Hazard A Guess: Week of Sept. 17, 2009

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Hello from Hazard!

Hope you enjoyed your week without Hazard (the Labor Day early production deadline makes us miss a week, because we’re actually producing this section of the paper before you’ve read the past week’s issue).

Anyway, we had one more reader identify Item No. 870 as a metal strap banding tool. (Our last column plugged the first responders.)

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Item No. 870

Many thanks to Wes Carmony, of Wooster, Ohio!

And Orville Ritchie, of Columbiana, Ohio (who had initially correctly identified the tool) wrote back to add this: “There should be another tool to complete the set. It is a plier-type tool used to crimp the clips, to keep the banding tight. The bander itself was not used to crimp the clips.”

We appreciate the additional information!

* * *

Readers Art Bilek, of Norton, Ohio, and Chester Wedge, Fostoria, Ohio, quickly identified Item No. 871 as an inner tube hot patch vulcanizing tool used on early car tires.

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Item No. 871

Bilek adds, “The patch comes mounted on a metal tray that contains a chemical that, when lit, burns to heat the patch.”

And thanks to Jason Michaels of Mercer, Pa., for sharing the photograph with Hazard.

* * *

Item No. 872 comes from Jim Hudkins of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

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Item No. 872

Now, please don’t tell us it’s a wrench (as my kids would say, “duh!”). We know that and Jim knows that.

Here’s where it gets specific: “I enclose a picture of a wrench made by, or for, the Ford Motor Company, and is marked ‘Ford USA.’ … Not the square projection on the end of the handle. I have asked a number of mechanics and collectors, to no avail, but all agree that it must be for adjusting something — and Ford would not have taken the trouble to put it there otherwise.”

So, what Jim and Hazard want to know is: What was the specific use of this Ford wrench with the rectangular projection on the handle end?

Write to: Hazard a Guess, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460; or via e-mail to: editorial@farmanddairy.com.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. It is a monkey wrench. I have a few in my collection. none with the hex driver on the back. I went to retired gentleman in my neighborhood that has restored several mod.A Ford cars. He told me that it was used to adjust the ball socket on the tie-rod ends and drag link. It was also used with the jack. But mostly He said,”it was a knuckle buster”. If you should ever do a story on mod.A restoration His story is very fascinating. He is also passing the trade on to one of his sons. Thank You. Paul McNutt

  2. Enjoyed talking to you at the fatm science review. The ford wrench has a tang on the end for the rear end oil plug on the late model t and model a autos. I own one of each car and use this wrench to check the oil level in the diferential of each.

  3. Yeap the square end of the wrench is for removing the oil plug in the rear end of the ford model a. I own a 28 Ford Model A and this is what you need to remove the plug.

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