Maintenance tools - suggestions?

[Fry]

I've always worked on my cars when I could manage it: a radiator hose here, spark plugs there, little stuff. But now that I have a new car (my Sonic), I want to take that a step further. Why? Because it's fun and a neat hobby. This next step will need a shopping trip, so I would like to ask opinions on what tools are helpful, essential, or silly. It's important to note that I am pretty stingy with money. I try to make purchasing decisions that have the best value. However, I do value quality parts that are less likely to die on me, especially if it'll get used frequently.

I intend to change my own oil now, something I haven't done on any other car due to oil filter location and lack of caring about the heap I was driving. Luckily, there are great DIY guides on the forum and I have a friend that I can ask for help if he's available. For that job, I know I'll need a jack and some jack stands.

I own a jack. It came with the house and it is a 2 ton floor jack with a 5" minimum floor clearance. No, I haven't tried it under the Sonic yet. No reason to try it without jack stands.

The jack stands I need to buy. Some models are cheap and some are a little more. Any suggestions on brand and weight requirement would be excellent. It would be nice if I could use these on my wife's Mazda 5 as well.

For various other projects, bolts need to be torqued to a certain ft/lb amount. Now, many of you are awesome and can use your digits to get the right amount of pressure due to experience and/or training. Having neither, I figure I should get a tool to make it stupid proof. Any thoughts on torque wrenches?

That's it for questions so far; I'm sure more will come up. I know I can google much of this and take it from some website or product review, but that's a shot in the dark. There's no replacement for personal experience. Thanks for the help!

opcorn:

 

[Maddmatts]

A torque wrench only works if you know what torque values you need to use. An OEM manual will be pretty pricey though (if it's even available to the public). Alldatadiy account maybe?

There are about 4 different types of torque wrenches out there. The flex-beam and the click types are the most common although digital ones are starting to take over. The flex ones are old-school, but cheap, reliable and can handle more abuse. If you drop any of the other types you have to assume it's out of calibration and have it checked.

If you plan on pulling the wheels off now and then, get a 2'-3' breaker bar and some sockets/extensions to go with it. Don't use an impact hammer with the wheel locks.

 

[River_Rat]

I'll just throw this out there. You do not need jack stands to change your oil. Why do I say this? Because you don't need to place your body in harm's way by crawling under the car. The drain plug can be accessed by lying on your back in front of the car and reaching under the front bumper. I found that the Sonic's provided scissor jack was more than adequate to raise the car the inch required to slide my oil drain pan under there.

That being said, if you are determined to buy some jack stands anyway, and want to save some money, then get some inexpensive jack stands like these from harbor freight. Or, if you want to spend 3-4 times as much, then buy some that are made in USA.

Same goes for the torque wrench. If you want to save money, then any discount made in China wrench will suffice. Really, how often do you think you will be using a torque wrench on your Sonic and the wife's Mazda? Personally, I prefer the "click-type." A word of advice on the topic of torque wrenches: check the specified torque for your particular fastener, check the setting on your wrench, and then check them both again. It is very easy to shear off bolts, studs, and threads with a torque wrench.

At the end of the day, these are simple tools that are likely going to see only very limited use.

 

[sx sonic]

Cheap jack stands will suffice, I was a professional tech for awhile and I'm rocking cheap jackstands from an autostore.

As for other tools a good set of -metric wrenches. - 1/4" ratchet and socket. -3/8 ratchet and socket set. -a few screwdrivers. -metric Allen wrenches. - needle and slip joint pliers. -ball peen and rubber hammer. Then at some point a set of torx bits. Those tools will work for the vast majority of all repairs. You're best bet for pricing and quality is at a craftsman store, they work great and have a lifetime warranty. Snap-on and Matco are nice but IMHO are only marginally better for almost double the price (advantage of them is the truck shows up at the shop every week, important as a professional but irrelevant for an amateur. This is also part of the cost). Stay away from cheap Chinese tools, they're vastly inferior.


