When I had my shop, we had a Black & Decker seat grinder. I can't remember which valve grinder we had, it might have been a Sioux, but I bought it used from our local NAPA parts store machine shop. It was said to be worn out but once I cleaned it up the only thing I could find wrong was excessive play in the guides that were used in the mechanism to slide the valve back and forth across the grinding stone. My father-in-law was a tool and die maker so I asked him to take the guides to work and remove the clearance plus a little more. When I got them back, I installed with some shim stock to get the clearance just right so the table slid smoothly without any chatter when cutting the valve. That grinder served me well up until I sold the place. I wish I had a setup now as this sort of work is getting hard to get done as the automotive machine shops close up one at a time.

Lou Manglass

My Sioux Valve Grinder # 645L and Portable Seat Grinder 1710S
Sioux made valve grinders since the early 1920's. A must have single use machine for any antique car enthusiast such as myself. In the early days, up until the 1970's and introduction of unleaded gasoline, the valves on cars needed resurfacing between 50,000 to 70,000 miles. And it was cheaper to grind the old valves rather than purchasing new.









After cleaning up the valves. The flat end is ground square to the stem. Then a small 45 degree chamfer is added flat end. Making for easier insertion in the head of block. But most important for truing the valve in the Sioux grinder head. Along with setting a stop making all valves the same length. Only old timer's know and understand this. I have read several poster's saying that they cannot get the valve to run truer than .005”. Saying that the three jaws in the work-head is not enough to hold the valve stem true. When in practice The back end of the work-head has a stop with a reverse taper. That center's the valve stem. And the three small jaws grabs 4” of 5” toward the valve head.  And indeed makes for quick and accurate setup. Putting a test indicator the revolving valve reveals the TIR (Total Indicator Reading) of less than .001”.

This is a Sioux Portable Valve Seat Grinder. The kit contains the power unit, numerous grinding wheels, positioning shafts, and diamond wheel dresser. This tool in a must have for quick and accurate valve seat grinding of flat head engines. The seat can be resurfaced without removing the engine from the car. Being that most early cars were valve in block design this was a very popular tool to own. However it's still can be used in valve in head engines. But many home mechanics just drop the heads off at a machine shop for someone else to do all the valve work...   

Very cloudy here in Pa. The few chances i got out at work, i could only see it for a few seconds before clouds covered it again. Would be interesting to see it through a telescope.

I got rid of my Snap-On 3/8 drive impact because of battery issues so I can easily understand why you would part with those ratchets. In my case the deadly trio was short life, difficulty in obtaining replacements, and high cost. I think Snap-On "shot themselves in the foot" with their battery powered tools. I'll never know if they recovered as I can no longer justify Snap-On prices when there are other alternatives that seem to do the job and might actually be equal or better. Good to see that someone found a way to rebuild them better than new.

Lou Manglass

These were the standard B&D and not the Snapon rebrands.
When I came across them in a box of junk in the garage my 1st thought was who needs a battery powered ratchet, then I started thinking it could be handy until I saw the B&D logo and had flashbacks to all the trouble my dad had with his Black & Decker stick battery drill so I just tossed them ASAP.

Yesterday the 2024 total Solar Eclipse passed over Texas toward Ohio and onto Maine. If you missed the Eclipse this year, don't worry. They'll be another on Saturday August 23, 2044. We had the longest duration of nearly four minutes. And was everything that was predicted. Near total darkness, temperature dropped, birds stopped tweeting, certain colors were more brilliant while other's darkened and the shadows were neat. For the four minutes, you could see solar flares extending the moon's surface..  Sadly my camera couldn't capture the magic of the moment..  However I'm sure there's an abundance everywhere on the internet.