Newbee Tools Questions

I use my digital calipers way more than I thought I would.

NC I'm going to say that you could probably narrow that list of pullers down to 2 or 3. I have seen the idler post expanding tool, but honestly have never found the need. I have been able to do everything with a puller, a press, and the pinion puller. I also have a set of pliers that I customized. Would be lost without those. I will post some pics after work today. As far as cleaning agents....you can't go wrong with Simple Green mixed in varying strengths. 

I might have already posted this picture somewhere but I can't remember. The purple one is a Lucky Bobs puller $18 - $20, the black one I found on Ebay. I use it more like a press. It has a couple more threaded attachments that came with it. It is a nice unit that somebody made and did a good job with. I think it was around $30, the little black one with the red knob is a pinion gear puller and everybody needs one of those. I forget what that one cost, the small forked tool is something I made from an old set of fingernail clippers. It is for prying wheels off. It works very well and distributes the pressure evenly so as not to destroy the wheel, and last is the pair of pliers that I customized. These were some kind of medical type pliers that already had the funny rounded tip on them. If you click the picture, you can zoom in on them in Flikr. I knotched one side to fit over the axle and I drilled a small dimple on the other side to hold the end of the axle. I use them for adjusting the position of the crown gear and axle when it is in the chassis. A pair of needle nose or similar could be modified as well. 

Something I find really useful are magnetic parts trays. Found some nice small ones at O'Reiley auto parts. Tooth picks are pretty handy too. Use them to apply glue, and to put pancake brush springs in place.

One tool I would like to find is some non magnetic tweezers. Installing brushes in pancake chassis with poly magnets can be a challenge, with steel tweezers.

I have seen some write ups (both good and bad) on the arms being cleaned that way. Figured I try it on a junk one and see whats up with it. As far as pics when I get the posting on how to figured out I will definitely be doing so  

Agreed on the parts trays, I have a round and rectangle one also small cutting boards and small sheet pans would work well I think, Tooth pics had been added when I started the tool collection as well as the q tips supply. I also purchased some Tamiya triangle tip swabs #87141 & 87142 found them at hobby lobby and been using those and work REALLY good for chassis holes and tight spaces and don't shred like the regular qtips.

Also got a good array of tweezers and pics from harbor freight along with some diamond stones/bits and mini drill bits for the dremels