The tools every classic owner should have in their garage

A large part of the joy of classic car ownership is the restoration and ongoing care. Rescuing tired old motors and bringing them back to their former glory; devoting regular Sunday afternoons to keeping your vintage car in show condition: these experiences are what owning a classic is all about. Indeed, even when you're not in the midst of a major restoration project, few pleasures can match that of simply tinkering around with your classic, tightening a nut here and replacing a brake pad there.

Classic car restoration is most enjoyable of all when you've got the correct tools to get the job done safely, correctly and with the minimum of effort. And in this article, we're going to run through some of the tools you'll need for both successful restoration projects and occasional tinkering alike.

To this list of essential items we would add, of course, some specialist classic car insurance. You want to take the best possible care of your classic – that's why you want the best tools for the job.

Here are the essential items for the well-equipped classic car workshop…

Tool chest kit

This one is a fairly basic requirement for anyone who's planning to do any tinkering with their car, whether classic or modern. A decent chest kit, in its own handy metal concertina chest, will contain many of the tools you're likely to need most often in car maintenance – such as a set of spanners, a range of sockets, an adjustable wrench, a mechanic’s bit set, and much more.

Of course, you can acquire all these elements one by one as you progress, but if you're looking to quickly and conveniently assemble a few car-maintenance essentials to get you started in the wonderful world of restoration, this is a great way to quickly get up to speed.

Trolley jack

A trolley jack is a fairly essential bit of kit for allowing you to raise up your classic and get a good look underneath. From the rear wheel arches via the sills to that area behind the front valance, there are plenty of areas of your classic that will need your attention from time to time – but which simply can't be reached without getting right in underneath.

A decent trolley jack will raise the car enough to let you shuffle under – typically raising cars between 9 and 35-40 centimetres. Some are expensive, some less so. When choosing, you should just make sure that your jack will lift the car to a height that will be comfortable for you.

Check, also, that it will be able to cope with the weight of your classic. The most common, two-tonne jacks will be fine for most classics, although if you're the proud owner of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow you'll need one a little stronger.

A sudden fall from an insufficiently strong jack could result in a lot of damage and, although your classic car insurance may help with the repair costs, it's a situation you'd be much better off avoiding altogether.

Just remember that, while the jack does the work of lifting our car, it shouldn’t be relied on to keep your car raised on its own while you're underneath. Instead, for ultimate safety, you should complement your trolley jack with the next item on our list.

Axle stands

Once you've got your car raised off the ground with the jack, you need to secure it in place with a pair of axle stands. These come in pairs – make sure that, together, they will take the weight of your car.

Axle stands are pretty affordable – at Halfords you can get a pair of one-tonne stands (so, capable of supporting a two-tonne car between them), or upgrade to two 1.5-tonne stands (combined weight 3 tonnes) for a little more.

MIG welder

As an owner of a classic car, prone to damage and corrosion as these beauties often are, you are likely to find yourself, at some point, needing to do a spot of welding. You may need to fill in a gap in the bodywork, for example, or close together two panels that are drifting apart. Now, you can take the car along to a professional welder to do the job – or you can have a go yourself, and save yourself some money (and get the satisfaction of a job well done and a new skill learned).

Welding might look highly skilled, and it should be undertaken carefully and with the right protective mask or goggles – but, with these precautions in place, it's not too challenging.

The commonest form of welding for amateurs is known as MIG (metal inert gas) welding, and you can pick up a MIG welder of your own for as little as £150-£200. A typical machine should feature a four-stage power setting, a variable wire speed control and thermal overload protection. Try Halfords or Draper Tools for starters.

Oil / coolant catch pan

Modern cars may only need oil changes every 5,000 to 7,500 miles – indeed, some cars that take synthetic oil may be able to go as much as 1,5000 miles between oil changes.

With classic cars, though, the situation is different – for anything from the 1980s or older, as a very rough rule of thumb the oil is likely to need changing every 3,000 miles. This job could come around fairly frequently, then, and you may not always want to pay a mechanic to do it for you.

Likewise, from time to time, you will need to drain and replace your classic's coolant. Again, you can pay someone to do this – or, for a cheaper solution, do it yourself. You will need a 'catch pan' – a large receptacle for all the oil or coolant you've drained off. A decent one will have handles and a large pouring lip, for easy carrying and disposal. Aim for an eight-litre capacity, and try to spend around £10.

