The Whole Garage Catalogue: An Ancient Ford Combination Wrench

Friday, June 28, 2013

An Ancient Ford Combination Wrench

The box end is 11/16"; the open end is 1". Embossed on the handle is, "Ford 40-17017 MADE IN CANADA".

It seems this is a head-bolt/spark-plug wrench for the Models 'T' and 'A'.

It dawns on me that it may be high time Ford reintroduced the Model 'T'.

The cars were affordable, and anyone could do the maintenance -- there were no bleepin' computer codes to look up. One of those would suit me just fine.

The wrench can join some others in my miscellaneous wrenches drawer. When the model 'T' is brought back, I'll be ready.

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Whoops. That drawer is full. I hung the wrench on a nail. That's even better. Should anyone drop by with a Model 'T' in need of a tune-up, the wrench'll be right handy.

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Introduction

This blog is in honour of my deceased father, Nick Gaspick.

It sprang from what had started out as merely a post on my workshop blog, Rouge River Workshop. Here's my introduction to that post:

"My son has been clearing out my deceased father's garage, so he'll have a place to restore an old car, and he's been finding all manner of stuff. I've begun one post about an old woodworking vise that I mean to restore. This weekend, my son brought me four toolboxes full of items. As a small honour to my father, I'll 'catalogue' them in this post, in no particular order, little-by-little as I go through the boxes."

The nature of the post was for it to grow ever longer, and that can be dangerous. Blogger has some quirks that I've experienced in the past, and I was getting tired of always backing up the entire post so I wouldn't lose it should Blogger vapourize an editing session. I finally decided to make a full-blown blog with an index out of the post. Here it is.

I'll leave the original post as it is, where it is, but I'll bring over all the items in it so far as individual, indexed posts here as well. Needless to say, new material will only appear here.

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A Little About My Father:

My father emigrated to Canada with his family from Croatia at about the age of seven. His family took on a homestead up Sudbury, Ontario way, and made a living there through the great depression.

My father loved school, and yearned to continue his schooling past grade eight, but that was not on. He had to leave school to make a living -- trapping, mining, whatever. Eventually, he and his made their way to Toronto -- the big smoke in Canada.

My father was built like a brick shit-house; he was a sturdy guy, unlike scrawny me. My father was a guy who could clear an acre of Canadian bush before breakfast, have it tilled and planted before lunchtime, with the plants sprouting before dinnertime.

Jesus H. Christ!-- a guy like my father ought to have lived forever!