Quick Torque Wrench Question

[dink]

Not model specific (If you must know I am looking at SK models)

What would actually be more useful to go towards with regards with todays engines and bodies and such

10-100 ft lbs
25-250 ft lbs

Yes yes bigger is generally always better....but I am curious which one would be more logical to go with????

 

[wythors]

10 to 100 foot pounds would be much more useful than 25 to 250. There are very few things on a modern automobile that need a torque of over 100 ft lbs. That said, I have one that is 20 to 150 ft lbs and a 20 to 250 inch lbs. I can't imagine what I'd need anything else for.

 

[bmwpower]

Yea, definitely the 100 ftlb model. There are only a couple of things you'll need 100+ ftlbs for, like a crankshaft pulley bolt or big 4x4 lugs.

 

[kartracer55]

hard to say...

250 is more than you need but 100 might be insufficient( Durango lugs take 110). See if you can get one in the 150 range. Ideally you want 3... but $ rarely allows that. If your not working on big SUVs or doing anyting major than Id say maybe the 100 ft lb model.

Id look beyond SK because SK torque wrenches are apparantly being made by J.S. technologies (Danaher, make craftsman and KD) Ive used craftsman and SK and the SK has some nicer features but Overall its VERY similar. The Proto I bought for my dad is an awesome tool and its damn accurate. Look at MSC for Proto, they have 20% off sales all the time.

JIm

 

[Fast Orange]

Unless you're going to get into something much larger than the car in your avatar,the 100 ft/lb will be all you'll need.Get yourself a nice SK in 3/8 drive and a chart for unit conversions and you should be set.
With so many aluminum components and the smaller size of components on today's vehicles, I'm considering getting a 1/4" Techwrench- 24-240 in/lbs - perfect for a heavy-handed old truck mechanic like me. I'm seeing more stuff that I just know will crack like an egg with a hair too much torque - easy to do, even with a standard ratchet. What used to be 3/8" thick cast iron and assembled with 3/8" hardware is now 1/4" die cast aluminum with 5 or 6 mm bolts. And when you crack it,the new part will cost 10 times what it should and take 6 weeks to get.

George

 

[eschoendorff]

What used to be 3/8" thick cast iron and assembled with 3/8" hardware is now 1/4" die cast aluminum with 5 or 6 mm bolts. And when you crack it,the new part will cost 10 times what it should and take 6 weeks to get.

George

Oh ain't that the truth!

 

[kartracer55]

Unless you're going to get into something much larger than the car in your avatar,the 100 ft/lb will be all you'll need.Get yourself a nice SK in 3/8 drive and a chart for unit conversions and you should be set.
With so many aluminum components and the smaller size of components on today's vehicles, I'm considering getting a 1/4" Techwrench- 24-240 in/lbs - perfect for a heavy-handed old truck mechanic like me. I'm seeing more stuff that I just know will crack like an egg with a hair too much torque - easy to do, even with a standard ratchet. What used to be 3/8" thick cast iron and assembled with 3/8" hardware is now 1/4" die cast aluminum with 5 or 6 mm bolts. And when you crack it,the new part will cost 10 times what it should and take 6 weeks to get.

George

Ya know, you bring up a great point here. How true it is.

On the Techwrench note, I believe its you that has two of them already (could bedwrong) but I was talking to my dads friend about them, who is a mechanic... I asked him "This is one of those new tech wreches right?"

and he replies " yeah, but I have no idea why i bought it, I still use all my old clickers"

Go figure... everybody else loves them

Jim

 

[Fast Orange]

Jim-
Yeah,I'm the guy with3/8 and 1/2 Techwrenches.It took a while to get the "feel" for using them,but they're my weapon of choice now. I've still got my clickers as back-ups/loaners,but they do more dust gathering than work now.
I feel I can be more accurate with the TWs because the torque applied is displayed on the wrench so you can ease up to the desired value,instead of applying force until the wrench clicks and then wondering if you made it click early because you "yanked" on it.
As for the guy who has a TW but prefers his clicker-Old habits die hard-if you've been doing things a certain way for a long time,it's hard to change unless you want to and understand why you need to change. My father,who had his own shop for 40+ years until the 80s,usually used an OLD beam type torque wrench,even though he had a high $ Snap-On dial type.

