Torque Wrench Tester

[steffan]

one of our offices closed and i ended up with this torque tester/ analyzer: Mountz EZ-torq II. i was all excited to try it out but all of my torque wrenches are too big. it is rated up to 150 lbf.in . if anyone wants their small torque wrench tested let me know and we can check it out.

 

[steffan]

One of the neighbors is a motorcycle mechanic and has a 30 year old snaps-on dial torque wrench - we checked it out and it was dead on. Now I have to find a harbor freight one to check..

 

[steffan]

so i went down to harbor freight and picked up a pittsburg 1/4" click-style torque wrench for $10. and put it to the test. it's rated at 20-250 lbft/in but the analyzer only goes to 150:
wrench setting(lbft/in) actual error
20 21.2 +5%
40 39.0 - 2.5%
60 59.6 - 1.6%
80 79.6 -0.5%
100 99.8 -0.2%
120 119.0 -0.8%
140 139.2 -0.5%

not bad for $10. the biggest factor was technique: at those lower level it was easy to push it past the setting if your not careful. it took me quite a few attempts before i got my technique down. i think that if your working on something super critical, better get a dial indicator style torque wrench so you can see real time what's happening.