Torque Wrench Suggestions
 

Show me some good torque wrenches for home shop use, excluding the $200 a piece ones please cause they ain't gonna happen. I'll probably be lookin for a couple of sizes to cover farm and auto use.

A good 250ft lb one should cover everything your gonna need it for, craftsman got some for under 200 im guessing...

Sorry, also forgot to mention that I'll never buy another Craftsman tool. I had my fight with them last year and found out first hand what they think of their customers. Personally I don't see Sears bein in business for much longer either. Lot a business analyst are startin to say the same thing.

sk makes one for under that

then your next bet is like NAPA line of tools or Duralast from autozone there guaranteed for life and everything

You dont strike me as a torquewrench kinda guy...NAPA has pretty good stuff dont they? Its called UltraPro up here.

You called that one right. I'm thinkin about Christmas early this year instead of at the last minute.

Remember tight is tight and too tight is broke...torquewrenches bssshh :rolleyes2:

My old 30 dollar cheap bin wrench worked great till my dumb azz brother left it at 100 ft lbs. It was only 5 ft lbs off at 100 till he streached the spring. :c:

I have a husky from home dump-o. Does what I need and seems to be well built. Don't use it too much cause I'm the type to torque by feel hahaha.

Good point - for those that dont know - always reset a torque wrench to zero after you use it.

S&K

End of story... :D

SK Hand Tool 74456 1/2" Dr. Micrometer Flexible Head Torque Wrench, 250 ft. lbs (1 ft. lb.)

I know its close to what you call too much but some things you cant skimp on. All teh cheap Harbor Freight, NAPA, Advance, ect ones are junk. they dont stay calibrated and the last thing you want to do is over or under torque something vital.

Or use teh german tq method.... gudentigt.... :D

After teh S&K I would go K-D

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/p-25...ools-3461.aspx

And if your looking for farm use too a 3/4" wrench should be on your list, some times 250 ft/lbs just wont cut it on that big crap. And its a bitch to pull 200+ multiple times on a 1/2" wrench. Kinda short for that much pull.

5 ft/lbs at 100 is not good.. A good quality one is 2%... Which would be 2 ft/lbs at 100... How did you know it was out that much? You have a machine?

I had it tested cuz I thought it seemed way off, and it was old. Its just a ratchet now. :U:

There's always e-bay.

I have one from NAPA that I have been using for years. I would consider the SK one, but I would stay away from the flex head one. I prefer to use the straight ones with a universal instead. My NAPA one came with a calibration sheet to show what the torque was actually compared to it setting.

You can pay $50 or $500. Unless you take care of it, it becomes a paperweight. My oldest brother had one from JC Penny (yeah they sold tools at one time) that was over 20 years old when the internal spring came loose. He actually accused me of breaking it until he took it apart.

I have a mac torque wrench that i have never set back to zero, i just set it where i need it, use it , and put it away. its off about 1lb at most.






























of course , it is digital too :choochoo::choochoo::w2:

Harbor Tool and Freight. Mine was cheap and works good.

Guess JKM brought up another question, digital. Any good and bad points on them.

Ya you guessed it, I don't know nothin about these things. Sent a thousand of em off for calibration through the military years but never used one.

CDI--Consolidated Devices, Inc.......


It's a Snap-on owned company and builds most all of Snappy's torque wrenches as well as their own CDI label.

If you watch the pawn shops you can sometimes find a CDI torque wrench for pennies.

Most tool trucks can get them calibrated, too. Our local Matco guy has a calibration checker on his truck. He'll charge $5 to test one and if it needs calibration, he'll send it in and have it calibrated for $45 included shipping and doesn't charge the $5 test fee.

Might find something like that locally to you, too.

Or, there are other calibration and testing people you can use as well....

Sorry....I can't recommend a cheap torque wrench, but you can find good ones for low prices if ya wanna shop a bit.

Yeah, and what did that cost?

