Building a Beginner Mechanic Tool Cart UNDER $1500

what's going on everybody it's charles in this video i'm going to be building a roll cart for an apprentice mechanic and i'm going to try to do it for under 1500 bucks so first up in building a roll cart or a tool box is finding the roll cart or toolbox i took a trip over to harbor freight and picked up the 30 inch five drawer roll cart for 269.99 plus tax now with this roll cart and pretty much everything you could probably even do better than i did by finding sales finding coupons or buying things secondhand at garage sales and pawn shops but i wanted to make sure that whatever i did was somewhat repeatable the goal that we have here is to build a starting roll cart for an apprentice technician you guys may or may not know but i spent the majority of my career at the dealer training and mentoring the new guys this whole idea came about with some conversations i've had with my old dealership so i suggested maybe we build a roll cart to give them on their first day so that these new technicians don't have to come out of pocket with a ton of money just to walk in the door so what i did was i picked a mix of some tools that i really like and i still use things that have lifetime warranty and some tools that are actually pretty good but also really affordable now there's a thousand other ways to set these up everything from a box like this one which is pre-set up and has this really great foam organization to going on the tool truck and spending a ton of money but one of the things that i absolutely hate is seeing new technicians jump on that tool truck and get in a ton of debt before they even really have their feet underneath them now in putting this together i didn't really remain loyal to one brand over another i just tried to find the best tool at the best price that i possibly could now if you see a tool that you're like hey charles there's a better version of that drop that down in the comments and let us know i really want to use this as a guide for young technicians to put together a good cart that isn't going to set them back a fortune see when you're first starting out as a technician quantity of tools really needs to be the focus over quality but hey most of the stuff i got still has a lifetime warranty okay so i got the roll cart built of course i chose yellow because it is the fastest color this roll card is actually a pretty solid deal at like 270 bucks very similar to the roll cart that i normally use which is over there the only thing i really would change about this roll cart is two things they make bumpers for the side here i would probably add those and i actually wish that the casters on all four rotated at the dealership that i used to work at moving around the shop is somewhat common so that's why i chose a roll cart over a toolbox okay it's time to get some tools in this toolbox now as we go through this you're probably going to think to yourself charles that's the worst organization ever on the planet you might be right i'm going to change my mind 75 times throughout this part and i'm not going to be the one using it so ultimately it doesn't matter what i think let's go ahead and get some of the sides of this roll cart at the top loaded up we got some screwdrivers of course i actually have and use this set of screwdrivers pretty often i also got a set of picks this set of picks was a pretty good deal and picks are another one of those things that are super super valuable for taking seals off and stuff like that i'm gonna need a struggle counter for how much i struggle opening all this stuff probably put the picks in this drawer this feels right since i got that drawer open we'll go ahead and throw some trim tools in there as well you never really know what kind of jobs you're going to really start out as doing as an apprentice so i felt like this was a pretty good mix of what i seem to remember our our new guys doing at the dealership now this is not going to be everything that you need a couple of hammers a dead blow and a mallet there's not gonna be everything you need you're gonna need more stuff but the whole goal here was how do we get enough things just to like get the kid in the door get him going get him something so that it's not super overwhelming on day one you feel like you need to spend like five grand in tools oil change pliers now something that i use all the time and these are my absolute favorite is these vim kits i got a mini torx which is this and i've been using these sets for just for years and years and years so mini torx this triple square keep in mind this is built for a volkswagen or probably an audi technician so if you don't use triple squares or you know the brand that you're gonna go work on doesn't use triple squares buy something else because you probably won't need these but these kind of things are becoming pretty common so it may not be bad to have and if you're getting a job at an independent shop that works on everything this probably isn't going to cut it then we have these little stubby hex which i also use frequently it's funny you know you think of fifteen hundred dollars and you're like man that's a lot of money then you start buying tools and you're like that's not a lot of money but i will tell you the dealership is paying for all these tools so the whole idea was like giving the new the new tech these tools um when they start so they have tools they can just keep them upgrade as needed it's pretty fun shopping for tools with someone else's money these husky pry bars