A lot of great (and funny) comments! Thanks!

I was surprised that no one mentioned "air tools" or
some exotic whatchamacallit...

Regards,

TomD
'86 240
'93 240

I have found that the tools that I would not dream of working on my car with out are a balljoint fork and one of those magnatic reach things (great for when you drop your wrench on a snowy day)

as far as brand ACE tools i like i can snap a crafman ratchet i never broke a ace ratchet sockets i like crafsman or ace snap on to spendy

32 inch steel pipe - used as breaker bar

Saved my butt and hands and muscle on many occasion. I have one for the garage and each car over 10 years old.
--
91 Volvo 745 Turbo, 91 Nissan 300ZX TT, and 01 Volvo S60 2.4T

A nice little slipper bar. Can't be beat for many uses, and you can even pinch your fingers if you are skillful.

The BEST tool is the tool:

a) that is closest
b) that you can find
c) you bought at an estate auction from some dead guy's widow for $2
d) that you were allowed (by wife.gov) to buy to do some project (imaginary or otherwise for wife.sex) as in;

SHE: "...hey honey can you add a third story on the house this morning, I'll wear your favorite tight camisole tonight....." -

OF course your reply should be, HE: ".....well OK, but I have to buy an ACME erector crane, with third story turbolift with wankomatic, blah, blah, wah, blah....I'm taking the truck to the tool store now......"
--
http://www.fidalgo.net/~brook4/oilslubesfilters.html

Here are some that you should probably find in your box:

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETELENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in _there_?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.

ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxyacetelene torch.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt".

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a 245 to the ground after you have installed a set of IPD Motorsports lowered road springs, trappng the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood or metal splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.

TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 50-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. When functional also is capable of attracting insects and burning flesh.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off the slots in Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Goteborg, Sweden, and rounds them off.


--
George Downs, The "original" Walrus3, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Good tools to have:
- a long 24 inch breaker bar (Sears)
-a rubber strap wrench (Sears)
-a set of six-point metric sockets (yep, Sears)