- What are water pump pliers? Adjustable pliers with a tongue-and-groove jaw. One handle slides along notches in the other, so the jaws open wide while your hand stays put.
- The store describes both pairs the same way: self-locking on pipes and nuts, no slipping off the work, low hand force needed.
- On a truck they turn hose clamps, drain plugs, battery terminals, seized fittings and bolts whose socket is 30 miles away.
- Rick pulled a driveshaft out of a Jeep with a pair of them because there was no toolbox in the rig. Three bolts out, then a fourth.
- Murphy's stocks two Knipex Cobra sizes, both $39.99. The 5-inch adjusts at the touch of a button, through 13 positions.
- They're a stand-in, not a substitute. When the fastener matters and the socket is in reach, use the socket.
1. Four Bolts and No Toolbox
A woman puts a Jeep off a thousand-foot cliff outside Payson. She lives. Nobody in the area will touch the recovery, so the Murphy's crew drives over and does it for nothing, which is how that episode gets its title.
The dragging out is the easy half. Getting the Jeep ready to tow is where it gets interesting, because the transfer case won't drop into neutral, so the driveshaft has to come out. And Rick, on a job, in a creek bed, opens his hands and says this:
"So, this Bad Larry's an all-wheel drive transfer case can't go in neutral. So, we're going to have to pull the drive shaft. And I don't have any tools. Luckily, I got my pocket pliers."— No One In Arizona Would Rescue This Jeep and Now I Know Why
One pair of pliers, four driveshaft bolts, and a Jeep that isn't going anywhere until they're out. That's the tool this article is about.
2. What They Are, Mechanically
Take an ordinary pair of pliers. Now cut a row of notches into one handle where it crosses the other, and let the pivot slide along those notches. One change, and the tool becomes a different animal.
Two things fall out of it, and both matter more than they sound.
The jaws open much wider than the handles do. Ordinary pliers make you open your hand wider as the job gets bigger, which is exactly when you need grip. These don't. Move the pivot and the jaws move without your hand having to.
Your grip stays in the same place all the way through the range. That's how the product pages describe it, in the same words on both sizes: "fine adjustment for optimum adaptation to different size workpieces and a comfortable gripping position."[1] A comfortable gripping position on a 10 mm nut and on a two-inch pipe.
Both Knipex pairs Murphy's carries are built on a box joint, described on the product pages as giving "high stability because of double guide."[1] That's the difference between a jaw that tracks straight under load and one that twists off the work.
3. How the Adjustment Works
This is where the money goes, and where the two sizes in the store differ.
The 5-inch Cobra adjusts "at the touch of a button directly on the workpiece."[1] Read that last phrase again. You don't take the pliers off the bolt, open them up, guess a new setting and go back in. You leave them where they are, press, and the jaw moves to suit. Thirteen positions on this one.
The 4-inch XS does it differently: "single-handed fine adjustment by sliding," through 11 positions, with "gripping capacity Ø 28 mm, width across flats up to 24 mm – at only 100 mm length."[2] Twenty-eight millimetres of capacity out of a tool the length of your palm is the reason that pair exists.
Then there's the bit you feel rather than read. Both pairs are described as "self-locking on pipes and nuts: no slipping off the workpiece and low hand force required."[1] Low hand force. That's the difference between turning a stuck fitting and being defeated by your own grip after the fourth attempt.
Teeth are hardened to roughly 61 HRC on the 5-inch and 60 HRC on the XS, in chrome vanadium electric steel, forged and multi-stage oil-hardened.[1][2] Both have a pinch guard so the handles can't close on your fingers, which you'll appreciate the first time a fitting lets go suddenly.
4. What They Get Used For on a Truck
Back to the creek bed. The bolts start coming out.
"Well, we got three of them out with the pocket pliers. And we're going to be able to get a fourth out. … Oh, yeah. Not only are they pocket pliers, they're also a pry bar."— No One In Arizona Would Rescue This Jeep and Now I Know Why
That isn't the manufacturer's recommended use and everybody involved knows it. It's also what actually happens at the side of a road.
Across the channel the same pair keeps turning up, doing different jobs:
- A loose fuel shut-off solenoid. In I Gave 7 Blue Collar Families New Cars To Give Back, a truck dies mid-convoy. Rick pops the hood, finds the solenoid loose, and says "it's a good thing I got my pocket pliers." The truck starts.
- Battery terminals. In the Alaska episode, hooking batteries up in the bush before a night in the back of a rig: "Good thing I got my pocket pliers."
- Drain plugs. Same trip, draining floodwater out of a vehicle's belly, with the plugs rusted after sitting underwater.
