I hate it when I’m at a friend’s shop and see some cool tool and think “Man I need one of those!”, especially when it’s something that isn’t expensive, and then I go back home and forget about it. Invariably you’ll remember you need it again either when you are in the middle of a project that needs it or you are back at the same shop. Well today I’m going to remind you of a tool you need and give you a link to buy it right this second. Clecos. We all need them. And with pliers you can get kits for as little as $20. And if you shop around you can find kits of all kinds, with a different variety of sizes and types of Cleco clamps that all help you work smarter in the shop.
We’re highlighting this kit from Summit Racing Equipment today, but know that you can find all kinds of them in all sizes at all budgets online as well. Need something bigger? Summit has you handled, as well as Amazon, etc.
Using Clecos is easy. Can you squeeze a pair of pliers? And drill a hole? Then you are all set.
The most common size for the average shop and car guys is going to be the 1/8 inch variety of Cleco, for holding sheet metal together while building your projects. With that said, there are a bunch of other sizes that will help hold heavier items, items you can’t drill holes in, etc. If you have the need to do a lot of sheetmetal work on your ride, and you don’t have Clecos yet, then get them right now. They will help you tremendously. And, you should also think about getting a sheetmetal hole punch to do your Cleco holes and to punch holes for Rosette/Spot welds. It will save you a ton of time and aggravation.
Here is the basic kit from Summit. Everyone needs one.
In fact, here is a real review from someone who bought this kit.
Life before Cleco…
Summit Racing Verified Purchase
I found you can even buy used Clecos. I bought a few that are clamps, not pins, but they won’t hold so if you’re thinking of those, don’t waste your time.
these things are awesome. the NASCAR guys have been using them for decades. when we built our car we used a lot of them. it is so easy to use to take stuff on & off, especially if your doing sheet metal work.
You can’t do proper sheet metal work without them. IDK the quality of the Summit ones, but try Aircraft Tool Supply if you want really good ones. They also have other tools that can be helpful when building a car.
Also the yard store, great selection of aircraft tools, and they have both pin an ddraw clecos, as well as shorties, and the long stemmed ones for grabbing thicker parts. They also sell an air cleco squeeze, pluse the air powered draw clecoo guns, of course.
X2 on The Yard Store. They even have trucks that go around to different airports selling tools out of an enclosed trailer. They’ll park it at a spot for a few days and move on to the next airport. Atleast they do this in the northeast.
First I’ve ever heard of the Yard Store. Looks like they’re running a special on Clecos right now.
I have lots of the left over from my Aircraft days. Spring clecos from 40 to 10, draw (wing nut) clecos, cleco clamps and a few cleco pliers. Always fun to watch someone that never saw them used and find out how cool and important they are for sheet-metal development. I can tell you how strong they are, when I was in the Air Force, I was marshaling a B-52 coming home from Guam to march AFB, in Riverside. I noticed that the leading edge of the right wing had a shiny patch on it and porcupine looking things around the edge. After we got the airplane parked I walked over to see clecos holding the panel in place and not one rivet to be had. I asked one of the air crew and he said they were too much in a hurry to wait to the sheet metal guys to get done and took responsibility for the airplane so that they could get home after 6 months on the rock! If they will hold a panel in place on a floppy winged B-52 for 8000 flying miles, you better believe they are good stuff.
Boeing used to have a surplus store in seattle closed now but they still sell pallets of stuff off their investment recovery website .