I thought I'd start a new thread titled tools because there are a lot of tools, both special and routine, and it makes sense to have a place where people can find details of tools in one location.
I'm going to start with pipe spanners. US folk call them flare nut wrenches. They are a general tool and very important in these cars as already pointed out in my threads on the air suspension and elsewhere. Ron Bunting posted a picture of a set of SnapOn spanners that he liked. I've posted a couple of pictures as well. Justin explained something to me this afternoon that I was not aware of. Snap on pipe wrenches were initially designed for NASA to allow them to tighten small size nuts to high torques. There is a detail in the design which they hold the patent for. You can see it in the following picture. It is the concavity at the points in the spanner where the corners of the nuts lie. This concavity prevents the corners of the nuts from being rounded off as much as possible. It is present in all their pipe spanners to scale. It is easiest seen in the large socket on the left, but equally present in the small pipe spanner on the right.
Ron didn't really show how his set of spanners work, so I have a series of pictures to show how they open up and that they spring tighter the harder you pull on them. The square hole in the middle of the handle is for a bar if you need it.
Here a re a couple of other special tools that I have posted recently on other threads that I am adding here.
This is an oil seal punch for rear axles and similar applications.
Here is a bearing fitting and removing tool.
Tool for undoing and doing up grooved nuts on rear axles.
That will do for starters.
Art