Snap-On and Teng Spanners & Sockets

[Pegleg]

I am looking to buy some AF tools. Metric are just not snug enough for the Mustang AF nuts and bolts. I am torn between Teng & Snap-On.

Snap-On agents, here in the UK, travel around mechanic shops and peddle their wares and offer mechanics tools on a pay weekly basis and charge no interest fees. I think because of this their tools are overpriced with interest factored into the price. There is no denying Snap-On are a good quality product. But then Snap-On are sold individually making them look more affordable. At least with Teng you can go buy a good set all in one hit

Has anyone purchased Teng spanners or sockets and if so do you rate them?

 

[c9zx]

I can't voice an opinion about Teng tools. Snap-on are excellent tools for the most part but, WAY overpriced especially for the amateurs like most of us. I can vouch for the "Gear Wrench" line of hand tools, excellent value in my opinion. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GEARWRENCH-86427-Automotive-Wrenches-8mm-24mm/dp/B00YTNUZOK    An even more economical, if not as "pretty", alternative is Tekton tools made in Taiwan not mainland China. I've found the tolls made in Taiwan to be acceptable unlike many made in China. https://www.amazon.co.uk/TEKTON-18792-Combination-Wrench-Keeper/dp/B00OZJN3PQ/ref=sr_1_5?qid=1554581049&refinements=p_4%3ATEKTON&s=diy&sr=1-5

Chuck

 

[Pegleg]

I can't voice an opinion about Teng tools. Snap-on are excellent tools for the most part but, WAY overpriced especially for the amateurs like most of us. I can vouch for the "Gear Wrench" line of hand tools, excellent value in my opinion. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GEARWRENCH-86427-Automotive-Wrenches-8mm-24mm/dp/B00YTNUZOK    An even more economical, if not as "pretty", alternative is Tekton tools made in Taiwan not mainland China. I've found the tolls made in Taiwan to be acceptable unlike many made in China. https://www.amazon.co.uk/TEKTON-18792-Combination-Wrench-Keeper/dp/B00OZJN3PQ/ref=sr_1_5?qid=1554581049&refinements=p_4%3ATEKTON&s=diy&sr=1-5

Chuck

Chuck, those look good value but all metric. I got metric but they dont fit as well as AF spanners. Its hard to find a set thats AF only. Most companies do a mix of both. I did find these which are all AF with a mix of spanners and sockets. Only drawback no ratchets but thats not the end of the world.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TENG-TOOLS-TTEAF62-62pc-EVA-Imperial-AF-Socket-Spanner-Set-3-16-to-1-1-4/362264739623

Anyone else have a favourite or preference to another brand?

 

[detritusmaximus]

Steve-

If you use SAE in your search instead of AF, you might find more options. SAE and AF are the same thing, but probably anything made for the US will reference SAE instead.

Here is the SAE Gearwrench 13pc set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GearWrench-9312-13-Piece-Master-Ratcheting/dp/B0002NYD12/ref=pd_sbs_0_2/260-5268953-7996915?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0002NYD12&pd_rd_r=8e65381b-58df-11e9-afc1-6daec49bb716&pd_rd_w=expTW&pd_rd_wg=WrYDJ&pf_rd_p=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pf_rd_r=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E&psc=1&refRID=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E

 

[detritusmaximus]

Oh, and personally, I like Wurth tools. Still a little pricey, in my opinion, but not Snap-On pricey.

Honestly, though, if you learn the details that signify a decent quality tool you might be surprised what you can find out there. I have two sets of sockets, SAE and metric, deeps and shorts that I bought at Autozone (on the lower end of our parts stores here) about 20 years ago. They have been through hell and I have yet to break, fracture or round off any of them. I bought them on sale for $15 each set, marked down from an eye watering $19.95.

And get some breaker bar socket handles for loosening. Nothing worse for your ratchets than the abuse of breaking loose old crusty chassis/suspension bolts.

 

[Bentworker]

I like some Williams tools (Indristrial Line of Snap-On), MAC and Armstrong.

