces the sensitivity to things touching it.

i was actually about to order one of those expensive paint pens to mark parts. this video with the nail polish tip is perfect.

Ohhhh Binder clips you taught me something amazing today

A modified caulk gun to press caliper Pistons in

i've used bungee cord to hold the alternator arm and ac pump pulley arm on an old ford 351w in a truck when I removed the water pump and cut off the timing cover to change the chain, mechanical fuel pump, timing cover, and the leaky water pump. i've used a coke can as a carb to intake gasket just to get me home

adding the clips to my tool box right now - Thanks!!

Butter knives, spoons, a fork. (Kitchen and garage are the same to me, only slightly different tools and cleanliness.) Butter knives are great for separating things, spoons make decent light pry bars, forks can be used to hold wires with connectors up so you don't have to chase em. The cardboard idea for organizing bolts is absolute pure genius - I seem to be lucky and remember where every bolt goes and in which order, waiting for my luck to run out. ... oh, and keep click pens with metal clips around, trust me. Lots of goodies in those things.

Poster putty, also known as blu tack, is great for keeping a bolt in a socket just tight enough to start it, but loose enough to remove it. Just did a Mk4 AWP thermostat this weekend, without pulling the alternator. This would have been nearly impossible without the poster putty. I also once used a pair of vice grips to hold the end of a shifter cable on a Mk2 GTI together long enough to limp it home. KY Jelly is invaluable for getting rubber line or grommets to seat, and since it's water based, it's safe for just about all hoses. You wanna talk about a weird look? Pull KY out of your tool box. I've also used a chop stick as a TDC tool. They work well for that.

in my trade. I call it calibrated cardboard. it's right up there with duck tape n wd40

The cardboard trick for mounting bolts of components, a scouring pad for cleaning components and mounting surfaces and the finger nail polish for different types of jobs is what we also used in Army Aviation for UH 60 Black Hawks. We had figured out all kinds of tricks to make our jobs easier... but also within Aviation maintenance specifications.

great ideas......thanks for sharing!

my oil filter wrench broke..used a old pants belt

used a soldering iron to melt a cone into a plastic radiator plug that broke off so an easy out would grab it

Did a timing belt/water pump on my 1.8t, and of course, the split pipe broke. Was on a weekend, and no part departments were open. Ended up using a generic Y pipe, and a generic piece of rubber heater hose to step one of the legs down on the Y pipe. Ran it for a few days and worked flawlessly.

Thanks! Great video!

I've made gaskets out of cardboard

just used the cardboard trick for my water pump bolts. I still fucked it up.

Changing a timing belt on a Honda and didn't have a heavy duty strap wrench to hold crankshaft pulley, jacked up car, put jack stand under pulley with sandpaper and lowered onto jack stand, worked better than I thought. Sometimes u have to use what's around you. Using universals on ratchets and they move to much, wrap with multiple layers on tape.

I love this guy! Thank you engineering explained!

a rag to remove manual window handle clips

Cigar smoke to find vacuum leak. CLR in cooling system flush.

Okay, so 17 year old me.... in my then 21 year old 89 "barn find" 7,500 mile suzuki sidekick 4x4. No cell phone. Off roading. By myself. Midnight. In a place where...well let's just say it wasn't exactly an off road park with helpful staff. Or an off road park. Or any people at all....anyways. Long story short, 2 shoe laces tied together in place of the alternator/water pump belt got me out of a jam. Here are the lessons I learned from this experience and hopefully can be used to help new drivers: 1. Just because an old vehicle has crazy low miles, DOES NOT mean it needs nothing. I was too lazy to take the whole fan and clutch out and replace the belts. Belts are rubber. Rubber degrades over time. Being lazy or cheap will leave you stranded. Replace belts that look cracked/dryrotted, even if they feel tight (mine did) 2. Keep your phone on you. All the time. You never know when you'll have to call for help. 3. When you have no way to jump a dead battery, roll starts are a life saver. (manual transmission only - so buy one) 4. Off roading is fun. Crazy fun. It's way safer with your friends. DON'T do it alone. Especially in a place where it isn't allowed. 5. If your battery light comes on, stop as soon as it's safe to, pop the hood, and make sure the alternator belt is still there. 6. Tools. Have them. Or at least have SOMETHING with you that can be used in an emergency to get you out of trouble. I got lucky, deciding to wear tennis shoes for this "adventure" rather than sandals. That's how I got the laces... If I'd worn my sandals, I'd have been screwed. You can bet I'm much better prepared now.

cardboard and a rubber mallet to make gasket templates. set cardboard on mounting surface, tap it with a mallet all around, remove cardboard and it has a perfect impression of the mounting surface, use it to cut gasket. you can do this with the gasket material itself, but you risk damaging it, its not expensive, but you might have to make another run to the part store, witch always sucks in the middle of a job.

I haaaaate German cars lol. Instead of cardboard, I've used an old ice cube tray before

overhead roof crane as a (jack)....had to do an engine swap and none of our jacks were tall enough.....

the best fix I found yet, the doors of classic vw window cranks, the plastic part that acts as a spacer from the door card, drill two large coins like a old dollar or an Australian .50 coin. looks so cool

Popular ones would be: a rubber glove to check for crankcase vacuum, a bottle of bubble solvent the kids blow bubbles with, put in a spray bottle for finding air leaks in suspension systems or tires (leak detection spray), also works great on fuel necks while smoking evap systems (where there is a leak on the meter but no smoke!)

