Torque Wench Recommendations

jerryfudd

Hi all,

Question is am I better off getting the BBB BTL-73 or Park TW5 because of the smaller range (im guessing that makes them more precise) and sacrificing that I wont have anything to meansure 15nm to 28nm when my other torque wrench comes into play (I'm not sure how many DIY jobs on the bike would fall in that gap as i dont want to be buying another one!).

or getting a bit more of an all rounder like the Pedros Pro Torque or Park TW-2 even though im not sure about the design.

2-14nm - http://www.wiggle.co.uk/bbb-btl-73-torqueset-torque-spanner-set/
3-15nm - http://www.evanscycles.com/products/park/tw5-small-clicker-torque-wrench-ec018758
6-30nm - http://www.wiggle.co.uk/pedros-pro-torque-wrench-20/
0-70nm - http://www.wiggle.co.uk/park-tools-torque-wrench/

I'm a bit loathed to buy one but after overrighting the headset bearing (5-6nm) seems like the sensible thing to do as my next job requires just 7.5nm also.

Also any expiriences with any of the above? both good and bad or also ones I haven't mentioned? looking to keep it under £100 but ideally as cheap as possible with out scarificing too much in the way of lifespan and ease of use.

thanks,

Dan

Chunkers1980

Waste of money all together in my opinion.

How did you manage to over tighten a headset bearing? Take it it was ahead? If so that should be done by feel anyway, like all preloading on bikes.

jerryfudd

Chunkers1980 wrote:

Waste of money all together in my opinion.

I agree which is why I'm loathed to do it but im getting more confident about doing the work myself and less trusting of having to take it back repeatidly for the same thing going wrong when I could just buy the tool.

only problem is that I like my weight training which doesnt bode well with not considering anything done up till I cant possibly do it up any tighter... I've ripped off and rounded a fair few bolts in my time working on cars :oops:

Chunkers1980 wrote:

How did you manage to over tighten a headset bearing? Take it it was ahead? If so that should be done by feel anyway, like all preloading on bikes.

think my terminilogy was off and you're right

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10004&t=12886627

but in doing the job I still came across some torque ratings and i didnt feel great about my best guess tightness....

Dan

ricardo_smooth

none, buy a teng tools torque wrench thats guaranteed for life. Mine does 5-25nm

jerryfudd

ricardo_smooth wrote:

none, buy a teng tools torque wrench thats guaranteed for life. Mine does 5-25nm

this one?

http://www.screwfix.com/p/teng-tools-drive-torque-wrench/44700

seems very reasonably price compared to the rest, have to look into that.... anyone else use them?

Dan

jonomc4

I have two torque wrenches - one for the big jobs and one for the fiddly carbon bits - £12 and £5 on ebay - and yes I do think it is worth it to have things tightened correctly - not too tight and breaking carbon and not to loose so things fall off as you ride along happily.

jerryfudd

have you got any links and are they adjustable? very tempted with the teng one at the moment.

Dan

rrsodl

jonomc4 wrote:

I have two torque wrenches - one for the big jobs and one for the fiddly carbon bits - £12 and £5 on ebay - and yes I do think it is worth it to have things tightened correctly - not too tight and breaking carbon and not to loose so things fall off as you ride along happily.

At that price range I'm inclined to believe you would be better off using your feel and judgement than trusting a tool that possibly is way out of tolerance.

MarkLG

Torque wrenches are precision tools and a reliable, accurate one is going to cost more than £5!! Any decent torque wrench will come with a calibration certificate - the cheap ones don't, so how do you know how accurate they are?
Teng Tools are a quality brand and the one in the screw fix link looks like a nice bit of kit, and is the sort of price you need to be paying. Add a similar quality higher range one and ou should be covered. Halfords proffesional ones are decent quality and good value.
I bought a couple of Facom Tools ones a few years ago when I used to tinker with motorbikes, but they're probably a bit more than you're looking to pay.
I can't say I've ever bothered using one a bike though - using the appropriate size tool for the job and what my fingers tell me is tight enough is good enough for me.

Torres

Some good advice above.

Just to re-iterate, the calibration is the most important thing. A poorly calibrated wrench is worse than just going by feel.

milko9000

I got the Superstar one. It seems fine, I haven't over-tightened anything with it at least.

97th choice

milko9000 wrote:

I got the Superstar one. It seems fine, I haven't over-tightened anything with it at least.

