SmokeShow
New member
I was removing the turbo from my LBZ engine going in my 83 & had to really torque on the 12-pt bolts for the up pipes. I started out using tiwainese pot metal POS combination box wrenches because my good craftsman box wrenches were all 6-pt wrenches. God bless the superheroes who can break these bastards loose hanging upside down on their head with the engine in a truck because it was a good enough PITA on the floor in the garage! Them bastards are tight enough I was having to use two combination wrenches locked together (y'all know what I'm talking about, right?) in order to gain enough leverage on them to break em loose. Well a few were tight enough that I actually ended up tweaking the boxed end of the wrench because it was an offset wrench also. It eventually wouldn't fit on one the bolts so, against common wisdom that says not to use ratcheting wrenches to break loose tight fasteners, I broke out my prized (love these handy jewels!!) 12mm 12-pt FlexHead Gear Wrench ratcheting wrench & give it a whirl. That went as you might expect... I quickly had a two-piece 12mm 12-pt FlexHead Gear Wrench ratcheting wrench. LOL
So that ended my fun for the evening as all my 12mm 12-pt wrenches were now artfully junktified.
. No worries though!! These GearWrenches wrenches carry a lifetime, no-questions-asked, full, free replacement warranty so I pack my two-piece 12mm 12-pt FlexHead Gear Wrench ratcheting wrench to the not-so-local Sears where they are completely sold out of the single wrenches.
By this time its well established that I clearly need a more robust set of wrenches in the ol' tool box so I browse the numerous options in the wrench section at Sears. Then, there they were!! Such fine specimens of brawny awesomeness that is the professional series of wrenches by Craftsman complete with the size etched on the sides in large font & the really cool, relatively new, universal teeth cut in the boxed end!! And at the sale price of $30, the ratcheting set was only $5 more than the fixed set! No, they aren't flexible head style ratcheting wrenches but they aren't being bought to be used as such, they're being bought to provide a robust set of wrenches, hopefully capable of withstanding whatever task I put them too!!
I was a bit remissed to find out just now while looking for the proper name of the new tooth cut, to find these pieces are made in China. Not real happy about that at all since I thought I could trust the Craftsman name as being associated with being MITUSA but I digress. They still appear to be an extremely sturdy set of wrenches. Time will tell on how they hold up for me. We'll see.
So that ended my fun for the evening as all my 12mm 12-pt wrenches were now artfully junktified.
. No worries though!! These GearWrenches wrenches carry a lifetime, no-questions-asked, full, free replacement warranty so I pack my two-piece 12mm 12-pt FlexHead Gear Wrench ratcheting wrench to the not-so-local Sears where they are completely sold out of the single wrenches.By this time its well established that I clearly need a more robust set of wrenches in the ol' tool box so I browse the numerous options in the wrench section at Sears. Then, there they were!! Such fine specimens of brawny awesomeness that is the professional series of wrenches by Craftsman complete with the size etched on the sides in large font & the really cool, relatively new, universal teeth cut in the boxed end!! And at the sale price of $30, the ratcheting set was only $5 more than the fixed set! No, they aren't flexible head style ratcheting wrenches but they aren't being bought to be used as such, they're being bought to provide a robust set of wrenches, hopefully capable of withstanding whatever task I put them too!!
I was a bit remissed to find out just now while looking for the proper name of the new tooth cut, to find these pieces are made in China. Not real happy about that at all since I thought I could trust the Craftsman name as being associated with being MITUSA but I digress. They still appear to be an extremely sturdy set of wrenches. Time will tell on how they hold up for me. We'll see.
