which torque wrench: 10-75 ft/lbs 3/8 or 20-150 ft/lbs 1/2"

[little_joe]

I've used a Craftsman 1/2" torque wrench for over 10 yrs now and it is great. Had it calibrated once and it was still very close to right on. Anyone would be fine with Craftsman: I've never had a wheel fall off, engine explode, or glass shatter because of the CM TW. This place is almost starting to sound like a Land Rover board..............

 

[Corbet]

My crapsman has not failed me either. but I'd like a snap on

 

[nicholas]

That's good to hear lil' Joe. In an ideal world where I wouldn't be deciding between cruiser tools and food for my family (a bit of a stretch) while living off of student loans in grad school, I would try to go with higher end tools for jobs requiring accuracy. I'm sure someone might chime in stating "the costs of 80 ownership" etc. I am well aware of the associated costs, so I bought my rig cash and I'm basically trying to keep it maintained the best I can without breaking the bank until I start earning a paycheck in 3 years.

I only use OEM parts from CDan and heed his and other board members advice. The thing that scared me was the above post by CDan about torque wrenches.

I know that bad things definitely happen when we don't heed to the advice from the Parts Shamen.
I think I may have to go with the craftsman for now.
I'm sure it will be better than the 10 yr old autoz*ne special that has been though hell and back.

 

[IBCRUSN]

After reading this thread it seems that nobody has done a professional front knuckle service without a snap-on or mac torque wrench.

Have there been any success stories using a craftsman wrench?

We see this everywhere on MUD and other boards for tools, parts and what not.

Keep your Craftsman wrench. In my career I have yet to see a properly cared for Craftsman torque wrench exceed calibration limits required to meet ISO & NIST standards. When I supervised the quality departmentof a large repair station it was not uncommon to see some of the Craftsman wrenches cal better than some of the high dollar brands. All this talk that Mac and Snap-on are the end all be all of torque wrenches and general shop tools is outrageous. For those who wrench on their own junk on the weekend and for fun there is no reason to spend big bucks on a hand delivered high brow tool unless it absolutely necessary. Sure they are generally high quality but so are the vast majority of Craftsman, Husky (HD), SK, Kobalt and such. Bear in mind a portion of the $300 you pay for a Cornwell, Mac, Matco or Snap-on torque wrench is paying for the truck, fuel, salary and hand delivery by an independent dealer. Put the money saved into other tools. Take care of what you have and if piece of mind is that important get your wrench(es) calibrated every couple years, $200+ will pay for many calibration checks. $20 -$40 per will buy you a certified calibration and you can rest easy that you saved some precious money and have an accurate wrench.

Long story short for those that don't want to read above...

a well cared for $60 torque wrench is far better than a poorly cared for $300 torque wrench.

 

[nicholas]

Thanks for the replies. I bought a craftsman 1/2'' torque wrench last night. They were on sale for 20$ off. I plan on taking care of it, keeping it unloaded during storage, and not backing off nuts with it etc.

It turns out that the abused 10yr old aut*zone special (I believe it was actually about a 70$ wrench back then) was under torquing the nuts. I was torquing the spindle bolts at 34ft/lbs with the old wrench and they turned about an extra 1/4 turn with the fresh (presumably accurate) craftsman @34ft/lbs. I'm not sure if this is how all out of spec wrenches will be. I noticed a post above that asked if out of spec wrenches under or over torque. In my case at least, it appears that it was significantly under-torquing.

 

[IBCRUSN]

Nicholas,

to answer your question it can actually go either way. Usually the only way one can assume it isn't correct is at the upper end of the wrenches range. Think about torquing something 100ftlbs and now it feel like your pulling harder or even less. On the low end you might not even feel any difference.

Have fun doing you fronendectomy and stay on high ground, it gets pretty wet in Des Moines and the west side by Grand.

 

[JerseyCruiser]

Get both you will use them no doubt. I have the 3/8 & 1/2 Digitorx Craftsman very good units just take care of them anddon't drop them or any torque wrench for that matter. Buy the hard red plastic case for them too.