I generally try to buy tools and car supplies locally rather than wait 5 days for shipping, but I live in a small town and that’s not always practical/possible. So there are some things in my collection that I got on Amazon. Perusing the Black Friday deals today, I actually spotted a few of them. I’d feel bad offering my thoughts on I haven’t tried out myself and I’m going to give you my real unvarnished thoughts about these items.
I bought a bunch of these when I wired up Hella spotlights on my Dad’s old TJ. They’re one of those ubiquitous Chinese products you’ll spot on SEMA builds and dodgy submarines and they seem to work well enough for the price, which is like $8 for 24 of them now.
I bought these for a trailer project and ended up installing something else. I checked them, and they lights did indeed light up, but the overall quality didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. They’re $16.51 for a pair now and come in a lot of different colors.
Bought this when Wesley Wren and I were rebuilding an old Mercury outboard. Never really got it to work but if I remember correctly, we identified some pretty good cracks in the block before we really had a reason to. It’s $28.79 now.
I’ve owned a bunch of little jump packs, including many I saw on Amazon’s Black Friday list, but these are the best in my opinion. Since I bought my first jump pack, I’ve bought a second one for my parents and I replaced my Battery Tender with a NOCO Genius battery charger. I find myself moving a lot of dead cars around, and the jump packs are a lifesaver. And, they’re all cheaper than usual right now.
I don’t really spend a lot of my time cleaning my cars. I probably should, but it’s just not my thing. I have purchased some Chemical Guys products to handle specific paint-related tasks, based entirely on vibes, and been pretty happy with them. If you love buffing, etc., today is your day.
I bought this a few years back when I was building the GX. I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to onboard air, mostly because I have several cars and it’s nice to have a portable air compressor. The brown bag it came in didn’t last, but the pump and the accessories are awesome. They work fast and have been incredibly reliable and the hose/cables have allowed me to reach every corner of every one of my cars. It’s also nice to clip a pump on and watch the gauge vs. crouching with a hose while you go from 10PSI to 45PSI. Great product. Get one here.
I probably have two or three of these kicking around. They all seem to work, this one included. This one is $21 today and seems the least shitty of the ones I have in the shop.
You got your gasket maker, your dielectric grease. Permatex makes all kinds of stuff you probably have stocked in your shop and some of it’s on sale!
I went a long time not knowing you could just buy generic versions of most of the little clips and fasteners that hold cars together. I can’t say for sure that the kit above was the one I got, but it looks similar. In most cases, the clips I have aren’t that much better or worse than OEM, but YMMV. The little clip removal/pry tools are definitely worth having around, though. And they’re cheap.
Sometimes buying a tool leads you the understanding that you need a better version of that tool. I bought a rivnut kit from Amazon a couple years back that looks almost exactly like this one. It works well enough, but the ability to add a sturdy, threaded hole to any piece of sheetmetal is such a gamechanger that I’ve convinced myself to spring for a really nice one. Still, if this isn’t something you’d use all the time, this one will get you started.
I grabbed this for off-roading and it worked really well. It has an air bleeder button which is handy. Unfortunately I threw it in a gear bag and the glass crystal broke. Maybe keep yours in the glove box if you decide to spend $17.90 on it.