As far as torqueing fasteners something I've always used as a rough guideline is " when using a standard length wrench applying enough strength with to strain a 2 finger grip equals adequate torque".
The reason I say wrench is because the length is dependent on the size of the fastener which affects the torque you can apply. A bigger bolt can handle more torque than a small bolt and requires more torque to be properly fastened. Since the length of the wrench increases with size so using the same grip and force on a wrench results in pretty close to proper torque across all sizes.
Ratchets require more "feel" since you're applying force against the same length bar. Using the same force on a 10mm bolt and 18mm will not properly torque one or both of them, the 10 will strip and the 18 won't be tight enough....... That's why I refer to force applied to a wrench, using a firm grip and moderate strength is usually darn close to the ideal torque and works for a lot of sizes. After some practice the desired amount of torque can be extrapolated quite accurately to a ratchet, I usually choke up on the handle for smaller fasteners (like a 8mm on 3/8drive ratchet or 5mm 1/4drive ratchet) and apply more strength to the very large fasteners (19mm on 3/8drive and 15mm 1/4 drive).

Usually if you gorilla grip the tool and put all your strength into it the bolts too tight. If the bolt snugs up and you limp wrist it a little more It's probably too lose.

Another method to determine proper torque is to tighten the bolt you're going to remove....... Not much just enough to where it budges, note how much effort it took. Then when you reinstall the bolt you apply almost as much force..... You technically over tightened it earlier and also there is usually some binding when breaking a bolt free, so you don't want to go quite that tight.

Just some food for thought. Nature gave us a pretty darn good torque wrench for free. It just takes a little honing and application of logic to dial in.

 

[Swordsmith]

You are going to need a set of metric sockets and a set of torx bits and a set of allan wrenches, because the Sonic uses sll three. They don't have to be high quality, but they do need to be a wide range of sizes, you can get both cheap as sets at Harbor Freight. I picked up a torque wrench and have never used it, as said above you don't really get the exact specifications for any of the jobs, and even if you do, it turns out the torque wrench I got won't fit into most of the places needed to do the work, so I had to go by feel anyway. Several different sized ratchets and several different extentions, and an impact driver for the more tedious jobs (you could skip this last one if you're feeling really cheap and don't already own one.) can all be picked up at Harbor Freight cheaply as well. There's a time and place for really high quality tools... but they aren't at all necessary for doing light work on the Sonic.

I only use the jack for doing work involving taking the wheels off, instead I use a pair of ramps and a pair of chocks... people tell me the chocks are unnecessary but I'm a little belt and suspenders when I'm lying down under a car.

What else... oh a little magnet on an extension wand is handy when you drop a bolt down into the engine... never do that, but honestly you know you're going to. Magnetic wrist strap or a little bowl with magnet helps cut down on those mistakes, but when they do happen anyway, it's nice to be able to get in there and fish it back out.

Get used to using your cell phone camera or whatever digital camera you own, take pictures of complicated things you are taking apart as you go, easier to get them back together right. You can then use a few of the pics to do writeups of your work and post here on the forum... but mostly the pics are disposable, you just want them in case you can't figure something out.

 

[Natesriv]

Torque wrench
Jack stands
Ramps & wheel chocks
good flashlight
Magnet (on an extender)
good quality socket set
torx wrenches
good work gloves
eye protection
rubber mallet (pays for itself often times on stubborn bolts, a hammer has too much initial jolt)
good screwdriver set
floor jack (which you have) I have aluminum which I love

Pretty standard fare...

 

[ColonelPanic]

If you don't have one, perhaps add a 24mm socket for the oil filter cap to your list if you intend on changing your own oil. I'll be doing my first oil change soon and realized the one I have is a 12 point which I'm sure will tear up the plastic on the cap. Since I have to buy something anwyay, I'll order the Lisle socket specific for this purpose.

 

[Fry]

First off, thank you everyone for the thorough replies. I read through them and it's good info! Sx Sonic, though I've seen it before in other places, your explanation about torqueing was well written. Thank you!

I'll look into the 24mm socket and the bolt snagging magnet device. I'll bet you that if I buy it, I'll never use it. I also know what'll happen if I don't buy it.

Now though...now it's time to move the stuff in the garage so that I can get both cars in before the hail comes this evening (supposedly). I'll check back on this and prepare a shopping list.

 

[13TurboLTZ]

External torx sockets. Theres LOT of special service tools for these cars - namely for the engine timing system and transmission. Hell theres even a J tool for removing the ignition cassette when your doin spark plugs. If it doesn't come up even it can break the boot towers right off.