How-To: Homemade Spanners

This tip comes from reader Joe Chumlea, of Knoxville, Tennessee. It seems Joe was trying to adjust the rear spring preload on his 2002 Yamaha V-Star. He was able to get a spanner wrench onto the collar, but found to his dismay that he didn’t have enough room to swing it. Rather than resort to bashing the adjuster with a long punch or screwdriver, which is at best a desperate, inefficient way to rotate the collar, Joe decided to make a tool that would allow him to adjust the collar using a ratchet and long extension.

Joe first drilled a 3⁄8-inch hole in the spanner handle, about an inch and a half from the end. He then used a file to square the hole so it’d accept a 3⁄8-inch square extension, which allowed him to easily reach and adjust his rear spring.

Sensing that he was on to a good thing, I decided to build one myself. Yes, I know there are commercially available ones out there, thank you, but like our cavemen ancestors, I take great satisfaction in making and using my own tools.

The whole job, from locating a donor shock spanner to completion took roughly 45 minutes, a good portion of which was spent using a 1⁄4-inch x 1⁄4-inch flat file to square up the hole. This part of the job is a bit tedious, but bear with it, checking the fit of the extension as you go. When you’re done, saw off the handle, about a half-inch short of the hole. What you’ll have is an extremely useful hook spanner that can be used with any 3⁄8-inch ratchet or extension to adjust everything from shock collars to steering heads.

Need to get into more tight spaces? Click here for another tip