- A fish hook. Also Alaska. "Look at those teeth. Looks like a job for the pocket pliers."
- Driveshaft bolts. The job above.
Notice what those have in common. Round, rusted, oversized, or simply somewhere the proper tool isn't. That's the honest job description for a pair of water pump pliers.
Push-button adjustment directly on the workpiece, 13 positions, self-locking on pipes and nuts, teeth hardened to approximately 61 HRC, box joint, pinch guard. The store calls it Wrecker Rick's favourite pocket pliers, and adds: yes, they're only 5 inches, so make sure you know what 5 inches looks like.
5. Why the Small Pair Lives in a Pocket
No spec sheet has ever printed the most important number about a tool: how often it's actually with you. A tool in the shop is a tool you don't have.
Rick didn't have a toolbox with him in that creek. He had what was in his pocket. Every one of the jobs in the list above happened somewhere a toolbox wasn't: a convoy stop, a river bank in Alaska, the bottom of a wash outside Payson.
So the size question isn't really about capability. It's about what you'll genuinely carry every day without thinking about it. Five inches goes in a back pocket. Four inches goes in a shirt pocket and gets into places your hand doesn't.
Both are $39.99. A lot of people end up owning both and not regretting it.
| Cobra 5" | Cobra XS 4" | |
|---|---|---|
| Adjustment | Push button, on the workpiece | Single-handed slide |
| Jaw positions | 13 | 11 |
| Gripping capacity | Not published | Ø 28 mm, 24 mm across flats |
| Tooth hardness | approx. 61 HRC | approx. 60 HRC |
| Head | Standard | Very slim, for narrow spaces |
| Price | $39.99 | $39.99 |
6. Where They Stop
A store that only tells you what a tool can do isn't being straight with you.
They mark soft fasteners. Teeth hardened to 61 HRC grip because they bite. On a chromed fitting or a soft brass nut you'll see where they were.
Worn jaws slip, and slipping is how hands get hurt. OSHA's hand tool rule says it about wrenches and it reads across: they "shall not be used when jaws are sprung to the point that slippage occurs."[3] Look at the teeth now and then. Rounded off means retired.
They aren't a breaker bar. A five-inch handle gives you five inches of leverage. On a lug nut that has been on since the last administration, you want a socket, a long handle, and both feet on the ground.
None of that makes them a bad tool. It makes them the tool you reach for first and put down when the right one shows up. Which, in this line of work, is usually about forty minutes later.
Very slim head, 11 positions, Ø 28 mm capacity at 100 mm long. Goes where your hand won't.
Push-button adjustment on the workpiece, 13 positions, approx. 61 HRC teeth, pinch guard.
Every keychain, sticker and coloring page, one tumbler, one flag, and a pair of the pocket pliers.
Three LEDs, lightweight aluminium, laser-engraved logo. Most of this work happens after dark.
Rick stopped the job to say this on camera before he touched a bolt, and it's the most useful thing in the episode.
"Always check your drive shaft to make sure it's not in a bind. If it's in a bind and you take these bolts out, this thing could come flying out of here at a 600 ft per second. I've seen it a thousand times, folks. See, it's got play in it. It won't kill you if I take it out. It's the small things that keep you alive."
- Check for bind before the bolts come out. Move the shaft. Play means the load is off it.
- Chock the wheels and set the brake before anything under the truck comes apart.
- Don't use sprung or rounded jaws. Hand tools "shall not be used when jaws are sprung to the point that slippage occurs."[3]
- Pull, don't push. A slipping jaw sends your knuckles where the tool was going.
- Gloves and eyes. Rust under a vehicle comes down in your face.
Sources
- Knipex Cobra® High-Tech Water Pump Pliers 5" product page — adjustment, positions, self-locking, tooth hardness, box joint, pinch guard, price. Fetched 2026-09-19. murphysdiesel.com/products/knipex-cobra%C2%AE-high-tech-water-pump-pliers-5
- XS Water Pump Pliers 4" product page — slim head, slide adjustment, 11 positions, 28 mm capacity, tooth hardness, price. Fetched 2026-09-19. murphysdiesel.com/products/knipex-cobra%C2%AE-xs-water-pump-pliers-4
- OSHA 29 CFR 1926.301, "Hand tools," paragraph (b). Quote confirmed verbatim, fetched 2026-09-19. osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1926/1926.301
The Tool You Have Beats the Tool You Own
Water pump pliers are an adjustable jaw, a set of hard teeth and a handle small enough that you actually carry it. They won't replace a socket set and nobody is claiming they will. What they will do is get a driveshaft out of a wrecked Jeep in a creek bed when the toolbox is 30 miles away, which is a job no socket set in a garage has ever done.