are actually pretty legit they uh they also have a strike cap on them so you can whack them with a hammer will it fit oh it does fit nice fresh something that i'm sure won't fit in one of those things is this long breaker bar i actually bought one just like this when i first started i still have it i don't use it all that often but i still have it you're probably going to end up in your career needing more pliers than these but these were a couple that i felt like were pretty important to have right out of the gate small pair of needle nose small pair of side cutters and then a pair of hose clamp pliers this style is my favorite go ahead and get these in here next to our oil filter wrench next up you pretty much need an impact gun i went back and forth on weather pneumatic or battery was the right way to go and i landed on pneumatic especially because typically you're going to be doing more tires than kind of like at volume so picked up this earthquake gun yellow to match because you got to be fancy this is another one of those tools that i have and i use pretty regularly in fact i used it to put to put the cart together and that's these milwaukee drill and impact drivers this is a place where if you wanted to save some money you definitely could but i feel like this is a place where you're going to use this tool a lot in fact my impact driver at the dealer was probably one of my most used tools period taking off belly pans and all that kind of stuff and so these little m12 drivers are phenomenal and this one comes with a drill too which we didn't use a drill a proper drill a ton but you still ended up using it enough that you needed to have it and these guys absolutely love them this comes with the impact the drill and two um m12 batteries i think a five four amp hour four amp hour and then what are these two amp hours the little ones i like the little ones a little bit better along with those impact drivers something i loved is these little adapters for quarter inch and 3 8 sockets i'm not going to take these out of the package i'm just going to leave them in there because i worried they're going to get lost couple more somewhat specialty volkswagen tools 32 millimeter socket and 36 millimeter socket these are primarily for doing oil changes all right we're going to keep those up top because that's going to be something they're going to use pretty regular telescoping magnet so we got our magnet and we have our inspection mirror a set of reducers or as i like to call them switchers i might leave those too pen light one of my favorite ones of all time i have mine that i use all the time here uh wonderful light i'm also going to leave that in the package because i feel like that'll get lost next up we got some impact sockets this is a place where you can really go like wild and get up all the different depths and swivels and all that stuff but when you're just starting out at least you have something to take off wheels and maybe unbolt subframes and set this whole socket kit down in the bottom drawer we have a couple of socket holders that i'm not going to load up just yet but we're going to do that pretty soon and actually maybe i'll put the half inch drive one in now i didn't spend a ton of money on half inch drive tools unfortunately we got to cut something right we only have so much money got some magnetic parts trays which i live by something that's probably going to be highly debated on whether or not icon torque wrenches from harbor freight or any good um look are they snap-on tech wrench with angle measurement good no but in testing like they've performed pretty well and let's face it rookie technicians are not going to be rebuilding engines what they need to torque is drain plugs and oil filter housings and wheels so i went with just a standard basic three ace torque wrench right nothing crazy and then a little bit nicer split beam half inch drive because they're going to be torquing a lot of wheels they're gonna be torquing wheels and and getting in those habits of torquing wheels properly and drain plugs properly and things like that is gonna be vital early in the career that's what builds the good habit if they were jumping in and rebuilding transmissions where like torque and angle were proper on day one i would have made a different choice but i just i know i'm on repeat a little bit which i hate doing but like this is what you need to get going this is not going to be your tools for the next 30 years this is just enough to get your feet wet hands wet and it's going to go up to where they need it torquing wheels subframes and stuff like that so this is uh it's actually not bad at all that's not bad at all oh it's not going to fit well the case doesn't fit in the cart because i didn't measure but that's okay we're just going to include it anyway now there is one other thing that i got and that's this set of allens but i'm actually not going to use these because the gearwrench kit that we got has some in there now next up we're going to go through the gearwrench kit that i picked up that we did get on sale normally i don't like buying kits like this because there's often a lot of stuff that you don't really need my first tool kit was very similar to this and it actually worked out pretty good so here's the gearwrench kit that we picked up on sale this is pretty cool because it comes with ratcheting wrenches and a whole bunch of sockets now the reason i got this one is it came with torx it came with allens came with some bit drivers it even came with e-torques and a