When we first moved in to the house, my tool array was roughly a hammer, 2 screw drivers, a cresent wrench, and some needle nose pliers. My parents for a house warming gift gave me a black and decker buncha tools in a case thing which has come in very handy. Well, really it's come in handy since I took up motorcycles, up to that point it pretty much collected dust. I'm not a handy man. I don't like working on the house or with wood or any of that crap and I really would just rather pay someone to do it. Never have been a handy man really, don't see it really becoming a habit in the near future. Then, you get your first motorcycle. Mine being Charity, a 1968 BSA shooting star that I still haven't paid for, hence the name, Charity. She sat in my friends garage and I ogled her for roughly 5 years, then one day while I was helping him in the garage I asked him if I could take her to my garage and see if I could get her running, he obliged and we rolled her into the back of his truck while I sat on her and took the 4 neighborhood block ride to my house. Then I knocked the dust off the tool case that had last been used to install a dimmer switch on the dining room light waaaaaaay back when and got to work. In roughly 4 hours after tweaking and yoinking and putzing around and purchasing a new spark plug and cleaning the gas tank, I rode charity under her own power back down to my friends house. Her tires were/are shot but would hold air. The front forks are seized but there weren't that many bumps in my hood at the time so no biggy. It was a grand achievement for me. I was greasy, I was sweaty, but I was RIDING and I had made it go myself. Charity. Here's a vid of me kickstarting her, she gets camera shy. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gQYjYKL3vr8&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gQYjYKL3vr8&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> At this point my interest in motorcycles picked up. I would go out probably once every other day or so and start up Charity. Sometimes just to hear the wonderful sound of her revving and idling. She was in no way street ready so there were no long rides, yet, as she's still in the garage and is still my project bike. Anyhow, as I started fiddling more, I asked my bud if I could bring his Norton 750 commando down and see about getting it running. That one was a bit rougher and in 2 days, I rode it back to his house. Again, super impressed with my no mechanic knowledge having self getting it running. I never could get the carbs to sync right, and finally the norton went back to my friends house. Running, but not running right. Maybe after I get charity to 90-100 percent I'll get the Norton back over to work on it some too. I don't have a good side picture of the norton, but here they both are together in my garage. You can see my handy dandy orange black and decker tool kit in the foreground. At this point I had taken up riding in the neighborhood on Bryan's GSXR 600, 1992. Just putting around getting a feel for riding on the street, I probably put 100 miles on that thing in just our neighborhood. Finally it was time to get my own. I purchased a used 1996 GSXR 750. This was the start of my hate for Suzuki's. I had that thing so ripped apart so many times trying to fix various crap on it, it was ridiculous. It was good though in a sense, because it got me familiar with taking stuff off and putting stuff back on a full fairing motorcycle. I also ended up expanding my tool kit as I went along buying the things I needed. This went on and on with her. The bitch. Yes, beautiful looking machine. Horrid mechanically. Leaked oil, wouldn't start when it got hot, a slew of issues. Again though, probably good for me to get all that mechanical taking shit apart stuff down. But I digress. I had a Deals gap trip coming up and knew that the bitch wouldn't cut it there, I would be left on the side of the road or always having to push start her or some other crap. So I purchased a 2006 Honda CBR600RR which is now named Bess. With Bess my tool set has grown even further, but not in a "DAMNIT THIS IS BROKE" but in a "I need a torque wrench for after I have tightened the chain" and so on and so forth. So thus, my tools have grown. Buying what I need. My garage for a time looked like this... As you can see from the previous picture with the Norton and Charity, I have a bench a compressor and goofy crap on my walls. One thing that I have taken away that is bad from working on the bitch, is that when something went wrong more things kept going wrong. It was a circle of piece of shittery that never ended. So from that I have taken away HUGE anxiety when working on Bess. Which sucks, but I manage. Such as the valve clearance check with the help of sam_rush I was a nervous wreck getting that deep into the engine. That was the deepest into an engine that I have ever been and I was :eek through a lot of it. Valve check, 16,000 miles. Well again, with the help of sam_rush we got through it. Whew. It was a nerve wracking couple of days though. Eh, but this has turned into a novel. Ah well, so anyhow with the addition of new tools along the way of my "I work on motorcycle stuff" career, I have finally decided to update my case o tools to a full fledged tool cabinet. It needs a lot more tools to flesh it out, but I got the essentials and it'll keep growing now that I don't have to keep various things in ziplock bags anymore. The tool corner of my garage, before. Cleaned up some. Tool box one with casters in place. I was really really thinking for a bit this wasn't going to fit underneath. Yeah, I could have measured stuff, but what fun is that. But it fit!!! Tool box part duex on the top. Now at sears today they had a few 150 piece sets and even an 207 piece set of tools. I looked at those but really they had a BUNCH of crap that I would probably never use so decided to keep it simple and with the things that I knew I was going to need/use. Wrenchs, sockets, t-handle allen wrenchs, and screw drivers. I put down some cabinet liner in there, but it's going to be temp for now. Probably going to upgrade and do the whole drawer instead of the bit you see, as I was on limited space. Might go with black instead of white as well. My sockets, with extras that I have purchased over the years. Meanwhile, I was going to post pix of all the drawers but I'm not going to bore you like that. Instead, the finished product. All done. Still need to get a self retracting compressor hose as well as a nice drop light. But it's coming along nicely I think. Cheers! Sorry for the novel.
