New toy
A few months ago I bought a cheap battery-operated impact gun (or “ugga-dugga gun” as they are known in the trade). It has proved so useful that I wish I had bought one years ago, but it is only a cheap little thing and sometimes struggles with wheel nuts that are done up tight. I had a couple of rusty old Discovery rolling shells to dispose of, and Jesse the scrapman turned up with his flatbed truck to collect them. One of them had a set of wheels I wanted to keep, so Jesse hoisted the vehicle into
the air and I set about undoing the nuts. My little impact gun wouldn’t shift them. Jesse looked at me pityingly. “Try this,” he said, and handed me a cordless impact gun that weighed about half a ton and was four times the size of mine. About 30 seconds later all four wheels were lying on the ground.
I had a clear out of old gearboxes, steering boxes and other bits (sold for export to Sri Lanka where there is a strong demand for repairable mechanical bits) and spent some of the money on a hefty Dewalt impact gun. Apart from my welder it is probably the most expensive single tool I have ever bought, but it has almost enough torque to turn the vehicle upside
down if the wheel nuts are really tight, and makes short work of crankshaft pulley bolts. I couldn’t imagine being without it now.