Finding tools at the yard

Anybody else find new tools at the yards? Seems every time I've gone recently I find a cool new tool someone has left behind. There have been nice pliers, screw drivers, nice little pry bar & last weekend as I was cutting out some wire from a 3.2 Acura, I see someone had jammed a big Craftsman Philips in the harmonic balancer to try to hold the motor in place but it was bent in a U shape & jammed tight. As I cut the wiring out for the O2 sensor I needed (to extend one of the FJ Cruiser's sensor wiring which had the connector cut off for who knows what reason), I stared down the screw driver & convinced it I wasn't leaving without it. It was extremely jammed in there but eventually I got it. I got all the nice wire I needed & the driver for $4.00. It is now since on the way home there is a Sears which gave me a new one. He just laughed & asked what I did. All I said was I didn't do it. My wife even was happy since she is all about free.

It happens. If you don't pick it up and put it in your kit, the next guy will.

I fondly remember the days when no one knew that BMWs and Volvos had really nice factory tool kits. I still have lots of those good quality wrenches in my box :)

I have never found any tools of any worth but unfortunately have left/lost a few over the years at the yard.

One funny story: I lost a nice Craftsman screw driver somewhere in the yard. I re-traced my steps but to no avail. Gone. Weeks later when I was back, just picking around I happened to be in one of the same cars and there it was laying on the passenger seat, right where I had left it! The seat bottom had a slight decline and it had rolled back against the seat back, where the two meet. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. Bet that doesn't happen often.

Yeah, this is great when it happens. I've found some and lost some, but I think I've come out ahead in the long run.

I have a whole drawer full of extra sockets I've found at the JY and several of them have replaced 10mm or 12mm sockets I've lost or broken. I've also found screwdrivers, wrenches, prybars, pliers, vice-grips, even a rachet once.

Best find was a sweet mini sledge. I've since lost that one though - haha. Guess it was only fair.

I also find a lot of tools in cars that I buy. Last purchase didn't come with keys (though the owner had the title in his name). Trunk was locked and the owner didn't want anything in the car. When I got a new key made I found a nice circular saw in there along with some screwdrivers and a ton of new hardware.

JohnyHachi6 wrote: Best find was a sweet mini sledge. I've since lost that one though - haha. Guess it was only fair.

I had a minisledge (about 5 pound?) that I found on the beach the day after I helped get a guy's 4x4 unstuck from the sand and the advancing tide. I considered it my "pay" for being a good guy.

Had it for years and one day it was just gone. I miss it and need to get another

Found a broken set of Vise Grips once. They were replaced for free...

I also sometimes find tools by the side of the road. An occasional wrench or pliers...

Missed a long needle nosed pliers about two weeks ago. Someone else beat me to them...

I lost my most used prybar and a pair of duckbill pliers...

I found just the handle of a Craftsman screwdriver once, and when I took it to Sears they told me to match up the number, since I had no idea what it used to be. Turned out it was one of those REALLY long, skinny flat heads! I use that thing all the time now, and wonder how I lived without it for so many years.

At the last ChumpCar race at Gateway, I was at the junkyard across the street getting some bits I destroyed (walls are hard). I was all the way in the back of the yard and went to pee in the bushes and there was a craftsman 1/4" nut driver next to my foot buried in gravel.

Two weeks ago I was giving a friend's E36 a tune up, and when I popped the hood I found a screwdriver that I must have left under there the last time I worked on it. Probably a year or so ago when I put a valve cover gasket on it.

I found a SnapOn hard handle phillips head wedged behind my steering rack of the MX6 in January.

I've never had one of those screwdrivers.

Sooo... it had been there for at least 4 years.

Oh, and once I left my favorite pair of side cuts in a car and didn't realize it until a couple days later. I went back about a week after that for more parts and they were exactly where i left them. I'm glad I work on weird E36 M3 that no one else around here works on.

AND I forgot about the #3 Snap On phillips screwdriver I found. No cool story to that one, it was just laying in a car.

And a friend of mine found this totally bad ass German made Hazet ratchet. He had never heard of them, and when I told him they made the tools for all the old VW tools kits he gave it to me. It looks just like this one.

16vCorey wrote: Two weeks ago I was giving a friend's E36 a tune up, and when I popped the hood I found a screwdriver that I must have left under there the last time I worked on it. Probably a year or so ago when I put a valve cover gasket on it.

Tell your friend to check his oil once in a damn while.

I was driving home one day and I saw a nice Craftsman 1/2" drive ratchet with a short extension and socket on it lying against the curb at the end of a divider. I ran down to the next break, did a U-turn, and pulled up in the left turn lane of the intersection, but it was already gone. I think a guy on a Harley who had been waiting to turn left grabbed it.

I have lost several small sockets/bits/adapters in my own yard. When you have to work outside in the grass, it is inevitable.

i fould a bloody folding-blade under the seat of a sedan deville once.

Not quite the same thing but I've found several functional tools that fell out of the crush cars after the monster truck show.

Duke wrote:

16vCorey wrote: Two weeks ago I was giving a friend's E36 a tune up, and when I popped the hood I found a screwdriver that I must have left under there the last time I worked on it. Probably a year or so ago when I put a valve cover gasket on it.

Tell your friend to *check his oil* once in a damn while.

Haha! He has that done. I'm guessing the oil change guys probably think that the rain tray is just where he keeps his screwdriver after seeing it there for the last year.

If I see random tools lying around with nobody guarding them and they don't get picked up in a minute or two, they're mine.

I've got a cheapo 1/2" breaker bar, a like new craftsman USA phillips screwdriver, some decent wire cutters from some Japanese company, and a handful of sockets.

Snap-On 1/2 drive ratchet and a Craftsman slip joint pliers.