I never worked with cheap torque wrenches. Missile wings and parts have to be torqued to specs. We also check the applied torque before we use it.
Maybe a "little" overkill to the normal use- but talking with the biggest head gasket producers in Germany( Reinz and Elring) they went on pointing out the importance need of an accurate torque wrench. Most of the head related failures depend on wrong applied torque.

I have two torque wrenches(2% tolerance)and I keep an eye on them because they were pretty expensive.(of course I set them back to the lowest setting after each use)
Knowing the fact of having "no feel" for torque I have to use them.

Maybe you can get away with a cheap one, as long as all bolts have the same torque applied. I wouldn't take the risk of wrong torque at headbolts and differential carrier bolts.

They sell those cheap 15$ torque wrenches everywhere. They will be good enough for main use like tires nuts.
But for special use like I mentioned above I would avoid them like the devil the church. Gaskets and bolts and "leisure time" are too expensive to do it twice.

Right now the best quality TWs for your money are these. Great deal on Precision Instruments C3FR250F at ToolTopia.com and
Bottom-line pricing on Precision Instruments C2FR100F at ToolTopia.com
But if you want Digital I would'nt get anything other than a Snap-On or Matco :ok1:

Precision Instruments also builds Snap-on torque wrenches.

I don't like the digital and alot of my customers didn't like them just because there was no click.... I know it sounds odd but I like the re assurance of the click-Click. Thats just personal preference though.

Has anyone used the Lowes brand Kobalt? A 1/2" 250 ftlb is $95 with a life-time "hassle-free" warranty.

Any more good words on these or suggestions on where to buy from, I gotta get these bought here in the next few days.

I think Mr. Myagi has answered your question here.

I bit the bullet and dropped $450 on a digital Snap-On. It beeps and vibrates when you're on the money. It makes julian fries. It keeps track of where you are when you're indexing. I'll never go back.

So these are the two I'm lookin at here, tell me if I'm on the right track. I don't know nothin about these things and in my world this is butt load a money right now so it's a one time shot.

Bottom-line pricing on Precision Instruments C2FR100F at ToolTopia.com

and

Great deal on Precision Instruments C3FR250F at ToolTopia.com

Not bad prices for two very high quality torque wrenches. Never dealt with that vendor before, though....


Not sure if this would work for you or not, but I just got the latest Craftsman Club flyer in the mail...the Christmas one.

Anyhow, it has a 3 piece set of Craftsman click-type torque wrenches for $79.99 with the club card...which is free to enroll to get one.

Granted, they aren't the super top quality and probably have about a 7% variance but if a guy would remember to turn them down to the lowest setting after every use they will probably last the average home user quite a long time.

Then, when things work out for you later and you have the extra paper available you can get the nicer ones.

Just a thought.......Dan-

Thanks to all here. If these are the nicer ones I'll just go with them. The kid makes pretty good money workin on cars and motors in his free time, not to mention my projects so i wanna get him some good ones.

If all goes well for our winter projects were gonna rebuild my old Massey Ferguson Diesel tractor :jump: and he's gettin ready to drop an LS6 Motor in his little Miata :ouch: so it's time for some a these.

The ones you are looking at are identical to the Snap-on wrenches that cost around $300, because Precision makes them for Snap-on.

You can't get much higher quality than a Precision or CDI torque wrench without spending into the thousands. :tu:

I'd go with the second one because it's 1/2 in. drive. You can get more versatilty out of it. That's just my two cents.:tu:

Torque wrenches work best in a particular range....having both is a better way to go.

I would also go with the 1/2 ich drive, first. And as far as ordering, I haven't ordered anything from tooltopia yet, but I have heard very good things about them. Free shipping too. :tu:

I should know shortly about Tooltopia, ordered them today. I guess the big boy wrench for 200 plus pounds will have to come used, I can't drop $300 plus on a single wrench but I'm sure used ones aren't hard to come by.

Did you order both the ones you linked to earlier?

I ordered both of em.

One of those is a 40-250ft/lb wrench.....what was you talkin' about before?

I'm lost........