Grease gun

Older cars will have more 'grease points' – locations where you can periodically add a small amount of grease to lubricate, say, the steering or suspension system. A good quality grease gun will get this regular job done for you, accurately and effectively. A typical gun should have around a 120cc capacity – and should be yours for around £15-£20.

Torque wrench

So, you've already got a wrench in your classic car toolkit. Why do you need a torque wrench – and what is that, exactly?

Well, a classic wrench will help you tighten a screw or other fastener. So far, so good. A torque wrench, however, will let you tighten said screw to an exact tightness (using a precise amount of torque, or twisting force).

And why the need for this precision? Well, certain fasteners – including many of those that you will see on machines, including your own beloved classic car – need to be tightened to a very specific degree to operate effectively. Step forward the torque wrench, which will help you to fasten that screw to exactly the right amount, by means of a scale or dial, with torque measured in Nm and/or lbf.ft.

Achieving this amount of precision is one of the key ways to maintain your classic in its best possible state. Another is to protect it with some classic car cover against any eventuality, whether inside the workshop or out on the road.

LED torch

Yes, make no mistake, your car restoration projects will see you entering some dark places. We don't mean metaphorically (we hope that, in general, your classic car restoration odyssey is extremely enjoyable): we mean literally.

Sometimes you’ll need to delve into areas of the car where visibility is poor and you need a little extra assistance. Checking out hidden rust and rot under sills or wheel arches; having a play under the bonnet in low light conditions; delving around in the engine bay for the bolt you just dropped in there somewhere: these are just some of the moments when you just won't be able to see what you're doing very clearly. And a precision-beam LED torch will make the job so much easier. Around £10-£15 should get you a decent LED torch with a strong beam.

Tape measure

Classic car maintenance will entail some measuring from time to time. How long is that section of wiring you need to replace? How many centimetres is the strip of corrosion under the front valance? Given this, a tape measure will be handy to have right there in the workshop, to save you hurrying into the house to search for one in that cupboard under the stairs.

You want to get yourself a nice chunky, rubberised measure, with a wrist strap and/or belt clip so it can be carried around easily. Five metres is a decent length to go for. We've seen them for around £2 – cheap enough to buy a spare, in case it ever goes missing at a crucial moment!

Multimeter

If you're going to take an interest in the electrical components of your car, a multimeter is an absolute must-have. Within this one small, handheld device you'll be able to take readings on AC and DC voltages, electrical current, resistance… everything you need to know about your car's electrical health.

These clever little devices tend to range from around £20 to somewhere north of £100, so choose one based on how many features you're likely to need. We'd hazard a guess that a cheaper multimeter should have all the functionality most amateur classic car fans will need.

Vernier caliper

Of course, the humble tape measure will serve well for many of the measurements during your classic car restoration projects. On those occasions when you need to measure something with greater precision, however (and we're talking tenths or even hundredths of millimetres here), the Vernier caliper is your friend.

Essentially, via the use of two sets of jaws and two different measurement scales, these clever calipers can measure with extraordinary accuracy. We'd recommend watching a YouTube video or two in order to fully understand how to read measurements off these devices – or, if you have a few extra bob to spare, you can buy a digital Vernier, which will involve precisely zero fiddly arithmetic on your part.

Feeler gauge

When it comes to measuring – with, once again, pinpoint accuracy – those narrow, hard-to-reach places where no caliper will be able to penetrate, you're going to need a set of feeler gauges.

Essentially a fan of strips of metal, all of various precisely calibrated thicknesses, feeler gauges will tell you the exact size of any gap, join and so on. Incredibly useful if you want to know if a certain shut line has got a little wider, or for measuring the gap between spark plugs. They'll even be useful, for cars with an overhead camshaft such as a Triumph Dolomite Sprint or Ford Escort RS2000, for checking or adjusting the clearance between the rockers and valve stems. Typically yours for around £5.

Multi-socket set

You're bound to have a variety of nuts and bolts around your car, all of various different gauges and all in need of the occasional tightening – even, from time to time, removal, so that you can work on the mechanics beneath them.

What you'll be needing, in order to quickly and easily loosen or tighten any fastener around the car, is a multi-socket set. This will typically contain a large array of sockets, suitable for all of the different gauges of nut and bolt you're likely to find on your classic. They then slot easily onto your socket wrench – and a good multi-socket set will usually include a few of these, including small ones for tight spaces – and away you go.

We like the look of this 42-piece 3571 Alldrive set from Laser Tools.

