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Father’s Day Find: The Nash Wrench
My grandfather died in early 1984. He had been a mechanic most of his life, from the time he dropped out of school at age 14, right up until he retired at the age of 70. After his death his tools sat idle in my grandmother’s basement, until her own death in 1995. My father cleared out the old workroom, with its boxes of taps, punches, wrenches, reamers, sockets, hand drills, wrenches, and specialty tools acquired or made over the 50+ working years of his father’s life. Some of the tools he took for himself, some he compiled to make a starter tool set for me, but so very many more were stored in plastic totes and shoved to the back of his garage, there to sit idle for the next 22 years.
When I undertook my own interest in old cars (3 years ago now) I started to ask after the old tools. They were buried underneath a mountain of clutter, but I did eventually unearth them, and I have periodically rummaged through them mostly as an exercise in identification. At first I hardly knew what they were, but as I have gained experience and knowledge I have been able to identify more and more of them. My father could usually fill in the blanks when I came across the more mysterious or obscure tools, like the palm ratchet or the threaded-stud remover. My father is 70 himself now and keen to remove the clutter, so he was quite happy for me to go through them in more detail this past weekend, and especially for me to take whatever I might be able to use. So while he and the my daughters visited I rummaged and poked around, and it was at the bottom of one tote that I unearthed this wrench.
At first I thought I had found a tangible link back to my grandfather’s time as a mechanic at his wife’s uncle’s Nash dealership, what with the wrench emblazoned with the word “Nash”. The forging marks, according to the internet forums specializing in old tools, indicate that this wrench was cast sometime between 1923 and 1925 by the Bonney Forge, and that seemed to fit with what I half remembered of family lore. It turns out this wrench was, while as old as it appears, of a different purpose. I had thought only of Nash, the car maker, but I suspect that this really was for a different Nash, the pump maker.
You see, from the late 1950s until his retirement, my grandfather worked for Seagrave Fire Apparatus as a field service mechanic. They sent him all over the country to repair fire engines, and one of his typical repair jobs was to tear apart and rebuild the water pumps, and I’m guessing that this was the wrench’s real purpose – removing and replacing the gland packing nut on pump shafts. (see here for what that means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuffing_box)
I’m curious what other tools I might unearth.
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Sounds like an interesting project, Skip.
Yes, as soon as I saw it I doubted it was a wrench for a car, too thin and the handle is too short for that kind of work. Have fun digging through your grandad’s tools, I’m sure he would enjoy knowing you are doing so.
That’s awesome!
My dad’s dad was a carpenter and built the house I grew up in. When he passed he left a load of tools behind as well. I didn’t have any storage space at the time so most went to auction :( but I did grab a select few. One piece is an old hand axe which I picked out because I actually needed it at the time. I just used it over the weekend to punish some stubborn foliage in my backyard wilderness.
My mom’s dad was a mortician – I didn’t get any of his tools!!! ;)
My dad was an engineer. I have one of his slide rules. It is an amazing little machine.
My dad built a great workbench. It was about 4×10 made of 2 inch t&g white ash. That wood was so hard it was impossible to drive a nail in it. My mother gave it away while I was in the service.
My grandfather built his own workbench too in his basement workroom. He built it with the help of my father, then a boy of 10 or 11. When it came time to part with my grandmother’s house, though, we had to leave it behind as it was too large to make it up the basement steps of their little ranch home.
I have been meaning to tell you to inspect/replace the seatbelt support in the transmission tunnel of your 73.
Mine basically disintegrated.
I used to have a set of forged Bonney wrenches, essentially very thin but wide open end wrenches useful for tight spots. Aircraft have tons of tight spots.
The under-seat support pans (the ones that rivet through the fiberglass body) have definitely died and were replaced when I also replaced the belts. The buckles, though, I believe bolt right into a frame member, but I will double check that when I next have the chance.
That’s lovely! Is that one of yours?
The inside buckles attack to a metal bracket in the inside of the transmission tunnel which has a bolt hole for the inside buckle. It also has 18-12 rivets attaching it to the fiberglass. You will see a cable attaching it to the center cross member to a pair of studs also on the bracket.
The lapbelt definitely attaches to the bottom pan, and the shoulder harness to the frame.
Be safe.
Thank you. It is. And I’m just yards away from that workbench.
Fantastic post. Not only does most of our society not know how to fix things, they have very little appreciation for the tools that aid in the fixin’. Still fewer grasp the quality and value of toolmakers from 50 years back or more. My “granddad collection” includes a workbench from a kit (add your own lumber) with a Companion vise, a 16 lb sledgehammer and a cutter mattock with the original handle. I used all of these as a kid in the 1960’s. I also have an ancient Rigid adjustable wrench from somewhere.
None of these are shiny, but they still work like they’re new (except the sledge is in need of handle #3). We’re great for tight tolerances these days, but the materials often can’t stack up to these older ones.
I’ll add that to never-shrinking list of things I need to fix on that car.
Nostalgic glimpse at useful practicality. Nice @skipsul. I’ve often said a man’s only as good as his tool…err tools.
Skip, thanks.
Great post.
As a boy I loved to rummage through my grandfather’s shop on our farm here in Ohio. He had all these amazing old tools (the farm dates from the mid-1800’s) that I had no idea what they were for. Unfortunately most of them are gone now. I have salvaged a few old crosscut saws and a bow saw and an adze from our barn but that shop and old tractor shed are gone. But your post brought back great memories at marveling at all those old tools. Thanks.
This ismthe hand wratchet. Does not lock up as well as it should though. Mac tools mfg.
@fredcole
Threaded stud remover
And who knows what this guy is? I had to ask, so now I know, but do you?
I believe that’s a feeler gauge. I have one somewhere but have never used it.
For gapping spark plugs, I think. Not my favorite version of that tool.
Really cool post Skip. I would say that little shoulder in the wrench was for a specific application, so I think you’re on the right thought process.
Yeah, it looks like it could be intended to fit a very particular collar.
From further reading I have seen it suggested that the notch was there to accommodate 2 different nut sizes, something perhaps like the gland nut itself and a lock nut to secure it.
I would love to have this confirmed. I’ve found this same wrench for sale in a variety of vintage tool sites, so it must not have been that uncommon, but I have yet to find where it originally belonged.
That’s it, though my father called it a more general tune-up tool and said some of the odd bits on it also aided in setting points too.
If you want to be really manly, what you need is a slugging wrench. They come in sizes 1-inch and larger. You put the rounded bit over a nut and you slug the thick other end with a very large hammer (2-5 pounds depending on your strength) to tighten or loosen very large nuts on very large bolts.
I work as a volunteer on a steamship in Baltimore. These are used to open and close the covers over the steam tubes on the boilers.
I’m so old, I’ve actually used that tool. Mine didn’t have that fancy-dancy cleaning brush and scraping blade (file?), tho. Somewhere I still have the bladed version of the tool as opposed to wires.
I remember one where they had rounded metal ends, like little tongue depressors.