Heading Out to Harbor Freight

[eljefino]

Originally Posted by LotI
The most useful site for Harbor Freight


+2 for HFQPDB. If you pull up a coupon on your phone and show it to the guy they'll honor it 99% of the time.

Their tire changer was a game changer for making my beaters a reasonable purchase. Ten years back when oil was pricey I was getting used tires from the junkyard for $5-10 vs new ones for $75, letting me pass state inspection waaay cheaper. That price gap has narrowed-- a lot-- but being able to service one's own tires is great especially in this era of fixing TPMS units and what not.

I like to hit up HF once every 3-6 months-- different stuff goes on sale, and I get nitrile gloves and "shop supplies" when I roll through.

 

[rekit]

I love to walk in there when there is a crowd at the register and shout, "Are ya'll having a sale today?". Everyone there cracks up. even the cashiers!

 

[eljefino]

BTW I don't have my tire changer bolted down. It's portable! I also don't want to be tripping over bolts/ studs sticking out of my concrete floor.

I stand on the base, it works fine.

 

[FordBroncoVWJeta]

Originally Posted by eljefino
BTW I don't have my tire changer bolted down. It's portable! I also don't want to be tripping over bolts/ studs sticking out of my concrete floor.

I stand on the base, it works fine.

I have to bolt it to the ground. No way I could do it by standing on it, ive tried. I have some holes drilled into a rectangular curb that runs along the driveway. I don't have any bolts/studs sticking out, when I use it I just put the bolts through it into the ground. Works out quite well.

 

[RyanY]

Originally Posted by FordBroncoVWJeta
Originally Posted by eljefino
BTW I don't have my tire changer bolted down. It's portable! I also don't want to be tripping over bolts/ studs sticking out of my concrete floor.

I stand on the base, it works fine.

I have to bolt it to the ground. No way I could do it by standing on it, ive tried. I have some holes drilled into a rectangular curb that runs along the driveway. I don't have any bolts/studs sticking out, when I use it I just put the bolts through it into the ground. Works out quite well.

I haven't done this with the tire changer, but I usually bolt an unstable device to a sheet of plywood large enough that it extends several feet past the legs. I then stand on the wood to hold everything in place while I apply force.

 

[supton]

I put my HF changer onto my 4x8 utility trailer (a HF one, of course). I use some long 1/4x20 hardware to hold it down; those bolts don't need to be more than finger tight. But I do have to put some jack stands under the trailer while working on the tire. A sheet of plywood work well, I could see that. Anyhow, it's small and portable (hence the name) so I don't leave it in the trailer, but it doesn't need to be bolted down to concrete to be usable.

FWIW the changer works great on trailer tires. Seems most people don't bother with balancing trailer tires, so, buy 'em online and change 'em yourself. Do yourself a favor and skip on the bubble balancer, randomly sticking weights onto the wheel will likely work better.

I always get a box of gloves while in there, and I get both vinyl and the blue ones. Vinyl for jobs where the gloves will be on and then right off--they get stiff real fast with any exposure to oils, but are good enough for a few minutes of work. Their mechanics gloves are nothing special but work well enough for the price.

Their wrenches feel pretty good, as do their composite ratchets.

They have a 1.5 ton jack which begs to be left in a car and abused on any job that needs lifting. At $60 I've toyed with just putting one into each car and "always" having a floor jack available. The multimeters are cheap but again, toss one into each car and "always" have one available. The list of that sort can keep going on and on...

The digital torque wrench calibrator is awesome; I loved mine. Made torquing wheels a snap as I didn't have to touch anything while doing it--just keep the display facing up and then I could go around in a star pattern. [Something died in mine and I never took it back. Will replace some day.]

Something I've grown to love are the moving blankets. Need to crawl under the car? Toss one down. Need to put a bicycle into the backseat of your car? Toss one down. I keep one in the trunk of each car. And a stack in my cargo trailer as I wind up moving things too often to not have some hanging around.