WELDING ROD STORAGE Regardless of the material, after some time, humidity takes its toll, and many rods end up being trashed. Especially susceptible are aluminum, magnesium, and chrome moly. I keep my rods in hermetically sealed homemade tubes of plastic plumbing...

DOUBLE YOUR STRENGTH Lifting heavy objects is an everyday occurrence in machine shops.  To prevent injury, it’s a good idea to install small, inexpensive wire cable hoists over equipment that can hold castings in place while mounting to machinery.  Small hoists that...

REVERSE SCRIBE TOOL When port matching intake manifolds, I make some different shaped "Reverse Scribes" to get in and scribe mark the dye on the intake manifold flange side. It works great, is often easier than marking and transferring an intake gasket pattern, as...

FINDING YOUR CENTER One the most challenging jobs is the 302 -351W cylinder head stud removal that fastens down the intake manifold. It rusts and sits at an angle which makes it almost impossible to center a drill bit for removal. The solution is to drive a 1/4-inch...

INSTALLER EXTENSION The harmonic balancers on the 5.0 Fords are deep and need extra space. I used a small PVC pipe coupler to extend the reach of the installer.  It is cheap, lightweight, and works great. Pete Ross Petes Car Care Rochester, IL August, 2022

THREAD IT TO REMOVE IT Solid smaller sized dowel pins can be stubborn sometimes. One of the most useful ways I've found to deal with the really stubborn ones is to start by putting a heavy chamfer the outside edge of the dowel with a grinder. Then I run a die on it....