09-05-2012, 07:50 AM
I finally got around to fixing my "shin-buster" last night. It was like a house cat that hides behind the corner of a piece of furniture, and leaps out at you - clawing your legs as you walk by. 
My shin-buster (AKA: Snap-On tool cabinet) has one of those double deep lower drawers attached with a pair of ball bearing roller slides. That particular drawer holds a lot of heavy/bulky tools. (3/4", 1/2", 3/8" impact guns, slide hammers, gear puller sets, etc. If you accidentally bump into or brush the box walking past it, the drawer comes sliding out under its own power, and WHAM! There goes my shins. Sometimes a passing truck on the street would set it in motion!
After many years of use the "check stops" on the drawer slides just gave up trying to hold back the load. Snap-On wants $115 for a new pair of slides.
So I pulled out the drawer and removed the slides to take a look. The check stops are nothing more than a couple of lumps that are punched into the rear edges of the main rail. A small plastic bar attached to the slider rail is supposed to ride over the top of these lumps and then hold the drawer closed. Between the wear on the lumps, and the grooves in the plastic bar there was no "catch" to it at all any more.
I built up the lumps to twice there normal height with the TIG welder and then shaped them on the belt sander so the plastic bar would get caught again when the drawer is closed. Hopefully now my shins will get a chance to heal up.
Hey, Snap-On!
My shin-buster (AKA: Snap-On tool cabinet) has one of those double deep lower drawers attached with a pair of ball bearing roller slides. That particular drawer holds a lot of heavy/bulky tools. (3/4", 1/2", 3/8" impact guns, slide hammers, gear puller sets, etc. If you accidentally bump into or brush the box walking past it, the drawer comes sliding out under its own power, and WHAM! There goes my shins. Sometimes a passing truck on the street would set it in motion!
After many years of use the "check stops" on the drawer slides just gave up trying to hold back the load. Snap-On wants $115 for a new pair of slides.
So I pulled out the drawer and removed the slides to take a look. The check stops are nothing more than a couple of lumps that are punched into the rear edges of the main rail. A small plastic bar attached to the slider rail is supposed to ride over the top of these lumps and then hold the drawer closed. Between the wear on the lumps, and the grooves in the plastic bar there was no "catch" to it at all any more.
I built up the lumps to twice there normal height with the TIG welder and then shaped them on the belt sander so the plastic bar would get caught again when the drawer is closed. Hopefully now my shins will get a chance to heal up.
Hey, Snap-On!
Willie