Knipex: The right tool for the job

If you’ve ever needed to disassemble a Land Cruiser hub (or quite a few others), you’ve run into the retaining ring that secures the end of the stub axle. It’s not a circlip with holes that accept a standard snap-ring plier; the free ends come to bevelled points that are expletive-inducing to remove with any makeshift tool. Graham Jackson and I got them off our Troopy in the middle of the Australian bush by filing flat shoulders in the tips of a pair of his needle-nosed pliers. But it was still a dicey job to avoid having the things sproing off 20 feet into the dirt.

Rather unbelievably, I’d been through this same procedure at least a dozen times on our other Land Cruisers, from my 40 to our FJ55 to our FJ60. Every expletive-filled time I thought, I need a proper tool for this (expletive) job!

Finally I got one, and oh brother what a difference. It’s from the German tool maker Knipex, and it turns the task of removing and replacing this ring into an effortless and expletive-less five-second procedure.

If you drive a Land Cruiser and carry a tool kit for field repairs, get one, part # 4510170.

You’ll thank me some day.