Tools 'n' fun times

I purchased a lot of tools. :)

Yesterday was a second shot at fixing Carissa B's brakes on her car. She has a nice car, but the brakes were heck. Last week, when I tried fixingf them, I got the wheel off, discovered which bolt I had to remove, and found that it required an alan wrench, which I did not own. Little did I know that at the time I would need one. I knew that I needed an Alan wrench, and in light of this, I purchased every Alan wrench size I could think of, both metric and SAE. Just to be safe, I also purchased star wrenches. For the fun of it, I purchased a lot of other tools and a toolbox (finally!). With all of this stuff, I thought that I'd be able to do the trick for sure.

It never occured to me that "complete" sets fo Alan wrenches, both metric and SAE, would not be enough to do the trick. I tried the larger wrenches. 5/16 was too big. 1/4 was just barely too small, small enough to be able to scoot around and pop out when pressure is applied to the wrench. I used the metric: 10, 8, and 6. 10 was too big. 8 was too big. 6 was way too small. I was really in a hurry when I discovered this, because it was getting late, and I really wanted to get this done. I called Autozone and Advance Auto Parts, asking if they had a 7mm or a 9/32 alan. Advance had a 7mm, but it was part of a socket wrench set. I said, "I'LL TAKE IT!" and went out and got it, a 3/8 socket wrench bar, and a large set of screwdrivers (because I still didn't own any).

The front driver's side was a piece of cake. On the front passenger side, my caliper compressor tool broke. It was quite convenient. At that point, I was kicking myself for not picking up a c-clamp...

I raced back to the stores, but they were closed. I went to Christendom, and finally just borrowed one from the maintenance shed. I hurried back and finished the job, and now her car stops on a dime!

Well, maybe a dollar. It is a bigger car than either one that I have, and they can stop on dimes. :)