Technical Torque wrench

Any of you guys have one of these chinese specials. Changed batteries, its dead.

 

No but I have a few vevor products and they seem decent . Are your battery connections clean and is there a reset button ? Good luck

 

I used this one today, same batteries it had when it was new in 1977, still works....

 

Not a fan of the digital ones personally or professionally. Look on amazon for CDI torque wrenches. They are the same company who makes the snapon ones.
I have had nothing but issues with the digital ones.

 

I don’t trust anything digital, and half the time I have my doubts about the click type of torque wrenches. I have several of Snap on click types that I have had calibrated recently and I trust those just as long as you store them without being set on anything. Just back them down to nothing and store them like that. I do have a couple of the bar type and I know one of them has to be older than me (1966 model) and they are accurate. ​

 

Damn, how many torque wrenches does a guy need? My Monkey Wards Powr Kraft beam wrench bought new in 1977 is still the only one I ever need.

Edit: Maybe I'm wrong! It's scale only goes to 150......and a couple days ago I needed 207.

 

3 snap on's for me....

 

I think I have 9 all are non digitals.
4 different 1/4s
2- 3/8'
2 - 1/2
1 - 3/4

 

Cheap harbor freight clickers have been proven to be +~2% accurate out of the box. If you spend a little more on the Quinn it’ll come with a certificate of calibration.

the digital wrenches are good when you need torque angle because they usually have that setting. Never need that on an old car

 

I remember when those digital jobs came out. The Toolmen were pushing them hard. I just can’t justify them. One more damn thing to maintain batteries in. At work I have 2 SnapOn, 1 Mac, and 1 Craftsman. The Craftsman is strictly for torquing lug nuts. At home, I have 6 Craftsman, and 1 Mac. Of the 6 Craftsmen at home are 3 beam type that I started with when I was 13. Like most things tool related, I have a problem.

 

I have had a BEAM type torque wrench since 1965/recenrly bought from Summitt an adjustable torque wrench and compared the beam torque style to the adjustable one and found the beam to be “spot on”

 

I would look at it as, you found the adjustable one to be spot on....for now....

 

Still have the same snap on click type I bought in the early 70's in the same molded red plastic case , still works great .

 

I got a craftsman beam from the 60s and a harbor fright ft lb click and a inch lb click

 

I still have and use a P A Sturtevant that I have had since the 60's. I have double-checked it a couple of times against different click-types and it seems to still be pretty accurate. Within a pound or two.

 

LOL. Looks like

YEP!

Ben

 

Craftsman click gets used most
Thorson beam for low torque numbers
just recently inherited the Snap On, haven't used it yet but when held in a vise the needle moves smoothly both directions and returns to zero..

 

I have a Craftsman "Clicker". The plastic parts broke early on. It's now held together with electrical tape and used only to tighten lug nuts.

I use an earlier Craftsman beam wrench for other stuff.

 

I love mine. You can "feel" the torque. Helps diagnose when something is not going together right (binding threads etc)

 

I remember when "digital" ( dial ) calipers became available. The govt shop I worked in bought some. Subconsciously I think people thought they would be more precise than mechanical and it would prevent the occasional mis-reading of a dial caliper. If you read a dial caliper a lot, you will eventually have a brain fart and get a reading wrong. With the digital caliper, its really difficult to read it incorrectly, so I think it was subconscious.

Then the digitals began to fail and most of the time you had to throw them away and buy another one. The mechanical (with a dial) can be re-zeroed if they get out of sync with the dial. There are many of them available cheaply today and they work well. If buying a used one off Facebook, look for the liquid filled ones, as they have a smoother action. Yes they are more expensive, but if you watch, you can fins the Mititoyo, Brown & Sharpe, Starett brands for reasonable prices. The cheaper ones tend to get grit in them more easily, but if you keep them in a clean area they work pretty well.

