Your best roadside tool find

This might be a bit of a stretch for a "road find" but I think the basic criteria are met.

I found a '99 Chevy cavalier in the road in front of my friend's house. It wasn't his, it was a friend of his. The guy had been at an intersection nearby when a huge lifted pickup ran over his front bumper. The guy drove it to my friend's house since it was only 1/4 mile away and antifreeze was spraying out. That was a few months prior and the guy hadn't done anything with it; he had deployed (Navy) right after the accident. My friend had gotten HOA complaint letters and then fines for the car sitting in the street. They were threatening to have it hauled off. I asked my friend if his friend wanted to sell the car.

My friend called his friend and said he had someone interested in the car. The guy said "oh **** the car, hang on, I'll be right there." 30 minutes later the guy shows up with the title and says I can have the car if I make this problem go away. He said he completely forgot about it and he was being transferred to Hawaii. He was literally watching his suff get loaded on the truck when we called, but they hadn't loaded his file box with the title yet.

So I pay my friend's HOA fines and everyone is happy. Heck of a deal. It had like 70k miles on it. The bumper was ripped off and had been drug under the car. I pulled it out from under the car and threw it away. The frame was too bent in the front to simply mount a new bumper, and I didn't have money to get it fixed properly. But I had to remove it from the premises. So I went to sears and bought my first welder, a 90A simple cheapo stick welder, and I welded some scrap metal to the front of the car, mounted some offroad lights to it, and called it good. I drove it all the way from Virginia to Texas like this:
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Can you top this?
Found a zipper bank bag laying in the middle of the street in front of our house. Picked it up - heavy for a bank bag - inside were assorted canceled checks, deposit slips - bank stuff. Also a revolver! Nice chrome plated S&W .357 revolver with a Houston police officers badge etched on the side including his badge number. I was able to trace it back to the officer from the names on the canceled checks. The bank bag had been left on the car roof by the officer, his girlfriend or his wife (depending on who was talking) and fell off by our house. I was able to track him down and got it returned to him.
In return he didn't even thank me rather accuse me of stealing it! What a jerk!!
 
I recently had my tire punctured by a bone. Had been driving around in my yard picking up branches. Never knew a bone was strong enough to punch thru a tire.
 
lens42 said:
Not on the road side, but I'd been in my house for about two years, when I had to go crawling underneath to fix a tub leak. I found a huge Wiss upholstery scissors, nice sheet metal shear, a big pipe wrench, and an old brass steam whistle. The tools weren't even that rusted.
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well I can add to these finds going down hill out of page ut. and a semi was parted going up hill man was walking downhill real fast me 40 yrs. on the road told wife he spotted some thing about then drove by a gun rolled up in a holster and belt give all the brakes on my p.u. and 5 wheel got out to go back and running up hill he was running down hill. not a happy ending missed by about 20 ft he did say better luck next time. I thought he could of let me see what I missed out on . gospel gotogojo
 
You guys have found all sorts of nice stuff. The only thing I found was an FAL rifle parts set. I was able to assemble it fairly inexpensively ( had to purchase a receiver). I later traded this rifle to a fellow for an 1871 Mauser cavalry carbine which I value at $1500.

Vlad
 
macrnr said:
covered in cow crap. Too big for me so I gave them to my brother in law.
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Don't like that brother-in-law?

stupoty said:
maybe its a uk mechanic thing of hideing the biggest tool you can find in the most improbable place in a car
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Maybe that's how all those tools get into tires; the mechanics leave them on the inside and eventually they try to get back out! :)

Best I have got is a couple wrenches found along the road side.
I have seen many, many ratchet straps, but usually on busy highways and value my life too much too try retrieving them.

-brino
 
My last tool find was a pair of wire cutters. Looked like they were used to pull nails out of sheetrock or some other sheet rock work. Who knows, cleaned them up a little, threw then into the drawer with the rest of my "loaner tools!"

You know, Brino is right, it's getting way too dangerous to stop on the road to retrieve a $5 to $10 tool or so off of the road now days. I remember dad retrieving a half worn out 12" Crescent wrench off the road, gave it to us kids. That was my only real wrench I had for many years when I was a kid.
 
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