What tools would you bring?

I am moving far (800 miles) away from the garage I use with all my tools. I started accumulating tools (along with cars) about 10 years ago and all of them reside in my parents house/garage. I have a large compressor, wire feed welder, sandblasting cabinet, tons of power tools, jacks/stands, etc, etc.

I finished college and moved out a few years ago. However I still live nearby and actually spend a significant amount of time there working on cars and eating home cooked meals. I have spent 6 month stretches living even further away for work but always planning on a return. In the past I've simply brought a large socket set and some other hand tools.

This time its a permanent job and I will be leaving for good. I will be living in a tiny shared apartment with at least a driveway for my foreseeable future. A storage unit is not in the cards either right now ($$$) I do however still want to work on cars...

So if you had (very) limited space what would you bring?

I'd bring just the hand tools and the actual air tools. Not the compressor, blast cabinet, and maybe not the welder.

Oh, and obviously bring the jack and jack stands unless you've been looking for an excuse to buy new ones.

I'm DREADING moving out of my shop.

Anything you can comfortably fit in a medium sized cabinet, roughly the size of a dresser. Add a small pancake compressor. 4 jackstands, one floor jack. Beyond that.....IDK

Bottle opener.

Sockets, wrenches, pry bars, hammers, channel locks or pliers sets, jack, and jack stands. This won't allow a lot of fabrication but basic wrenching should be covered.

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bring just the hand tools and the actual air tools. Not the compressor, blast cabinet, and maybe not the welder. I'm DREADING moving out of my shop.

Air tools but no compressor? No understand. How work?

Hand tools only. Air tools are for wimps.

Leave the big stuff back at HQ and go back there if heavy work is needed. Focus on the job, save as much money as you can, buy own place.

For 20 years, I've gotten by well with just a bunch of sockets and wrenches in a ~26" tool box. Chances are that you wind up using a small quantity of wrenches on your car. On the Miata, all you need is a 10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm and a 19mm and you can take the whole car apart and put it back together. You don't need a dresser full of tools for that.

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-26-in-plastic-hand-box/p-00959326000P?prdNo=8&blockNo=8&blockType=G8

You are looking at this all wrong. At my old apartment I kept all my food in one kitchen cabinet and used the pantry to store tools and car parts. I can fit probably 3/4 of my tools under my bed if I needed somewhere to store them.

Buy a set of these:

Leave the big stuff at home like you mentioned. Think modular storage. Heck, I've got sockets in Ziploc storage containers. Works great.

Appleseed wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bring just the hand tools and the actual air tools. Not the compressor, blast cabinet, and maybe not the welder. I'm DREADING moving out of my shop.

Air tools but no compressor? No understand. How work?

Air tools don't take up much space, and if they're quality items, i wouldn't want to buy them again. Stick them in a cardboard box in your closet or something.

Ah investments.

As said, hand tools only. That's all we had when I grew up and all I'm used to using. I started out with a canvas bag and moved up to a 3 drawer tool box. Will hold the basics and easy to store. In apartments and my first house that didn't have a garage, I kept it in the closet closest to the door. When quantities of tools filled it up I got a second smaller one. Currently have 2 sitting on top of a homemade workbench, one with SAE and the other with metric. And a third with specialized tools. Used a tupparware-type tub for the electric drill, jig saw and circular saw. (before the cordless kits they have now)

Tool Box

i had an entire bedroom full of tools that i had accumulated when i lived in a crappy apartment for 5 years... i kept the 3 ton floor jack and 2 pairs of jackstands in the front closet.. i even had a POS oil free Craftsman standup air compressor and a couple of low end Craftsman air tools that came with it that i also kept in the front closet...

of course, i lived alone and had a cool landlord that didn't care if i had a car on jackstands with all 4 wheels off out in the parking lot for a week at a time..

i also owned up to 5 cars at one time while i was living there... i had to keep moving them on the street or the cops would give me a parking ticket.. my strategy was to insure all of them and choose a different car to drive every day...

good times..

when i moved into my tiny house with 26X48 shop, i had enough tools to keep up with what i needed to do, and enough space to keep 3 of my cars indoors...

Thanks for helping me realize how easy it is to bring pretty much every hand-tool I'd ever need.

I've begun sorting through and am actually enjoying the process somewhat.

I guess I overestimated how often I use everything else. I will however use the moving excuse to pick up something like this: http://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-Bare-Tool-DC820B-18-Volt-Cordless/dp/B002VWK5QO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_4

Any input on these? I always thought they were junk but recently had a friend rave about them. Not sure what brand/type though.

Markde wrote: I will however use the moving excuse to pick up something like this: http://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-Bare-Tool-DC820B-18-Volt-Cordless/dp/B002VWK5QO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_4 Any input on these? I always thought they were junk but recently had a friend rave about them. Not sure what brand/type though.

Maybe my math is off but "1,740 in-lbs of torque " doesn't sound like very much.

145 lb-ft. More than enough to do lugnuts, if you can hang on to it. Good for spinning off after using a breaker bar to loosen or on then torque proper with a torque wrench or calibrated elbow. I use a Hitachi cordless to as described nowadays.

If you want a cordless impact wrench, check out the Mikwaukee Hi.Torque model. 450 ft/lbs and 5 year warranty.