GEARWRENCH 89710 Convertible Snap Ring Pliers Set 12-Pc

A convertible snap ring plier switches between internal and external rings without you swapping tools or flipping a lever with a screwdriver. On the 89710 that switch is a push button in the head: press it, the linkage reverses, and the same plier that just spread a drum retainer will now squeeze an external ring on an output shaft. On a transmission bench that matters, because a single unit run - say a GM 4L60E or a Ford 6R80 - has both kinds of ring in it, and the tool you are holding is almost never the one the next ring wants.

The set is twelve pliers: four straight, four 45 degree and four 90 degree, so the tip angle is covered for rings you can see straight down onto and for rings buried in a bore where the plier body has to clear a case wall. Tips are machined to a conical profile rather than a plain cylindrical post. That cone wedges into the ring eye and stays seated as the ring loads up, which is the difference between removing a clutch pack retainer and hunting for it under the bench after it lets go. Each plier is laser marked on the back with the mode it is currently in, so you are not guessing at jaw direction with the drum already compressed.

Bodies are chromium-vanadium steel with a black oxide finish, which is the right call for a tool that lives in ATF and brake clean. Handles are double dip cushioned and oil and solvent resistant - relevant when you are working a stiff 9 inch pump body ring and the plier is the only thing between your hand and a compressed spring. The twelve pliers store in a blow molded case, so the set stays a set instead of scattering into a drawer one plier at a time.

Typical jobs this covers: clutch pack and drum retaining rings, pump body rings, output and input shaft retainers, accumulator and servo cover rings, valve body and solenoid retainers, plus the circlips and retaining rings on axle, driveshaft and hub work. If you already run the fixed-joint GEARWRENCH 89701 set, the 89710 is the angled, convertible complement to it rather than a replacement - the 45 and 90 degree tips reach rings the straight pliers cannot get square on.