Piece of cereal box for throttle body gasket

I attached a 8 foot plank to my ratchet using a u-bolt clamp and made a breaker bar.

The square 5 dzn egg crates are my sanity for setting tools and bolts down securely under the hood. You'll never use another method off setting tools down once you try it! and with a piece of cardboard under it you can move em around fairly loaded up, and stack em loaded, etc.

One of the things I use a lot are those little round super strong magnets. I got about 20 of them off of ebay for like $3. I put a few of them on the end of a long extension that I twisted, and taped them on with a little electrical tape, and now I use it to get bolts and things I drop. They are even strong enough to lift a broken off spark plug up out of a plug hole. The extra magnets are good for holding pics of the wife and kids on the top of the toolbox.

Very nice vid. I use all sorts of weird stuff I can find to do the job. Working out of my home has the advantage that it's my crap to find, mold and use anything that will assist in getting the job done. One of my favorites is clear silicone glue. A thin layer can help a lot. It can help hold something in place while drilling holes or help even be a cheap fix for the broke customer who I do the work for free or request a hot meal as payment. Best thing is that it comes off most surfaces with a couple scratches of a fingernail.

Thanks. good tips. And you made me smile. I use pipe dope for oil drain plug. Never leaks and easy to remove. Only used to tighten if you have to back up at all it will leak

I am a huge fan of bungee cords. I use them to hold back hoses and wiring when doing repairs deep in the engine bay. Keeps the clutter out of the way. I also have a large gun cleaning kit that I use for cleaning valve body and pump valve bores when there is a hanging valve found during a rebuild or to finish the bore after reaming for a larger valve for an update or shiftkit.

NICE PATS SPEED SHOP STICKER ! Much love from Wv!

A golf tee to plug fuel lines, cut valve stem out of tube to fit a tubeless rim using one of the nuts on each side. Always take photos of what it's supposed to look like before disassembly (can even email/text them to another DIYer). A car jack under a vehicle to unseat a stuck tire, and the obvious ratchet strap around a tire to seat in to the rim.

In the original Service Manual for my 1996 2Liter V6 Mitsubishi Galant are binder clips recommended for changing the Timing-Belt.

Really liked the cardboard tip, going to use that next time I take apart something in IT that has too many bolts or am doing my own car work. Turkey baster is my tool of choice when topping up/removing power steering fluid/coolant.

This is one of the coolest guys on RU-vid. Dig the viking beard and contrasting personality

I got a small piece of piping that I'll slip over the handles of socket ratchets, instant breaker bar. I use cardboard to lay on, when underneath a car. Old t-shirts are torn into rags for cleanup, cheaper than shop towels. Dawn for washing hands, cuts grease and way cheaper than auto specific hand cleaners. Spray paint to mark connecting points on parts to make sure they fit the same when going back together.. Magnetic tray to keep loose metal parts in. Electric wire shrink wrap to fix hard plastic vacuum lines in a pinch (replace with rubber line after). Probably more I'm forgetting.

Used a pill bottle to repair a brake booster check valve on a scirocco, used a ball of tin foil to hold open a failed temp regulator on a Volvo intake tube, made an intake tube for another Rocco out of pvc pipe... I routinely use egg cartons as parts organizers and I seat new piston rings with Pennzoil and Bon Ami kitchen cleanser. Maalox also works really well as a corrosion prevention compound and anti-sieze. Have used nail polish for timing marks, but I used several different colors instead of multiple marks. Never occurred to me to do it this way, and I'll probably use multiple marks from now on.

It was cheaper to buy mini vise grips then new battery terminals. ...6years and counting.

Installing a transmission in an econoline van, I opened both windows and put a 4x4 post across, used a rope with LOTS of loops to lift it into place. Bailing wire is really handy for lots of things as well.

I used short pieces of PVC pipe as spacers behind lug nuts to hold a brake rotor on the axle/hub while re-assembling the caliper, pads, and caliper mounting bracket. Worked great!

great tips thanks

Just yesterday I used my 1995 Ford Ranger's wheels as a repair stands while removing/installing ball joints. Normally I'd have used a vice but I didn't feel undoing and re-greasing wheel bearings (which were somewhat recently re-greased), so I took the knuckle and rotor and set them into the front of my wheel "backwards". From there it was just a matter of using a ball joint press to fumble my way through the job, using cardboard to protect my new(ish) tires from getting scuffed by the press screw. I'll second nail polish... my dad uses it for touching up paint on his bike frames, and as a result I had plenty to use for other jobs. Such as marking relationships on things (like when I replaced my U joints). I've also used it for removing/installing hoods and the like (as sometimes witness marks are not in a convenient place).

Fixed a motor mount with windshield sealant. Ordered 3m windshield sealant from Amazon. Removed the defective mount. Taped up the back side and held both pieces in place. Filled it from the other side with the black goo. Let it sit and cure over a 3 day weekend while my wife and I took a trip. Re-installed the cured mount when I returned home. It's a little more stiff than the factory mount. But it was $12 or so instead of $112 for a new mount.