Lotus Factory Spanners

[HumBuck]

Bit of a long shot this...

I starting a +2 restoration and have been getting by with some cheap and nasty new AF spanners.

But now decided I would like to get some quality spanners. Rather than go down the usual routes I thought it may be more interesting to work out what brand of spanners would likely have been used on the car at the factory and try and find a similar set second hand.

So....any ideas what they would have been using in lotus back in 71. Bedford? Britool?

Thanks

[niagra]

King Dick, especially for its comedy name.

[Spyder fan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4upxZ_zOs&feature=player_detailpage

Sing along now "YOU CANNA HAND A MAN A GRANDA SPANNER"

Full story of Sidchrome here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gGoFQx4bKI

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

A neighbour "at the time" was workshop foreman in a BMC dealership in Bristol.
When he saw my collection of "Green Shield Stamps" spanners he told me to by some decent spanners.
He showed me his "Britool" spanners which were flavour of the day at that time.

I'm not certain about when "Snap-On" arrived on British shores; anyone know?

[trw99]

Well John, I can tell you Snap-On entered the UK market in 1965 (Kettering, where it is still headquartered here).

Its not that far from Kettering to North London on the M1, so perhaps Snap-On started to gain usage at Lotus around the time they moved to Hethel! Or perhaps the original old boys at Cheshunt preferred their British tools.

Tim

[KevJ+2]

I too am starting a major restoration so I decided that because just about every nut and bolt is seized on this car that I would buy an electric Clarke impact wrench (my small compressor won't deliver enough air for a regular air wrench) It seems a really powerful tool but being electric it has no 'soft start' so not so good for doing fittings back up I also bought a litre of plusgas dismantling fluid as I have now found out that WD40 is not a good penetrating fluid. I will post my findings about the wrench - good or bad! King Dick, yea, I love that name too, seem to remember being called it in my younger days

[RichardHawkins]

In the 1960's I used Britool Bedford Stahlwille Elora and Williams Superslim.

Richard Hawkins

[HumBuck]

Thanks for the replys. I'll set up some searches on auction site.