J Type solenoid spanner

[Steve AKA vitessesteve]

Anybody know where I can buy a thin wrench to remove/fit a J type solenoid.

[Doug Paterson]

lol - been needing a chuckle today Steve..... ;)

Sadly there is no such tool to be found - solution is either to buff your existing 1inch spanner thinner on a grinder or (and its a bodge) use a hammer and suitable blunt tool to tap the flats of the nuts to loosen/tighten the solenoid.

[StagNL]

I found one of the water pump pliers we have at work was thin enough to fit.  Saved butchering a perfectly good spanner in my case.

[Steve AKA vitessesteve]

I saw a set of thin spanners some time ago - I think they were for old motorbikes but can not remember where. Hence my question I know such things exist just not where to get them.

[Doug Paterson]

I spent forever looking.

If a source could be found I'd jump in and buy one.....there's a market out there if someone would make the perfect spanner.

[Tim Bancroft]

I just went and bought a 1'' AF spanner and ground the thing down until it fitted.

[TedTaylor]

699 wrote:

Saved butchering a perfectly good spanner in my case.

Whenever I go to a car boot or autojumble I am always on the lookout for decent old spanners (rarely pay more than 10p to 20p) which I chuck in a box.  When I find that I don't have a suitable tool amongst my best sets - a set of Snap on or similar quality for the workshop and another slightly cheaper set for the toolbag (AF and Metric) to carry in the cars - I dig around and find something that is near enough and grind that to suit.

Ted

[StagNL]

Ted, I would normally do the same however I was doing the job at work at the time and the tools were not my own.  As it happened, we only had one spanner of the right size.
Car boot sales and autojumbles are a bit rare here.  Those that do happen tend not to have folks flogging old tools.  Next option for me would be to get a some cheap spanners that are only ripe for butchering.

Julian

[Mj17]

Argos worked for me.  Set of something like 30 spanners made of nice soft metal - normally a bad thing but not so much when you have to cut it down with hand tools!

[TedTaylor]

Yes Julian valid points.  Here in the Forest of Dean I have two on a Sunday withing a mile of us - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  If we want to travel up to 5 miles I could do three more.  In fact we could spend all day Sunday starting at 8.00am and finishing at 4.00pm doing the car boot round.  However this would leave no time for other things like working on one of the cars or going to events :-/

MJ while I take your point about Argos tools if you have a hand held grinder this does nearly as well as a bench grinder.  I used to carefully clamp the body of the grinder in the vice in the 'hole' below the jaws.  Made and excellent bench grinder substitute until I got a good one ...... at one of the local car boots for �5(dance).

The advantage of getting better quality tools cheap from a car boot is that when you do your mods you rarely get the tight square fit of a factory made item.  The tougher material is more forgiving of poor fit if a bit of welly is required ....... ;D

Ted

[StagNL]

1526 wrote:

...... at one of the local car boots for �5(dance).

Sadly another thing lacking here - cheap parts and stuff.  I think I need to go your way for a tool muster....