Torque Wrench

[Social Distortion]

hey Gang
what kinda torque wrench or similar tools do you guys use?
Last thingh i want to do is get overly excited and lock my bolts way too tight and such.

The Torque wrenches i have seen are
A) Way too large
B) way too expensive ( $80 or more)
C) Seem that they are for larger jobs and not necessarily for mechanical use

Any recommendations are appreciated

[CORSCO]

What kind of wrenching are you going to be doing? General maintenance does not require a torque wrench. I use Snap-On, a 3/8" and 1/2" click-type torque wrench. Plan on spending $300 - $400 on a quality wrench.

[Social Distortion]

hmmmm....
my Motorcycle manual gives me all these specifications
( recommendations) for how tight my bolts and such should be on my MC, from engin parts to other misc. items as i some maintanence.

Maybe i should look her over again- but then again, so does the Clymers manual on my old Nighthawk 650- specs for tightness on the different nuts and bolts for the MC.

Maybe a torque wrench isnt what i am looking for....but some tool that i can use to tighten things w/ that have that limit device that wont let me tighten the hell out of a nut ( kinda of how those drills have limiters(?) for drilling.

[CNF2002]

I need a torque wrench for just about every bolt on my bike. Get a $20 one from autozone or sears, its always good to have.

[Social Distortion]

thanks CNF
i need to go there and see what they have.
The SEARS craftman line seem to have $80 torque wrenches....maybe i am looking in the wrong part of the tool section....and i havent found one thats small...
i'll check out Autozone and see what they have
i assume that they accept regular sockets?

[CNF2002]

Yes, mine is a 3/4 but you can find them in other sizes or buy a cheap adaptor. The $20 will all be the long bar with a pin-gauge type.

Wouldn't call it them though :-/, and I don't know how adding extension and/or ujoints would affect the reading.

[Sev]

This is all according to my instructor, so take it however you want it. But if you want to do the job right you need to use a torque wrench. Like Corsco said, you're looking at $200 to $300 for a good one.

If I cannot say that I've correctly torqued every bolt that I've loosed I failed whatever work order I was working on in class. So every bolt that I torque gets a little dab of white out on it. If it has white out (which can be easily scratched off by the customer) then I don't need to ask myself if it got done. And the customer can check himself to see if I torqued everything correctly.

Corsco knows the way things get done in the real world, and that's probably how every shop does it. My instructor doesn't work in the industry anymore because, "he does things his (the right) way." It's kind of funny, our tool-room guy Phil worked at a BMW shop forever before coming here, and we'll go up and ask for something and he'll say, "this is how it is done. Brad is telling you how it SHOULD be done."

Makes me glad I'm taking apart my bike myself and putting it back together. I know it'll be perfect.

[storysunfolding]

You can get a decent torque wrench for 50 b/c chances are, unlike sev, you won't use it everyday. Snap on is nice but if you only use it 8 times a job, 3 times a year then 200-300 is riding money gone to waste.

just remember that they are for torqueing down bolts not taking them off. keeps the calibration good so i'm told

[Sev]

You can get a decent torque wrench for 50 b/c chances are, unlike sev, you won't use it everyday. Snap on is nice but if you only use it 8 times a job, 3 times a year then 200-300 is riding money gone to waste.

just remember that they are for torqueing down bolts not taking them off. keeps the calibration good so i'm told

Very good point. If you aren't using it 8 hours a day you don't need the best of the best. Hell, I cannot afford the best of the best

[CNF2002]

Maybe there's a way to fabricate one with a normal wrench and a kitchen food scale.