I’d buy something you would use often like a 10mm or 1/2 of each brand you are considering to try them out. Once you get your hands on them then make your choice

 

[Pegleg]

Steve-

If you use SAE in your search instead of AF, you might find more options. SAE and AF are the same thing, but probably anything made for the US will reference SAE instead.

Here is the SAE Gearwrench 13pc set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GearWrench-9312-13-Piece-Master-Ratcheting/dp/B0002NYD12/ref=pd_sbs_0_2/260-5268953-7996915?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0002NYD12&pd_rd_r=8e65381b-58df-11e9-afc1-6daec49bb716&pd_rd_w=expTW&pd_rd_wg=WrYDJ&pf_rd_p=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pf_rd_r=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E&psc=1&refRID=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E

AHA!!!! SAE. Thank You for the American name for AF, or American Finethread as we British call it

The past 3 years on this site has been a time of big learning. Everyday English spoken by Americans and British makes it very easy to understand each other. However over the past 3 years of being a owner of a Mustang and a member of this site i have discovered Americans and British speak a totally differant language when it comes to the words we allocate to car parts. It has made me appreciate, to some degree, how difficult it must be for people like Fabrice who's first language is not English or American English

 

[Hemikiller]

Many also refer to them as "standard" here in the US, so that's another term for you.

Completely agree with Chuck's opinion on Snap-On. Mac, Matco and Cornwell all offer the same "service" - inflated pricing for to-your-door service and "free" financing" on top quality tools. The whole business model stems from the auto mechanics who are poorly paid, yet are expected to supply their own tools. If you don't have good tools, you waste time and then aren't paid as much. Enter the dealer with your "fix" and before you know it, you're thousands in debt to the tool man. The only bonus to all this is when you finally decide you've had enough of the shop owner's shady crap, you take your tool box and go to another garage. Rinse, repeat. We have a SnapOn truck that stops by our plant on Wednesdays, I typically ask for a cash price if I'm spending more than $100 and he'll give me a little bump.

Just to throw more options onto the fire.

Sunex - another Taiwanese tool company, very nice quality stuff, bought mine from Amazon

Tekton - another good Taiwan brand.

Williams - Snap On's industrial brand.

Proto - Stanley's industrial brand, which also owns Mac

Armstrong - Apex tool group's industrial line

SK Tools

Many of the above are available from places like McMaster Carr.

Craftsman, after screwing themselves up for at least a decade, was bought by Staney and they appear to be making a turnaround and moving tool production back to the US from China.

I've also had excellent luck with tools from German companies Wiha and Wera. Mostly drivers and hex bits, but it was all good stuff.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

At least one of your metric wrenches fit 14 mm and 9/16" are same I think, lol.

SAE is Society of Automotive Engineers. They set the standards for the industry or did, now government does a lot.

I would also search Inch. I have never seen how you can pay the price for the Snap On either. My friend has a huge 6' tall snap on chest with ever tool known in it. I was telling him I had broke 4 of the wrenches trying to get a seat belt out, Torks fastener. He loaned me his Snap On and it broke easier than the cheap ones, lol.

I have one set of cheap tools that does fit both inch and metric and does not mar the fasteners. I think called Metrinch?? I have some Craftsman, some Kobalt and some Stanley. I am not a mechanic for sure but get by with the cheap tools.

Here in the U.S. the pawn shops are full of stolen tools, lol. Some sell at great prices. I picked up a Lincoln wire welder that had never been used for 1/2 the retail price. They have bins full of sockets you can buy one if you have broken one.

I have not split a socket in years even the cheap ones.

At the Wal Mat and for some reason they had Stainley sets for $20.00 for 1/4" & 3/8" drive 80 piece set. I got three. Great to carry when traveling it has all the screw driver, allen, torks and sockets to take the whole car apart in one case.

 

[detritusmaximus]

Steve-

If you use SAE in your search instead of AF, you might find more options. SAE and AF are the same thing, but probably anything made for the US will reference SAE instead.

