[Dave Colangelo]

If you really get in to this you may end up spending as much on tools as you did on the car. Any way In my opinion your basic set of tools to do basic stuff on this car would include,

- Sockets 5-24mm both regular and deep style, you will most likely find your self purchasing a set that goes from 5-17mm 1/2 inch drive and 18-24mm 3/4 inch drive, that just seems to be how they are sold. The smaller sockets 5-10 may be 1/4 inch drive so you will need adapters or 3 different wrenches.

- A variety of socket wrenches, extenders and adapters. I have like 7 different wrenches, all drive sizes and all kinds of moving and rotating heads and what not. For starters a regular style wrench will do you just fine.

- A Torque wrench. This is very important and often over looked. All serious bolts have a torque spec if you over do it you can damage or completely destroy parts properly torquing a nut can save you a lot of money in damages.

- Spanners (wrenches) again the sets usually come in 5-17mm packs if your local store has an 18-24mm pack that may be useful as well.

- Alan keys, metric of course, I also have the sockets with the alan key bits on the end they are quite useful as well but not necessary.

- Pliers and vise grips in assorted sizes and shapes, a good needle nose, channel lock, and regular pliers will do fine.

- Assorted screwdrivers, Philips and flat head, long and short, all sizes. You may find you have these lying around your house.

- A light hammer or rubber mallet.

- A drop light so you can see what you are doing....

These tools should get you through the basics. The rule I like to keep for tools is buy them when you need them. I can understand why you would buy these tools all at once, but after this you will find that you will buy tools as the projects come up. For example when I had to change my fan belt I went out and got the 24mm socket for the bolt. You will find with the large stuff you will only need it for one or two bolts/projects on the car and there is no reason in my opinion to get them before hand.

Some other tools you may consider near in the future

- A jack and 4 jack stands, a must if you need/plan to do work under the car.

- An air compressor, this will make many things like taking the wheels on and off far far easier

- Depending on the shape of your car taps and dies may be in order for cleaning up the bolts and nuts

- A nice tool chest

- A second and third set of spanners to fill the drawers

- More sockets again to fill the drawers

- A tool that you dont quite know what it is for or how to use it but you own it any way.

A word on brands and quality. I was lucky enough to inherit many of my grandfathers tools, he was an auto mechanic and they are beautiful 50's American made snap-on and other brands. They are rock solid but that being said so is a great deal of my craftsman stuff. For your purposes I would not necessarily jump to super expensive tools unless you have the money and seriously intend on using them very very often. For the weekend oil changer and DIY'er, craftsman or home depot brand or where ever you shop generic brand stuff will most likely do just fine. I have plenty of 20 year old craftsman sockets that work just fine. I will say I do not like the craftsman socket wrenches, I prefer my old snap on ones they are a bit more solid and ratchet much cleaner, I have had lots of success will all of the other products of theirs I have owned.

A good things to look out for when buying tools is estate sales/ebay/craigslist. These can be great sources where people will sell lots of tools for cheap. Estate sales can be great, I have heard of people finding thousands and thousands worth of tools for nothing.

Regards
Dave