If you read Shop Press regularly, you may be thinking, man, those guys really love punches. You wouldn’t be wrong. We’ve written about big huge punches and about maintaining punches. We felt strongly enough about that one we made a video reminding you to keep punches in good shape, and even filmed bits on esoteric punches. But we ain’t done.
If you work on cars, you’ve no doubt seen a roll pin before. Given their generally basic function of locating and retaining items, they’re used in many industries and the automotive one is no exception. As a young mechanic, I happily smashed them in and out of place with my pin punches. That must be right, right? “Pin” is right in the name.
And that sort of worked, I guess … if you consider roll pins a consumable item and boogered-up pin ends don’t bother you. I’m not totally ancient, but I did at one time work on vehicles with distributors and this is where I’d encounter roll pins most often: replacing worn dizzy gears at the end of the shaft. But as I became a better mechanic, I started seeing them in other places.