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Watched a kid pull a 6.0 Power Stroke cab with hand tools, made me rethink my whole shop setup
I was at a buddy's place in Amarillo two weeks ago and his 19 year old helper had the cab off a 2004 F250 using nothing but hand tools and a floor jack. I've been doing this 22 years and I always grabbed the impact, never thought twice about it. He had every bolt labeled in sandwich bags and a clipboard with the torque specs written down, took him 4 hours start to finish. My last cab pull took me 3 hours but I spent another hour hunting for a socket I dropped and cussing at air hose snags. The kid's setup was dead quiet, no compressor running, and he could hear every bolt bite. I'm not selling my impacts but I've been grabbing the ratchet more on jobs where I can't afford to strip anything, especially aluminum heads. Any of you old timers made that switch or am I just getting soft?
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oscarcooper6d ago
My uncle ran a muffler shop in Lubbock for 30 years and never owned a single air tool. He had one of those old school speed handles and a ratchet he bought in 1978, still used it till the day he retired. I asked him once why he never went pneumatic and he said the compressor noise gave him a headache and he liked feeling when a bolt was about to give. He also said he could tell if a thread was cross starting just by the sound of it. Kid in your story reminds me of him. Something to be said for working slow enough to hear what the metal is telling you.
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