OUTFITTING YOUR AUTOMOTIVE WORKSHOP

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First, get some Fix-A-Flat—spray-paint-type cans of compressed air plus a sealant that will repair most flats long enough to get you home or to a service station. Keep one in each vehicle's trunk or glove compartment for road flats.

Get a good jack as well. The crummy little bumper jacks that come with most vehicles are for emergencies only. Get a $20, 4-ton hydraulic hand-jack and a $10 "+"-shaped, four-socket lug wrench for each vehicle and if you can afford it, a $100+ wheeled trolley-type floor jack if you have a concrete floor shop. The handjacks have a screw extension that will raise them high enough above the floor to reach most any vehicle's axle. But, the longer they are, the less stable. I have several footsquare x 2inch-thick oak blocks to raise the jack off the ground so it needs only to be pumped a few times to do its job. The blocks also provide a firm, stable base in snow or on soft ground.

Also, get several awl-and-rubber-string flat-fixer kits that repair most punctures in modern tubeless tires. You brush soap suds over the tire; bubbles will point out the puncture. Then, usually without removing the wheel from the car, you can dig out the nail, thread a length of gum rubber through the eye in the awl's pointed end, work it into the puncture, and fix the tire for good and ever.

Pressurized Air

I recommend keeping a little $20 mall store mini air compressor in your vehicle. They plug into the cigarette lighter and are slow to inflate a road flat, but are reliable. For shop use, though, everyone should have a large line-powered compressor.

A compressor's capability is rated by the cubic feet of air it can move constantly at a given pressure. A gas or electric motor powers a pump that pushes air into a steel pressure vessel, shutting off and turning on automatically to maintain the pressure set by a pair of valves-one to set the tank pressure and one for pressure in the air hose.

Air-flow is determined by the tool in use. A tire will inflate happily with any pump that can develop 100 pounds of pressure in a closed vessel (such as a tire or football) with minimal air flow. To operate normal-duty air-powered mechanic's tools, however, requires constant output of a minimum four cubic feet per minute at 90 psi.-an entirely different proposition demanding dimensionally greater power.

However, high-capacity compressors are expensive, and for more than 25 years I kept tires inflated and blew out fuel lines and gummed-up carburetors with a chugchugging old piston-pump on an ancient electric motor that I hooked to an old propane tank. It took forever to get up to 50 or 60 pounds of pressure, but served the use.

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