Hoping for spring. WR250R is what I'm aiming towards. But I'm still lusting after an XR650R in a big way.
A man can never have enough tools! Probably won't be long and you will be lusting for one of those massive roll aways!
You kinda looked like Silver kicking his BSA when you were kicking red n black...........but I didn't read anything about Silver hurting his widdle foot???
You're gonna love those new tools. Like you I didnt feel the need for quality tools when I was younger, now I'm a tool addict. It sure is nice to have the proper tools for the job.
Hey Silver, I know what you mean about outgrowing the tool thingy. They have a lot of neat things in them, but when you start overloading those chest drawers, you won't know how you lived without it. High quality, custom tools can really come in handy when reaching those hard to get to bolts, too. Fun read. Thanks.
Sometimes it takes a real project to necessitate the purchase of the right equipment. Before I tore into my Isuzu, I had a bare-bones metric socket set. It was plenty to maintain the KLR. Since then, I've purchased and needed wobble extensions, finger ratchets, female torx sockets, allen sockets, and several extensions (1/2 and 3/8). Shit gets out of hand in a hurry.
Tech day at Silvers!!! Hondas on the curb zuki's in the garge. Tell me about it!!! Silver, I'm on roller chest number 4 like yours, and 2 JOBOX's for the bigger stuff and cases and such. But I love fixin shit, and tearing down motors and such... Wait, the addiction grows.
Hehe. Yeah it was definitely time, I had my orange tool kit and then ziplock bags for my extra. Again, 5 years ago I could have given 2 shits about tools. Now though I get all amped finding a good deal on a torque wrench. Now it'll be piece and put together as I find I need things. Kinda the way it was before but now with more room. Went out to the dollar store yesterday and grabbed some drawer liners so I can cover the whole drawers that I have skipping the ones for my tie downs and stuff. Probably clean the garage up through the week. Rick: Yeah, the WR250R definitely has less maintenance. It'll probably come down to what is the best deal I can find when I start seriously looking. More than likely I'll go with the WRR as a bunch of people around here have them as well and I will probably get bullied into joining their WRR gang.
i don't believe any ONE tool company has the best combo of quality and price... so sometimes you have to mix and match... but crafstman does have some decent tools... plus their warranty is usually good. to the OP... might want to check into some GearWrench ratcheting wrenches. Start with a Metric set unless you have a lot of SAE stuff you work on. They're a life saver and i dont know what i would do w/o them. for $35 you just CANT go wrong. These little guys are TOUGH, and have a very fine ratchet (not clunky like the craftsman ones). Most sizes you need. They're very thin to get into tight spots, finished well, and although they aren't "reversing" or "flexhead" they still get the job done. I've even used some of mine as "hammers" on occasion (not to drive nails, but to beat on something) and the finish is still spotless - not a ding, crack, or scratch on the finish. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00944002000P?keyword=gearwrench+metric+8+pc. You've got a great start on tools... everytime you go to a store check out and see if theres anything you MIGHT need in the future... you might spend $20 a week (no big deal to most of us) and before you know it, you'll have a decent collection of stuff. Dont forget to look into the odd tools that you might not use often, but will 100% prevent you from moving forward on your project if you don't have the tool, and is something you can't just go out and buy on a weekend (cause you can't ever find the tool you need when its the one stopping you from moving forward, i promise).