Torque wrench recommendation?

[Pat Buckley]

I moliebatur committere oratio civilis ex parte subiecti sperastis tenaculis torquing responsionem rationabilem.

[Alan Watkins]

Originally Posted by 2124

I moliebatur committere oratio civilis ex parte subiecti sperastis tenaculis torquing responsionem rationabilem.

Don't hold your breath....it's a subject where a few here are incapable of responsa rationabiliter.

Regarding "...I do think that you can repeat past performance on a pretty consistent basis" My question is the same: how do you know? Furthermore, how is that useful if past performance is wrong?

As for spark plugs vs. whatever: I will only suggest that trying to come up with a do/don't list for properly torqued fasteners is just a way of avoiding the issue. You either understand that specified fastener torque matters and why, or you don't. If you don't, I have nothing to say.

But the halfway house of "Well, I'll compromise and do head, rod and main cap bolts" is equivalent to saying the shop manual is wrong about some bolts and right about others. How can that be true, and how is it that you know which are correct and which aren't?

Besides, there's the "how do I want to spend my time" issue. For every "rod bolt" and "main cap bolt" you come up with I can come up with a "caliper retention bolt" or "flywheel retention bolt" and we would go back and forth forever. Such a piece by piece argument about each of the hundreds of fasteners in a car would be profoundly boring. It's analagous to what my dentist says about flossing: Don't torque all your fasteners; just the ones you want to keep. That's not an "oratio civilis" I wish to participate in.

Lost in all this is that the original poster was asking which wrench to use, not whether or when to use one.

Anyway, usually around this time in the discussion somebody says "hey it's your car, you can do whatever you want." So...


It's your car, do whatever you want.

[Kalun D]

Originally Posted by 2124

I would include rod bolts and main cap bolts to the list of fasteners that I for sure use a torque wrench on.

Agree, I overlooked rods and mains, I also put a torque wrench on them.

[Kalun D]

""There's an intriguing but to me incomprehnsible one at Calibrating A Torque Wrench - How-To - Stock Car Racing Magazine
I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about and then gave up.""

I understood it within 5 minutes.

""To everyone who thinks fastener torque settings are optional and intuitive: I'm sorry but I'm not enough of a flower child and too much of an engineer to let this go by.""

Ah, there's the crux of the matter. You are living in engineer's world, not technician's world. So all those lug nuts in the Nascar pits that get tightened with an air impact? What's the spec on those and how do they know if the air guns are doing it within spec? I'll give you a clue, they are over-torqued.

""I'd be interested to know what procedure you've gone through that convinced you that you are always applying correct torque without using a torque wrench.""

For 35 years the cars that I work on don't come back with loose bolts just because I didn't use a torque wrench. When I raced go-karts for 5 years I never had a bolt come loose because of failure to use a torque wrench. The only thing I torqued was the head bolts. It's one of the very first things in this career that separates the technicians from the wannabes, can you tighten bolts by feel without stripping them?

""But the halfway house of "Well, I'll compromise and do head, rod and main cap bolts" is equivalent to saying the shop manual is wrong about some bolts and right about others. How can that be true, and how is it that you know which are correct and which aren't?""

Usually the things that are torque critical are either gasket sealing, like head gaskets, or distortion issues like rod, mains, and wheels. Most everything else is just to be tight enough that it doesn't come loose. Mission critical things like steering and brake components have safety wire or cotter pins. Everything else on a race car either has red lock-tite or locking threads.

So when a LeMans car comes into the pits and a major component gets changed out do you think all fasteners are tightened with torque wrenches?

I live in engineer's world AND technician's world. Professional technicians are under a time constraint. You only get paid so much to do a timing cover reseal on a V-6. If you took the time to hand torque every fastener it would take twice as long and the job barely pays 100% in the first place.

There's a torque specification for every fastener but even the factories don't torque all that many fasteners. Typically the factory, especially the Japanese, overtorque a lot of them.

[Alan Watkins]

Originally Posted by Kalun_D

""There's an intriguing but to me incomprehnsible one at Calibrating A Torque Wrench - How-To - Stock Car Racing Magazine
I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about and then gave up.""

I understood it within 5 minutes. .

folowed by quoted point and counterpoint over and over....

You've got two problems to overcome if you're trying to get me to reply directly:

1. I lost interest in the subject shortly after my last post three months ago.
2. Not one single instance of your counter-point invalidates or even directly addresses my corresponding point. Most of the time you're trying to disprove something no one said in the first place.

Better luck next time.

[Cliff Beer]

Best torque wrench is your own arm, combined with a skilled/seasoned feel. At least for everything except head bolts. Those should definitely be torqued with a precise mechanical device. Just my $.02.

I prefer this type for its simplicity.

[John M]

Torque wrench, calibration, calibration beam, torque, UKAS, torque wrench