Its getting to be that time of year and I was thinking that I need a torque wrench and should ask for one for christmas. Does anyone have any suggestions about a good torque wrench? 3/8 would probably be the most handy size, but there is a lot of variation in styles and torque limits. What is pretty typical? I'm thinking of a relatively in-expensive wrench for around $30 on Amazon. What's the higher end of normal on torque values? 80 ft/lbs enough on the high end? Is it usual to have to go lower than 10 ft/lbs?

 

You'll probably get a few opinions on this.

About the only thing I use a torque wrench on is head bolts, crank and rod bearing caps, lug nuts, and certain axle/suspension parts. So, for *my* purposes, a 1/2" drive with a range up to 120 pounds or so fills the bill. I Have a Craftsman click-type...about $60 as I recall.

Others will chime in.

Cheers
DD

 

Same one I have. I use it a lot as I rotate my own tires and just about any other service I need to do. I've had the same one for a few years now and not had it recalibrated. I haven't had any issues with it at all.

 

Yep, opinions you'll get. I'm the opposite. With the advent of lots of aliminum and plastic components, I torque a lot more steel bolts now than I used to because I've seen the most mistakes made by guessing on tightness with these materials.

A common mistake, for example, is overtightening the cam cover bolts on the AJV8 which causes oil leaks. It is counterintuitive to the DIYer, but overtightening these flattens the seal, distorts and even cracks the plastic cam covers, but when tightened correctly they seal every time...and dry too. The torque on these is 9 nm. The next one is the thermostat tower bolts on the same engine. Another is the plastic pan on the ZF 6HP26 - big mistake overtightening these.

In the day (long ago) as a Chevy tech, when everything was steel and cast iron, I too would only use a torque wrench for lower end and head work tightening everything else pretty much a tight as I could get it....but not now.

To cover the range of what I find on a daily basis I have three torque wrenches - a 1/4" drive with a very low range nm; a 3/8' drive with a medium range and a honker 1/2" drive for the big stuff. I've probably used the 1/4" drive the most in the last several years, excluding the honker for wheel nuts bcause I ALWAYS torque them on alloys.

 

I'm a bit nuts over wheel lugs as I have a GTO and anyone who is familiar with them will know the Holden hubs are very sensitive to proper torque. They are very susceptable to vibrations in the wheel with even slightly too high wheel torque. This one issue is why I always make sure no matter what the bolt is I use the factory torque specification.

 

Yes, many wheels are. On some older M BMWs which I do some work on in my business, the brake disc hats would actually distort if the wheels were overtightened. It drives me nuts when I come across an aluminum wheel that I need a breaker bar to loosen. On Jags, wheel concentricity is achieved through the straight shaft lug nuts. I've had occasions where the lug nuts were so tight, they distorted the wheel clearance holes and fused the lug nuts to the alloy. They could only be removed by galling the wheel holes. or the lug nuts stayed stuck in the wheel and had to be driven out. That's enough to give a tech heartburn.

 

I know some of the highbrow bunch will pan me but I've actually have found the Harbor Freight torque wrenches to be as good or better than my old craftsman (which was stolen at an autox a couple years back). The price is amazing. Only negative is they really don't click like some of the good snap on and the like set ups. When you reach the proper torque it simply makes a quite change in resistance. A small price to pay considering you can get the 1/2" wrench for $10 of sale. I would recommend a 1/2" with a range of 20-150 and a 3/8" with a good low end range up to around 80. If you have a store near you get on their mailer and wait for the 1/2" to go on sale, you can go home with both for $30. As for accuracy, I've calibrated mine against Snap Ons at work and they are just as close. Great purchase for a backyard mechanic IMO.

 

For the hobby mechanic: DITTO

 

Yep, can't disagree with you guys - anything is better than guessing...especially if you're not tightening the same bolts 8 times every day.

 

I bought a Harbor Freight 1/2" drive torque wrench back in the late 1980s and took it with me to A&P school (aviation training classes) and checked it on the calibration board in the shop. That torque wrench was closer to perfect than the OLD Snap-On unit used by the students in the class (students never abuse tools!!!!). Having several wrenches to compare is a good idea. A BEAM-TYPE might be good to have for some applications and the CLICK-TYPE is better for others. You might occasionally check them against each other!!!

bob gauff

 

Count me among the 1/4", 3/8" & 1/2" drive group! Cover the range from in/lbs to ft/pounds.

 

1/2" up to 120 pounds is the norm for cars in the UK. I use a Britool one,
Oh, and don't forget to get it calibrated annually.

 

I have 2 Craftsman torque wrenches, a 1/2" drive and 3/8", they are the click type. have had them for many years and have no complaints. Just beaware that Craftsmans "you break it they replace it" policy DOES NOT COVER their torque wrenches.

I agree with steve11, that with the modern day alloys being bolted together, YOU definetly have to follow the torque recomendations.


BTW I usually will allow my friends to borrow my tools, but in the case of my torque wrenches NO FRICKIN' WAY!

 

Ha, ha...Yeah, me too on borrowing torque wrenches...no friggin' way! My torque wrenches are the most well kept equipment in my shop.

My 1/2" digital read click type with a 250lb range is a Craftsman. Interesting story, the first one did fail and I went down to a Sears store for replacement and got the "not with torque wrenches" story. After lots of "discussions", LOL, and every manager up to the store manager involved, they finally made an exception and replaced it, but I wouldn't expect to be able to pull that one off again.

 

I will toss in a bit of a counter to the above wrench recommendations. I recommend going with a dial style torque wrench, then a beam style, finally a click type torque wrench. I say this only because with a click type torque wrench, if you miss the click, how tight did you go? You don't know. Atleast with a beam or dial type, you know how far you went. Sure, the dials are a bit more expensive, but they also seem to hold their calibration longer too.

As for what to torque, doing different materials together is always advisable, I am also very **** about torquing the wheel studs. You don't get an even torque on the wheels and you can warp the rotors easily. So, after a pair of rotor replacements, you could have bought yourself a high quality torque wrench.

As for range, I would recommend getting something along the lines of a 0-250 ft-lbs torque wrench. This is more than enough for the backyard mechanic for 99.9% of what he may do. I know a thing or two about torquing components and whatnot. Having been certified to do numerous styles of torquing over a very large range (from in-ounces up to millions of ft-lbs), I have a little bit of experience with this. My favorite style was the "torque by feel", but that takes a lot of experience to do that correctly.