On Dec 23, 11:34*am, wrote:
On Dec 23, 11:40*am, wrote:





On Dec 23, 10:08*am, Jo wrote:

This may be more of a car question, but I couldn't find an auto repair
group to ask. I need to pickup a last minute Christmas present for my
dad. I was going to buy him a dog-bone socket wrench. I'm not sure if
I should get the SAE or metric. I really don't understand the
difference between the two. Any suggestions? If it helps, we live in
the U.S. and most of the cars he works on were made between 1988 and
2004 with one being made in the 70s. The brands of the cars/trucks are
mostly Chevrolets and Fords.

SAE = inch
metric = mm

Two different ways of measuring things. SAE is used primarily in the
USA, while metric is used by every other country in the world. You
would learn this in elementary school.

Reality is to work on a modern vehicle in the USA, you need BOTH.

The government tried to switch us over to metric back in the
1970's-1980's and the people summarily rejected the idea. Since then
metric has been slowly creeping into everything mechanical.

It works out great for tool vendors, because you now need to own two
sets of wrenches instead of just one.

I didn't know what a "dog bone" socket wrench was, until this post.
It's a wrench with 4 sockets that swivel on each end, with no ratchet
capability.. *One of the all in one wonder tools. *IMO, not a tool I'd
want. *When I want a socket, I almost always want a ratchet with it.
For what this non-ratching dog bone does, I'd just use a box wrench.

Instead of that, I'd look at other tools, like a combination wrench
that has a fine tooth ratchet built into the box end. *That's a lot
more useful when working on cars, where the available space keeps
getting smaller. * Like this:

http://www.google.com/products/catal...t:en-us:IE-Sea....

No idea of the quality and not recommending that particular brand,
definitely a brand like Craftsman is going to cost more. *I bought a
set of these that was both SAE and Metric at Costco a few years ago.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

4 sockets? and I thought it was slang for a wratchet and socket set.
Id say its worthless.