With the winter fast approaching, its almost time to hibernate into the garage armed with tools aplenty, a radio with slightly fuzzy reception and a vision in your head of what you are working towards come the spring. 

In reality, mine at least, your garage may be a garden, you haven’t got a radio, and your tools are somewhere in the car you happen to be working on! So, in order to help get you organised, and in the best place to get the job done here are our top 5 tools you need for your project, as voted for by the VW Heritage team!

1. James T, our resident electrical guru has suggested the first item. A Circuit Tester. An item a lot of us use in our tool kits, it can make fault diagnosis so much simpler, and quicker. Clip one end to the body for earth and start prodding.. it’ll light up when you strike gold (or electricity). Whether you have lights that won’t work, or you’re wiring in a new stereo system, make sure you have one of these in you tool box.

2. Spanners might seem like an obvious choice, but sometimes it is the obvious things you overlook. A number of our team highlighted their favourites, the 10mm and 13mm. From personal experience, these are the ones that go missing first, and you can never find in the bottom of your tool box. Recently, I painted a stripe onto both 10mm and 13mm spanners making them easier to find in amongst the rest.

3. We all like to hate on health and safety, but working under an unsupported car is asking for trouble. Make sure you’ve a set of axle stands to hand for any work underneath your pride and joy, and you’ve found a suitable place to locate them on the car too – a rusty jacking point won’t be much good at holding the weight! Give the car a little push or two before getting down to work, with stubborn bolts to undo or panel work to hammer you don’t want it moving with you below it!

4. Got something that won’t undo? Or more frustratingly, every time you turn it, it spins both parts, not just the nut you are trying to remove. Electric Impact guns are an affordable DIY workshop purchase, and ideal if you don’t have a big compressor to run an air gun. I’ve had to call upon one of these for a number of jobs, and each time I’ve promised myself I’ll buy one..Have a shop around online but here’s one that caught my eye 

5. If you have the luck that I do when purchasing old VWs, your winter won’t be complete with out a faithful MIG Welder by your side. All of a sudden those holes that appeared in the floorpan, when you jabbed them with a screwdriver could be fixed, by you. You can pick up a machine for as little as £100, and with a few hours practice you’ll be patching things up a treat. Take a look at this handy buyers guide to help you through picking the right machine for you.

Sure you will have your own favourite tools for the winter work load. Why not tell us below, and perhaps we can produce a follow up piece with your choices included. We are always keen to hear about your projects too, want to share your hard work with the world, drop us an email on blog@wwheritage.com and we’ll try and make it so!

Andy

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage