12 replies to this topic

[leroy26]

tightened my cyl bolts yesterday and the bolts felt very tight to me but the wrench didnt click!
tested it on a random bolt at 28 nm and it clicked but im still unsure!

[daddy2coull]

is it a good quality torque wrench or an ebay cheapy?

[Jordie]

whether it clicks is irrelevant until its calibrated.

no good it clicking at 50nm indicated by torque wrench but the actual torque been higher or lower.

when you get upto 650nm wheel nuts etc you need to make sure the torque wrench is correct. calibrate ours every 6 months.

[leroy26]

£20 screwfix one used twice!
how do i calibrate

[daddy2coull]

we have truck size wheel nuts and we too get our torque wrenches calibrated every six months, we\re also able to get all our personal ones calibrated at the same time. i've been in the trade about 20 years now, i dont think i'd trust a cheap wrench anymore

[Jordie]

its a specialist job i think. company we use have a computer and work the wrenches on a device. it produces a graph ans highlights issues and then they fix em.

[leroy26]

anyone got a good torque wrench for under £35?
who sells a decent one?

[mike.]

I have a teng tools torque wrench that cost me around £55. Its been great up until I took it up to 195nm (its rated up to 210nm) on my driveshaft nuts, and then after that its been put out of calibration. I used it after the driveshaft nuts on my wheel nuts and it sheered a wheel stud off.

So need to enquire with teng tools about getting it recalibrated...

The halfords ones are good too, lifetime warranty on them, but don't think that'll cover future recalibration.

[Tommyboy12]

Got a beam type torque wrench myself. Never needs to be calibrated Very accurate provided you apply even force. The click type will go out of calibration after one use if you leave it wound up.

Should add that a beam type should only cost about £15.

Edited by Tommyboy12, 20 May 2012 - 12:12 PM.

[xrocketengineer]

I check that the "calibration" is reasonable on mine by using 15mm (1/2 in square drive) socket between the click type and the beam type. I set the click type at different values and verify that when it clicks the value corresponds on the beam type. It is better than doing nothing.

[charie t]

anyone got a good torque wrench for under £35?

No, most cheap torque wrenches are out of calibration, before they even leave the shelf
You get what you pay for

[Wil_h]

For general occasional use there is no need to callibrate a torque wrench every 6 months. a cursary check every few years will do the job. Once callibrated they don't really change if not used on a daily basis.

Having cllibrated a few, what I found is that the cheap ones could not be set to be correct across the range, so I set them to be correct at head torque settings. Thos meant that wheel nuts were about correct, but the lower and higher ranges were out. the more expensive ones coudl be set to be correct over a larger range, but were not perfect.

You never know until you try, but all the ones I have checked were not so far out to cause a problem.

[colinu]

Fairly easy to check/calibrate at home using a bench vise, some weights (and a set of scales to verify the accuracy of the weight). See YouTube...