Which torque wrench?

[kmacht]

It depends on what you are torquing and how accurate it needs to be. Torquing the lug nuts on your car and any 1/2” clicker style will work. Torquing the rocker arm bolts on your engine and you will want a smaller 3/8 wrench and not a clicker. I did a pretty extensive study of torque wrenches when I worked as an engineer on the assembly line of a major jet engine manufacturer. Clicker wrenches were some of the worst for repeatability and reproducibility. They almost always ended up overtorquing. For small bolts and nuts the old style beam wrenches were some of the best and are still in use many places in the company today. Second best was the snap on digital torque wrenches. The color changing lights as you got close to torque and the audible beep made the wrench very repeatable and as easy to use as a clicker.

 

[Half Fast]

Clicker wrenches were some of the worst for repeatability and reproducibility.

Interesting. See the email I posted above about the HF torque wrenches. They seemed to repeat pretty well.

For small bolts and nuts the old style beam wrenches were some of the best and are still in use many places in the company today.

The trouble with the beam wrenches is getting into the right position to read the pointer accurately and without parallax. In an awkward position and with dim light, like while lying under a vehicle, they're pretty difficult to use.

 

[asicer]

I bought that because I came across a torque that involved a torque spec followed by a rotation spec, and this one did the rotation measurement as well.

My rear brakes wanted a torque value plus 90 degrees. I used my bendy-beam torque wrench, marked the bolt with a Sharpie and then finished by lining up the marks with my ratchet. I wonder if this car is going to kill me now.

 

[Ted]

My rear brakes wanted a torque value plus 90 degrees. I used my bendy-beam torque wrench, marked the bolt with a Sharpie and then finished by lining up the marks with my ratchet. I wonder if this car is going to kill me now.

Curious, what car was that on?

The torque + rotation does tend to be better at providing a more consistent torque, hence why you see it becoming a spec. On my first RV's Caterpillar engine, the main and rod caps were that way. I forget what angles were required, but it was enough that it was pretty easy to get close enough with the flats.

 

[asicer]

Curious, what car was that on?

Mk7 GTI

 

[flyingron]

The prop on my plane wanted to have the retainer nut torqued to 400 ft-lbs. The tightening device is a 1" square steel bar that fits through the slots in the nut. I hung Margy at 3' out on the bar to provide the right amount of torque.

 

[Half Fast]

The prop on my plane wanted to have the retainer nut torqued to 400 ft-lbs. The tightening device is a 1" square steel bar that fits through the slots in the nut. I hung Margy at 3' out on the bar to provide the right amount of torque.

And how does she feel about you discussing her weight on POA?

 

[Ted]

Mk7 GTI

Oh, an VW. That explains it.

 

[SoonerAviator]

Interesting. See the email I posted above about the HF torque wrenches. They seemed to repeat pretty well.



The trouble with the beam wrenches is getting into the right position to read the pointer accurately and without parallax. In an awkward position and with dim light, like while lying under a vehicle, they're pretty difficult to use.

Also kind of depends on how accurate you really need to be. If I'm torqueing lug nuts to 150ft lb, I don't much care if it's at 147ft-lb or 153ft lb. If you're tightening a small bolt (transmission pan bolts), going from 10ft-lb to 13-ft lbs may be the difference from righty-tighty, to righty-loosey, lol.