Here is the SAE Gearwrench 13pc set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GearWrench-9312-13-Piece-Master-Ratcheting/dp/B0002NYD12/ref=pd_sbs_0_2/260-5268953-7996915?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0002NYD12&pd_rd_r=8e65381b-58df-11e9-afc1-6daec49bb716&pd_rd_w=expTW&pd_rd_wg=WrYDJ&pf_rd_p=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pf_rd_r=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E&psc=1&refRID=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E

AHA!!!! SAE. Thank You for the American name for AF, or American Finethread as we British call it

The past 3 years on this site has been a time of big learning. Everyday English spoken by Americans and British makes it very easy to understand each other. However over the past 3 years of being a owner of a Mustang and a member of this site i have discovered Americans and British speak a totally differant language when it comes to the words we allocate to car parts. It has made me appreciate, to some degree, how difficult it must be for people like Fabrice who's first language is not English or American English

Yeah, it gets confusing when two or three names are used for the same thing. I think AF actually stands for Across Flats. I saw that when looking things up. Maybe that is to separate it from how another system measures bolt heads, like maybe from point to point? Anyway, in SAE there are fine thread and coarse thread bolts/screws. Not something you really have to worry about, but if you go looking for bolts based on American Finethread, you might not get what you need, especially if it's actually a coarse thread!

McMaster Carr, as Hemikiller mentioned, is an excellent resource to learn about SAE hardware (and American hardware in general). So much information in their catalog and website on hardware. It's like a huge reference source to figure things out.

As an example, hex head bolts:

https://www.mcmaster.com/standard-hex-head-screws

Go to that page then click on About Hex Head Screws and Bolts near the top of the page. There are similar About pages for just about everything they sell.

 

[detritusmaximus]

I have not split a socket in years even the cheap ones.

You know, I was contemplating that, too. Before deciding tools had gotten better, I had to make sure it wasn't JUST that I learned how not to break them.

 

[Pegleg]

Steve-

If you use SAE in your search instead of AF, you might find more options. SAE and AF are the same thing, but probably anything made for the US will reference SAE instead.

Here is the SAE Gearwrench 13pc set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GearWrench-9312-13-Piece-Master-Ratcheting/dp/B0002NYD12/ref=pd_sbs_0_2/260-5268953-7996915?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0002NYD12&pd_rd_r=8e65381b-58df-11e9-afc1-6daec49bb716&pd_rd_w=expTW&pd_rd_wg=WrYDJ&pf_rd_p=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pf_rd_r=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E&psc=1&refRID=4FAX3XBA6TQNHCNXX53E

AHA!!!! SAE. Thank You for the American name for AF, or American Finethread as we British call it

The past 3 years on this site has been a time of big learning. Everyday English spoken by Americans and British makes it very easy to understand each other. However over the past 3 years of being a owner of a Mustang and a member of this site i have discovered Americans and British speak a totally differant language when it comes to the words we allocate to car parts. It has made me appreciate, to some degree, how difficult it must be for people like Fabrice who's first language is not English or American English

Yeah, it gets confusing when two or three names are used for the same thing. I think AF actually stands for Across Flats. I saw that when looking things up. Maybe that is to separate it from how another system measures bolt heads, like maybe from point to point? Anyway, in SAE there are fine thread and coarse thread bolts/screws. Not something you really have to worry about, but if you go looking for bolts based on American Finethread, you might not get what you need, especially if it's actually a coarse thread!

When Americans and British made nuts and bolts pre metric The distance between each thread was a lot closer on American threads. So if you measured a American bolt measuring 1 inch you would find a lot more threads than was on a British 1 inch bolt which is why AF, here in the UK, was called American Finethread. The thread here in the UK was called a Whitworth thread. The "across the flats" you referred to is the flat of the thread. So the distance between the outter edge of the thread and the edge of the nut is differant in US and UK. Heres a part of a article i found online;

" Whitworth threads were introduced in the 1800s and are refered to as BSW for British Standard Whitworth. A finer thread was introduced and called British Standard Fine (BSF). AF was introduced much later and refers to Across Flats and was related to UNC(universal national coarse) and UNF(universal national fine) threads in the USA A 1/2 inch Whitworth socket is for a nut that fits on a 1/2 inch diameter thread, and is usually 1.5 times the diameter of the screwed rod across the flats of the nut. A 1/2 inch AF socket fits on a nut which is 1/2 inch across the flats and could be a much smaller threadsize".