George

 

[l_bilyk]

you need both, i think. Something that does like 10-80 and something that goes up to 250


there are alot of bolts that only need like 8-20 and then there are things like head bolts, and parts of the drivetrain that need quite a bit more

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Ideally, you probably need a 3/8 drive and a 1/2 drive and it would be best to top out at about 150 ft/lbs on the 1/2 drive.

I work for an airline, we have hundreds of torque wrenches of all sizes, types and brands. on a couple of ocassions I have spent considerable amounts of time with the guy who calibrates all of those tools. I brought mine from home for him to check and we spend alot of time discussing different ones, advantages, best brands, problems, techniques of use, etc.

We have some Snap-On dial type (fairly old), many Proto clickers of mid 1990's vintage, and the newer clickers are Sturtevant-Richmont. The guy doing the calibrating liked the SR tools the most, he said they were consistent in accuracy and even non-linear errors could be corrected. Protos were difficult to adjust if out of range, too far out and you have to change a small rocking block inside the tool, for one of different dimensions, to bring it back in range. Dial types are quite accurate, but if you ever exceed the max torque, just throw them away, there is no calibration adjustment to fix them.

Clickers are generally the LEAST accurate, at 4% to 6% error, while beam type are generally about 2% error (even my cheap Craftsman's are guaranteed to be accurate to 2% out of the box) and the most accurate are electronic one like the SR Exacta Digital series, good to 1% or less.

I got lucky on Ebay and bought some good torque wrenches and acquired others also. I have two Snap-On dial type, one is a 3/4 drive goes 0 to 600 ft lbs, the other is a 1/2 drive and goes 0 to 250 ft/lbs (Ebay, $75 for the pair); a Sturtevant-Richmont clicker made for interchangeable heads, with a 1/2 dr, 150-750 in/lb (Ebay, $26); a Seekonk Mfg clicker, 1/4 drive, 30-150 in/lb and four beam type Craftsmans. Two are about 30+ years old, the other two are about 13 years old. 2ea 3/8 dirve, one is 0-50 ft/lbs and the other is 0-600 in lbs (same difference) and two 1/2 drive, 0-150 ft/lb.

For your reference........

http://www.srtorque.com/

http://www.seekonk.com/

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/cata..._ID=121827&Cat_NAME=Torque&store=snapon-store

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/sear...cat=Torque+Wrenches&displayTarget=Subcategory

Charles

 

[kartracer55]

My proto torque wrench is a clicker and the calibration certificate readings show that it is accurate to 1% (and sometimes less) on all the readings they took... ITs advertised to 3% but in my mind its about as accurate as your going to get, overkill for anything other than high end race cars, airplanes and Nasa hahaha

 

[6PTsocket]

10 to 100 foot pounds would be much more useful than 25 to 250. There are very few things on a modern automobile that need a torque of over 100 ft lbs. That said, I have one that is 20 to 150 ft lbs and a 20 to 250 inch lbs. I can't imagine what I'd need anything else for.

I have the same range wrenches that you have. There is a small gap between them. Click type torque wrenches are generally considered to be accurate from 20 to 100% of full scale. 250 in/lb is 20.83 ft/lb. The big wrench is only rated to be accurate down to 30 ft/lb (20% of 150). The internal spring is very loose at the bottom of the range and cannot produce accurate readings. That leaves nearly a 10/ft/lb gap where a lot of bolts are set. Right now I am doing a brake job . The caliper pins are 24 ft/lb, front and 22 ft/lb, rear. A common range wrench is 5-80 ft/ lbs, sometimes calibrated in inch/lbs. It is annoying to buy a wrench for such a small range but there is no point in using it if the readings are not accurate. On the up side, the 5-80 ft/lb wrenches are 3/8 drive and will be easier to work with than the big 1/2 drive one, in a lot of cases.

 

[PBCampbell]

You drug up a 10 year old thread (lol), this has to be some sort of record.

 

[guy48065]

it's what he does...