Protecting your recovery tools from adverse conditions

[mjmcdowell]

Up here in the northeast winter can be nasty, although this one is rather mild, little snow/cold more rain/mild. This weather in any case can take its toll on your truck and equipment. If you have your recovery tools mounted out in the weather, not in a cap, they can take a beating. My axe/shovel (HJ mod.) and hi-lift are mounted on my tool box out in the weather with my homemade mounts. Inorder to protect them I sprayed the entire axe and shovel after cleaning them up, (re-paint if you wish) with a spray poly, came in a "rattle" can from the hardware store this has worked fine so far. As for the hi-lift I keep an oil soaked rag,(used motor oil) in a can in the garage and simply wipe it all down once a week or so, just takes a few seconds, a shot of WD40 on the working parts of the jack and it and the axe/shovel are none the worse for the weather. Once done they do not need to be redone again untill used. this method I have been using for several years now with good results. hope you can use this, stay safe, mjmcdowell

[HenryJ]

Mine are stored inside my tool box, with the exception of the modded shovel, and a collapsible snow shovel during the winter. The strap , clevis, carabiner, wedges an a ziplock baggie of matches are stored in a poly box inside the tool box.

I have a home made PVC tonneau cover that I now leave on most of the time, That helps a little , but is far from water proof. It does a good job of keeping the dirt off stuff though.

I'd like to say that I regularly oil , clean and protect everything, but I may be a bit lax in those duties.
I do see some surface rust forming in the exposed scratches on the winch. I should probably treat them. Is there something better than WD-40? It seems to evaporate pretty quickly.

[mjmcdowell]

HJ..... wish I had room in the tool box, mabey to much junk, and yeah I wish there was something better than WD40, don't use much in summer tho I think it collects to much dirt/dust, there is something called CRC I believe, will have to check it out. mabey it is not a dust collector. In Vietnam we used to lubricate heavily during the wet season and very,very sparingly in the dry and dusty season as far as our weapons went, it worked and thus my idea for my tools with the truck, stay safe, mjmcdowell

[Walt]

I recently cleaned out my toolbox My parents gave it to me for Christmas in 2000, right after I got my 2000 Sonoma X-Cab. At first I kept it neat, but stuff just gradually started piling up in there. So a month or so ago, I cleaned everything out. Several boxes worth. Took me several hours. Then I put a bolt on the back wall, and one of the side of the box, and used wing nuts to secure my Hilift jack to the inside wall. I also have my compressor, 12v impact wrench, flashlights, booster cables, tow straps, tie downs, wheel chocks, Glock compact shovel, and a few other necesities

It'll all be chaos inside there in a few months