If you go on Ebay UK and put in "Whitworth" spanners you will find imperial spanners. If you had a UK 1/2 inch spanner and a US 1/2 inch spanner they would do the same job.

So its even more confusing BSW, BSF, Whitworth, UNC, UNF, SAE, AF, American Finethread (American Fine-UNF). Why cant we just have a universal standardized terminology for everything. I was actually considering writing a dictionary for British users on this site at one point.

Its like wooworking screws with the "thread across the flats". If I bought a 3 inch woodwork screw the retailer would ask me what size 3 inch do i need. You can buy a 3 inch woodworking screw thats a number 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 etc. The 6 8 10 12 would tell me what size the thread is across the flat of the head. If you measured the size of a number 6  3 inch screw you would find it 3 inches long and 6mm across the width of the thread

 

[Stanglover]

Threads and thread sizes can and are confusing as hell. If you want to get really "screwed" up, go check out  Bicycle threads. British, French, American, all can be different.

AF wrenches (spanners) refer to the width "Across Flats" on the bolt heads. i.e. a 1/4" SAE bolt has a 7/16" AF head, 5/16" bolt is 1/2" AF and so forth. It doesn't matter if it's fine thread NF or course thread NC (for national fine or national course.) the bolt heads are the same size in general. There are some odd-balls, but you won't get into those on your car.

Best thing to do is NOT confuse British and American threads. It's like when I worked in Metric, I stayed in metric. I didn't confuse thing by converting unless I didn't have a choice depending on the machine I was operating.

Keep it simple my friend. You don't need to send a fortune on "Snap-On" wrenches. Most that are available these days won't break unless you put a 2 foot extension pipe on the thing.

Geoff.

EDIT: I changed 3/8" to 5/16: bolt. My bad!

 

[1sostatic]

I need some proper spanners instead of the box of junk I use.

 

[Pegleg]

I need some proper spanners instead of the box of junk I use.

Ditto. I opted for a mix of Tekton & Gearwrench and a new US Pro tools 9 drawer toolbox. No excuse not to tackle a job now.

 

[Stanglover]

I need some proper spanners instead of the box of junk I use.

Ditto. I opted for a mix of Tekton & Gearwrench and a new US Pro tools 9 drawer toolbox. No excuse not to tackle a job now.

Hey Steve, good call and why not...…….. it's only money!!!

 

[Pegleg]

I need some proper spanners instead of the box of junk I use.

Ditto. I opted for a mix of Tekton & Gearwrench and a new US Pro tools 9 drawer toolbox. No excuse not to tackle a job now.

Hey Steve, good call and why not...…….. it's only money!!!

Yeah. I spent around £900 in total icluding a new toolbox. Its a big spend but i renewed everything. My thinking was why pay someone else to do a job if i can do it myself. I would have to pay someone else if i didnt have the tools. A GOOD mechanic charges £55 per hour. So if i work on the car for 16 hours the tools have paid for themselves. I am no engine man so that work was farmed out. The interior i can do. The exterior strip i can do ready for paint as well as put the parts back on the exterior. My thinking was buy quality and you only buy once. I am 57 and know i will never have to replace again. lol most my tools were given to me by my grandfather and no ring spanners. I just had open ended spanners from my grandad and some very very inferior 1970's Chinese sockets that are metric and most are rounded off inside. I wanted tools for life. I didnt want to spend 900. It was painful because its money i could have spent on parts or paintworks. The only way i could justify the big spend was it will be a long term saving many many times over.

 

[Hemikiller]

Totally agree, that's how I started. I had brought my first Mustang in to replace the balljoints and the shop refused to work on it because it was "too rusty", so I took the $200 they were going to charge me and went where every American boy went to buy tools - Sears. Bought a Haynes manual and the parts I needed from the local Acme Auto. Spent a little over $250 and still have that manual and those tools to this day. That was 1989. Heck, I probably have some random parts from that car in my current Mach.

To be honest, I'd kill to find a car that was as "rusty" as that Mustang. It needed one rear floor, small patches in the lower quarters and a taillight panel.