Dent puller

If you spend your life around classic and vintage cars, you're bound to come across the odd dent now and again – whether that's in a flawed classic that you buy with a view to restoring, or indeed as a result of damage you're unlucky enough to sustain yourself. Of course, the odd dent shouldn’t trouble you too much as your classic car insurance should give you some financial assistance towards the cost of repairs.

The good news, though, is that small dents can be removed without the need to take the car to a specialist repair garage. What you need is a dedicated dent puller – typically a suction cup that attaches to the dent and pulls it back into place. These can cost as little as £13, as in this example from Halfords. An affordable solution to what could, otherwise, be an expensive problem.

Cordless polisher

Any owner who takes pride in their vehicle – and who doesn’t? – will want to give its paintwork a bit of a buff from time to time. Regular polishing is a great idea, as it removes the tiny scratches and scuffs that your car accumulates on its day-to-day duties. It is, though, fairly hard work. So why not let a cordless polisher do the job for you?

When it comes to it, you can choose from two types of polisher. Some have a rotary or 'orbital' action, meaning that the head with the buffer cloth simply spins around in a circle. If you feel like spending a little more, you can invest in a dual-action polisher, which goes up and down as well as round and round. May take a little more getting used to, but could give you that shine you want in less time.

Angle grinder

As you'll probably know from your own experience, classic cars are more prone to rust than their modern counterparts. That is partly down to the sheer number of years' service that they have seen. It's also partly because galvanisation and rustproofing didn’t really catch on in cars until the 1980s. The result is that, if you own a car of a certain vintage, your vehicle is unfortunately more susceptible to the evils of corrosion.

So, what's to be done? Well, aside from an annual rustproofing treatment, one solution is to remove unsightly patches of rust from the body of your classic, using an angle grinder. A versatile tool, an angle grinder can be a real boon to the dedicated car restorer.

Of all the restoration tasks we're inviting you to have a go at via this essential toolkit list, a spot of angle grinding has perhaps the most potential to go slightly awry. Approach the task carefully – and make sure you have insurance for your classic car in place to help cover you for any additional damage sustained.

Breaker bar

If you've ever tried to remove any nuts or bolts from an older classic on which rust is starting to seize things up, you'll know that this can be quite a job. That's why we'd recommend adding a decent breaker bar to your toolbox.

The extra torque these tools provide – thanks to those long handles – will help you to remove those unyielding bits of metal. You may want to get a selection of different sizes for the various nuts and bolts you'll encounter.

Hammer / mallet

A basic hammer or a rubber mallet can be a helpful addition to your classic car toolkit. The concentrated downward force that a hammer or mallet provides can be very helpful on a variety of jobs – whether you're rebuilding a transmission system, working on the chassis or brakes, repairing your leaf-spring suspension system, or fixing seals or bearings back in place.

There are, in fact, quite a few types of hammer and mallet, from the familiar 'ball-peen' configuration to plastic, brass or rubber-tipped mallets. As a rule of thumb, we'd recommend going for something medium-sized: not too big to get into tight spaces, but with enough weight to get the job done.

No matter how large or small your restoration job, make sure you have some classic car insurance in place in case of any mishaps.

Hook and pick set

A little quartet – or so – of hooks and picks will prove invaluable for those smaller jobs around your classic – such as removing 'O' rings, gaskets and seals, split pins and bushes. We like the look of this little four-piece set from Draper Tools, for sale on the Halfords website, made of hard-wearing chrome vanadium steel, hardened and tempered for added durability.

Magnetic tray

Doing lots of fiddly little jobs on your classic? Small metal parts littering the workshop floor, and proving difficult to find? You may want to invest in a magnetic tray, to which those various tiny but essential parts will stick handily until you need them again. Here's a tidy example for £7.99 from Halfords.

Pry bars

If you have a small part on your classic car that's proving stubborn to remove, a pry bar is very likely to be the solution you require. Chances are you may have been using a screwdriver, chisel or some other tool for this purpose until now. However, a pry bar will do a better job, as it will give the exact angle and force you need to detach even the most limpet-like metal part. It will also do the job without sustaining any damage, unlike your poor hard-worked screwdriver!

Pry bars vary from simple metal or heavy-duty plastic bars, to more sophisticated pieces where the angle can be precisely calibrated. You can even get a set of different sizes for different situations around the car.

Classic car insurance – an essential element in classic car care

Get yourself the tools we've listed here, and you'll be well on the road to giving your classic the best care possible. Another step is to take out some specialist specialist insurance for classic cars.

Contact us for a quote.