Torque Wrench

dougzz

Would you use one?

I bought a subscription to a cycling magazine that included a torque wrench as a 'gift'

The instructions are rubbish, and I wonder if I'd be better off just doing things by feel the way I do now. Say I do the handlebars and use a simple Allen key I feel it's hard to over tighten as the key is of a size that limits the amount of power you can put through it. But a big torque wrench can really generate some power and it worries me how well it'll work, especially as the adjustment of it seems somewhat vague.

Just interested in a few opinions of them.

david2

Depends on the torque wrench really, the best ones break when they reach the set torque so that you can't over torque. A good idea when screwing aluminium things together as over torqueing (is that word acceptable?) can easily strip threads. Cheaper ones just have a pointer that stays still as you bend the handle, don't really stop you stripping threads as they're not usually very accurate either.

Of course even the better ones would need re-calibrating at least annually to be of any real use.

crankycrank

Actually the pointer wrenches are generally more accurate and less likely to cause problems if you don't want to spend alot of money on your wrench. There are of course some very high quality "clicker" type wrenches that are extremely accurate but they are expensive. I've owned some cheap clickers that were very inconsistent and resulted in overtorquing. The pointers are more of a pain to use but far less likely to go out of calibration and much less expensive. I know of some racing engine builders who will only use a pointer wrench for the final torque on sensitive fasteners. If you have a good feel and some experience with wrenching I don't think a torquer is really necessary. I'm sure some will disagree but I havn't used a torque wrench on a bike in years and havn't stripped a fastener or damaged anything yet.

Wooliferkins

I would say a low range torque wrench for 4/5/6mm allen bolts can be worth while. When the torque loading is single figure it is easy to over torque and shear bolts. The higher torque stuff, cranks bottom brackets etc ideally need a higher range wrench as the accuracy on a wrench that goes from 4Nm to 80Nm will be iffy somewhere. Whichever wrench you use wind the tension off after you have used it.

turkeytickler

i had one of those phantom clicks in my ultegra drivetrain for 2 years - i had stripped, relubed, tightened, loosened, you name it - done everything bar replacing the whole piggin shooting match....

then i bought a torque wrench, and adjusted the torque on the pinch bolts to the recommended torque and have enjoyed the sound of silence ever since!

So a thumbs up from me - I bought the BBB torquefix set from Parkers - £50 - decent quality - who knows how long it will go before it needs to be calibrated (or how you go about getting it calibrated for that matter!) but i dont use it much and take the load off the spring when i put it away so hopefully will get a fair amount use out of it....

the cycle specific ones tend to have the appropriate range but are more expensive than the ones you can get off screwfix etc...