So back to the "torque wrench" question. I mentioned the dial calipers because they sell a lot more of them than torque wrenches and people just need to realize that the mechanical torque wrenches work just fine for our purposes and seldom ever fail or even need calibration. How many of us will ever actually get one calibrated..........

Here is a picture of a torque hammer for installing the nut on knock off wheels......





Just adjust the hammer to the correct torque and it will automagically limit the amount of force the wheel retainer is hit with.................

 

Just Kidding ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Too funny!!!

 

I’ve a few as well, small in/lb with 1/2 drive Mac(maybe 3/8ths) beam I use it for rear ends. A few 1/4 inch clickers, quality Japanese tools.
A beam Proto and when I needed a good TW to bolt a head on my DD in the ‘80’s, off to NAPA.
Quality, right?

Several years later I noticed the “made in China”
sticker on it !!!!
But it is accurate still, so I’ve no complaints.
To be honest, they don’t get a lot of use, but are nice to have around when needed.

 

CDI 1/2" drive, Craftsman 3/8" drive, and Snap-on 1/4" drive. All clicker type. Old Mac beam type is the primary go-to.

 

My clicker Craftsman wrench died after about 40 years, so I recently switched to a Napa clicker torque wrench. It seems pretty decent. Batteries in a torque wrench are not traditional.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^

How to tell if your digital torque wrench is not accurate.

 

Before I retired, calibrating the torque wrenches was part of my job. Assembly, Engineering and Test Lab had them. Assembly was mostly air tools, Atlas Copco nut runners, etc., which were accurate and repeatable, but they toward the end, they were cheaping out with clickers.
Test lab had some CDI digital electronics, they were always spot on.
Beam type were always good if the pointer was at zero at rest. Of course the markings rely on eyeballs lining up.
Dial type are just a beam with a dial indicator on it, inside a box to keep dirt out of the gears.
Clickers were all over the place. They are factory calibrated to the max reading, so that was usually good, but the low end could be way off on the cheap ones. Not horrible on the expensive ones. I suggest getting multiple sizes so you are using a wrench near max for the task. Pulling technique plays a big factor as well. Too easy to pull fast through the click and over-torque. For an accurate click, you need to sneak up on it slowly. Cheap or worn out wrenches have a mushy click when going slow, sometimes hard to tell if it actually clicked. Higher quality wrenches are snappy even when moving slow.

 

I can torque almost anything ... In order, little to big... All are Proto except as noted.

2-100 inch ounces.
2-36 inch lbs.
Both are 1/4" drive screwdriver types that release when the setting is reached.
6-36 inch lbs. 1/4" drive dial type.
0-75 inch lbs. 3/8" drive dial type. CDC brand, identical to Proto except for color.
0-200 inch lbs. 3/8" drive click type.
0-200 inch lbs. 3/8" beam type. My oldest, a S-K bought in the early '70s.
0-80 ft lbs. 3/8" drive click type.
0-80 ft lbs. 1/2" drive click type.
0-150 ft lbs. 1/2" drive click type.
0-250 ft lbs. 1/2" drive click type.
0-600 ft lbs. 3/4" drive dial type. This one is a monster!

I bought all of these about 20 years ago off ebay (except for the SK). At the time most of these were being sold as government/industrial surplus, some were overstock. I paid between .05 and .20 cents on the new retail dollar for them. Many were new unused, some were used (but looked new) but had just been recalibrated. All but five of them have plastic storage boxes. I contacted one of the sellers doing the recalibration, he told me as long as they were stored properly (click types turned to zero when not in use) and not dropped or beat up, they would retain calibration through many uses. He also told me that for the best accuracy with the click type, operate them between 40 to 85% of their maximum range, give or take a bit.

Some I've never used, but at the prices I paid I couldn't resist...

 

Probably common knowledge here but I've seen a lot of people over the years use them as a breaker bar, don't.

 

I have a few. I bought this on sale
https://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-drive-25-250-ft-lb-digital-torque-adapter-58706.html

I find that I use it often. Mike