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I blew a very small cooling hose in my Acura Integra about nine months ago. It sits right under the intake manifold and can barely be seen from the top side of the vehicle (enough to see where the coolant was coming from), but you can't get a hand on it. From under the vehicle, I needed to remove the hose clamp, but there were a few things in the way and I needed an abnormally long screwdriver. So I made one, which turned out quite nice. I'll post a pic tomorrow. I purchased a 3/8"x3ft piece of round steel rod from the local hardware store, used a scrap piece of black walnut I had lying around for the handle, ground down the tip as a flat head screwdriver, cut a square notch into the shaft just above the handle so you could put a wrench on it for extra leverage (don't remember what size wrench it takes, but I filed it to fit the right size wrench), and ended up putting a lanyard on the handle so you can't drop it, depending on what you're working on. I've done enough boat work to know that ANY time you pick up a tool, tie a line around it and tie it off to your wrist. Or that **** will end up in the bilge. My bilge is 3 feet deep in my boat, and I've lost a number of tools in there and other hard to reach places, including a perfectly good ratchet that I dropped along the turn of the hull and it stopped directly under a water tank. D'oh! Consider it gone, unless I sail into a storm and get tossed around, and it makes its way to the bilge.
Also, speaking to that homemade lathe which someone posted, which is super cool, I started building my own homemade lathe a couple years ago. It's built from vintage bronze sailboat hardware and mahogany. There is not one nut or bolt, nor any other part, that is made of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, or any other kind of metal. Unfortunately it is on my boat in Georgia and I'm currently in VA, so can not readily take pictures. I want a metal lathe that can turn engine parts, clevis pins, rigging hardware, and anything else I need, and it has to never ever ever rust, even if it get hits by a saltwater wave or left out in the rain. In theory, I could turn metal submerged in saltwater since it uses a 12v submersible trolling motor and everything is bronze. But it is only about halfway done. Needs a chuck (which has to be bronze (D'oh!), and I still need to build the compound and tailstock. It's knarly looking. Like it should be in a museum. God, if I polished it, it would look like its made of GOLD! Imagine that!
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