My wife came home from one of her yard sales expeditions, and presented me with a rusty old adjustable wrench. It bore the FORD script logo, and it is very well made. In fact, after cleaning it up, I had occasion to use it (had to tighten a pipe connection).
My question: did Ford make these wrenches for sale on their own, or were they part a of a tool kit (sold with a new Ford car)?
Henry Ford was a genius for product innovation-I cannot a better way to keep his firm’s name current, than by having mechanics see it everytime they used a wrench.
Any clue when my wrench was made?
Does it look like the one here?
Exactly! So Ford did supply a toolkit with the Model T car! I believe my Dad has a few of those old screwdrivers, as well!
Thanks for the link.
My Dad always referred to the slip joint pliers in the linked photo as “Ford pliers”.
But I distinctly recall back in the 80’s when I was driving a 1969 screamin’ big block Mustang the repair manuals often called for “Ford tool 18117-2” or some such designation.
Perhaps more experienced car folk can corroborate, but it seems up to that time at least, Ford was still making oddball parts that required specific Ford factory tools to do the repair.
i think that all have custom tools to speed the work.
yes my dad has his tools from his first car, a model “A” i believe
Yes, there are still special tools today for professional shop work, and they’ll have Ford part numbers. It’d be really unlikely, though, that they were made in a Ford facility.
That specific style of adjustable wrench in the photo is often referred to by old hands as a Ford wrench.
The distinction between a “Ford wrench” and a “pipe wrench” is that the moveable jaw of a Ford wrench is on the front, making the tool look like a “F”, while a pipe wrench has the moveable jaw on the back.
Not a hand tool, but Ford apparently pioneered the manufacture of charcoal briquets. Henry wanted a way to utilize the offcuts from wooden car body frames. His relative Edward Kingsford was put in charge of the operation, and in 1951 the product was named Kingsford Charcoal.
A pipe wrench also has enough play in the movable jaw so that it bites tightly in one direction, and loosens slightly in the other, so you can back it up for another stroke without removing the wrench from the pipe.
The Ford wrench has smooth parallel jaws, to fit nuts, not round pipes.
My FIL gave me his Ford wrench, which is slightly different with a quarter-inch square thing on the end of the handle.
the ebay set looks nice. i wonder about the screwdrivers. if Ford would take care to mark some tools would they provide unmatched screwdrivers?
Car makers generally don’t make the special tools to work on their cars. They buy them from suppliers and then sell them, or contract to the supplier to do the sales for them. SPX/Kent-Moore?OTC is the big player in that business.
When I need a special tool for the shop I call Kent-Moore, the phone is answered Volvo Special tools, and we go from there.
I’m only somewhat disappointed Henry Ford (and his kin) had nothing to do with Ford gumballs (http://www.fordgum.com/about_us.aspx).
The short name for those are “dealer only tools” - I just needed (and didn’t have one) to replace a water pump on a Saturn. Some makers provide them to dealerships and sell them on request to customers but I have been told some brands take “dealer only” to mean just that. With the tool I lacked you could make the repair without retiming the engine; without it extra time and much “fun” was required. Most dealer only tools have a part number but few I have seen carry the name of the car brand (GM, Ford, etc) on them.
From older tool kit tools - Ford made the most but you can find examples from a lot of different makers. I had a small collection of the things at one time that had everything from Ford and Cord to a wrench branded for Crawford. Wish I still had them; I sold them in the pre-eBay days for a fraction what they would bring now.
Dad has a few bits and pieces hidden away in the garage from old cars that are long since gone. Radios he fitted himself and removed prior to sale I can understand, from when such things weren’t always a factory fitting, or were inferior to one he bought himself.
But the tools are a reminder that sometimes he could be a bit needlessly tight. Like when I see the Nissan pliers from his Datsun Stanza, or the now mostly empty Lancia toolbox. Dad does not want for DIY equipment, it would have been classier to pass that stuff on with the car.