+1

http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_ ... cts_id=550

jonomc4

MarkLG wrote:

Torque wrenches are precision tools and a reliable, accurate one is going to cost more than £5!! Any decent torque wrench will come with a calibration certificate - the cheap ones don't, so how do you know how accurate they are?
Teng Tools are a quality brand and the one in the screw fix link looks like a nice bit of kit, and is the sort of price you need to be paying. Add a similar quality higher range one and ou should be covered. Halfords proffesional ones are decent quality and good value.
I bought a couple of Facom Tools ones a few years ago when I used to tinker with motorbikes, but they're probably a bit more than you're looking to pay.
I can't say I've ever bothered using one a bike though - using the appropriate size tool for the job and what my fingers tell me is tight enough is good enough for me.

Or you can buy one second hand with the recommendations but 20% off the price -

lugsey2k5

The bike Branded ones are way over priced purely because there bike branded.

Id give the Teng one a vote, i have a fair few Teng tools and they have all been solid. Add on the price of a 1/4" bit holder and a set of decent hex bits and you should be ok.

ricardo_smooth

jerryfudd wrote:

ricardo_smooth wrote:

none, buy a teng tools torque wrench thats guaranteed for life. Mine does 5-25nm

this one?

http://www.screwfix.com/p/teng-tools-drive-torque-wrench/44700

seems very reasonably price compared to the rest, have to look into that.... anyone else use them?

Dan

That's the one I have and I have a halfords professional range 1/4" ratchet set, so it had all the other associated bits that i'll need in that.

jerryfudd

ricardo_smooth wrote:

jerryfudd wrote:

ricardo_smooth wrote:

none, buy a teng tools torque wrench thats guaranteed for life. Mine does 5-25nm

this one?

http://www.screwfix.com/p/teng-tools-drive-torque-wrench/44700

seems very reasonably price compared to the rest, have to look into that.... anyone else use them?

Dan

That's the one I have and I have a halfords professional range 1/4" ratchet set, so it had all the other associated bits that i'll need in that.

Thanks all, I bought the Teng in the end

Dan

cloudynights

tighten by feel, and use your common sense

Siarm

How about this one, or is the teng still the better choice?

Quiet corner

That Sealey one is very good for the money and comes with the calibration certificate. Can recommend

rolf_f

MarkLG wrote:

Torque wrenches are precision tools and a reliable, accurate one is going to cost more than £5!! Any decent torque wrench will come with a calibration certificate - the cheap ones don't, so how do you know how accurate they are?

Most of the time you don't need to know how accurate they are. If you are maintaining an existing bike, what you need is consistency. It doesn't matter if a required torque value is five or six Nm, what matters is that you put the part back on to a similar torque as before. So you can check the actual torque value by gradually upping the torque setting on the wrench on the object you are working on before you remove it in the first place - ie you exert pressure on the torque wrench until the torque setting is high enough to move the bolt without the wrench clicking over. That approach will also hopefully give you an idea of whether the wrench is reasonably close to calibration but either way, there probably is a decent margin for error given how many people guess, how innaccurate the guesses tend to be and how few guess related frame cracks turn up on the forums.

Once you have that setting on the wrench, you can happily use the same value to retighten on reassembly.

Siarm

Quiet corner wrote:

That Sealey one is very good for the money and comes with the calibration certificate. Can recommend

Can you check the torque for reverse threads?

Quiet corner

Think so mate but will double check now

Siarm

Thanks mate.

Quiet corner

HI

Just to confirm that the sealey will not torque reverse threads.

Thanks,
Alex

Siarm

Cheers Alex, I bought one, arrived today. Nice bit of kit.

batmo

I work in a test lab where we use torque wrenches all day every working day and which are re-calibrated at 6 month intervals. There is usually no difference at cal time unless the tool has been abused by going beyond it's working range or if it's been dropped. If you look after it a good torque wrench will last many years without significant loss of accuracy.

cooldad

Why would you want to weigh a known mass?

batmo

cooldad wrote:

Why would you want to weigh a known mass?

I would want to weigh a known mass to check that the balance read the same as I knew the mass to be.

I just don't understand what that has to do with a torque wrench!

Also I just noticed that the title says Torque Wench, which is a very different thing...

Siarm

Batmo wrote:

Also I just noticed that the title says Torque Wench, which is a very different thing...

Damn I bought the wrong thing then.