driver so i'm actually just going to take this entire tray out of this plastic housing and i'm going to put it at the bottom drawer of our roll cart tool organization is pretty expensive so we might as well use this to organize it's not the best use of space but it keeps our stuff where it's supposed to be next up i'm going to load up the socket trays this has 3 8 and quarter inch it also has some 12 point and some six point we're gonna have extra sockets but we can just keep it in this plastic tray 20. you'll notice it comes with a 21 and 22. you'll actually probably use those then we'll also go ahead and load up our deep ones which they're a little shorter on the deep ones but that's okay does it not have an 11 or a 12 that's weird not a big deal for volkswagen but kind of weird this one also has a spark plug socket drop that on our number six then i'm just gonna put this tray right back in now our bottom one has the quarter inch also has our ratchet so we'll take our two ratchets and we'll put those in the cart i'm also laughing because it's coming with a five and a half millimeter socket which is the size fastener that volkswagen uses i guess at least you have a 11 and 12 quarter inch drive but i can't say it enough like this is not enough tools to get you through every single job fixing cars just something to get you going all right so there we go we have our quarter inch we have our 3 8 i'm gonna pull the extensions out because we want these in our roll cart too now we can go ahead and get our sockets set in you'll notice our half inch tray is pretty much empty because impact sockets don't usually fit on these kind of trays but at some point we'll be adding half inch sockets so we're good there three eighths quarter inch we have our two ratchets we'll just put these here for now normally for me with these cases i cut the lid off but these aren't going to be my tools so i don't want to permanently damage or alter something that someone else is going to use and for that tray with the allens and the big torques i'm gonna put it right there and the final thing i'm gonna do is i'm going to put our ratcheting wrenches in our cart here this ratcheting wrench part of this kit was kind of the thing that really put me in the just just by the kit charles because man oh man having ratcheting wrenches is awesome now having a regular set of wrenches probably pretty valuable too but just having something better than not having nothing okay so we set the card up it's as organized as probably i'm gonna do because we gotta take it all back out and bring it up to the dealership anyway now i came in a little over budget but i think you could do a little bit better than i did on sales and things like that also had my harbor freight coupon not expired the day before we would have been absolutely under budget but either way this really is enough to get a brand new technician with no tools at all started and then they can work with their shop foreman or whoever to build a better more complete more thorough kit and upgrade along the way the big key though that i was looking for when i was putting this together was a good price point and a lifetime warranty and we were able to hit almost everything on those points i'm going to talk a little bit about technicians for just a minute now i know that's not everybody's thing so maybe watch taking the s4 to a rallycross or video or something like that but listen to my current technicians whether you're new in your career or you have a lot of experience or you're in tech school or you're thinking about it you guys never in probably automotive history has there ever been a time where you are more in demand what that means is you've never ever had more leverage to get in a better job a better dealer a better shop with more benefits higher pay you've never had a better opportunity than right now and probably it's only gonna get better going forward that doesn't mean that the industry is caught up with that they're behind so you're gonna have to fight for these things that now you have more potential than you ever had ever to get that nobody when i started at the dealership would have ever considered supplying tools and now i like to think anyway at the better shops that is becoming a bit more normal so please take advantage of that if that means you got to go to a different shop or you got to move to a different dealership or you got to move out of state now's the time to capitalize on it we are seeing and will continue to see a dramatic shift a dramatic flux in the automotive industry i beg of you if you're not happy in your job and what you're doing now is the time to make that shift to capitalize on that because things are going to get different and for a lot of us it's going to get a lot harder and for some of you there's almost unlimited opportunity you just got to seize that and take advantage of it so i really hope that you do because this has been a good industry to me and it can be a good industry for you with that i'm gonna wrap it up uh links to some of this stuff what i can find anyway we'll drop down in the description at least the things that i use all the time uh big thanks to lee volkswagen to carry for helping me put this thing together and also most importantly for paying the bill so that i didn't have to with that i'm out have an awesome day i'll talk to you next time bye bye

Channel: HumbleMechanic

Views: 882,869

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Id: zZ4xrrHZE4A

Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 25 2021