How often do you use your torque wrench?

[Herman Tyler Jr.]

I’m just saying! I’ve been watching many repair videos, and I’ve found that most well educated tech’s will grab that trusty torque wrench, for head jobs, main and rod bearings, and just a few other applications. I feel that it’s our responsibility as master techs to teach the importance of the torque wrench. Every bolt & nut on a vehicle has a torque specification, and should be torqued accordingly. Prime example! Most techs will grab the impact wrench and buzz the lugs on the studs, for the rim to the hub union. I would like to see the torque specification expounded on a lot more, specifically how to adjust the ft.lb/in. when using an extension. “I’m just saying” — Now for a little humor! We’ll leave out names to protect the innocent! An automobile started down the assembly line and everything was assembled on the way. When the vehicle reached the end of the line, and an employee jumped in to start the vehicle inspections and move the vehicle out of the way. “The vehicle wouldn’t start” the employee popped the hood release and raised the hood, to his surprise, the engine wasn’t in the engine compartment. Just for fun I try to think of how many stations that vehicle went through without the engine being present. Have a great day!! :whistle:

Topic

[Jane]

Though, I use my torque wrenches a lot, there are occasions when experience is all that’s needed. Things like jubilee clips, car body parts screws etc. As for using a pipe(Especially useful to female mechanics)… Using plenty penetrating oil in the thread and when the air impact wrench just won’t shift it. its best used only for removing things like rusty, stubborn, lorry wheel nuts, I always tighten with one of three torque wrenches, 3/8 drive 0.01-80 lbs/foot; 1/2 drive 20-180 lbs/foot: and 1″ drive 100-650 lbs/foot. Time is money in any shop and sometimes torquing everything would cost too much money. ‘Torquing up’ is an old art in which they used to… “use different lengths on a graduated bar with notches in it, and a 10 lb weight on a cord…” thanks to accurate torque wrenches we no longer use the old method. Some of the better air ratchets have a torque setting built in, saving time. For small bolts, I use a 90 degree, cordless drill with torque settings. This saves time on assembly. Things like engine guards etc are easily put on with a cordless drill. Gravity is busy trying to drop it out. The speed of the drill, means you don’t have to hold to it very long before the bolts are holding it. Things in mechanical sections need more attention though. The drill gets it nearly there you must though finish with a manual torque wrench. (not for con-rod end caps or crank caps which must follow a special method)
hope this helps..
Jane

[Bruce]

I use a torque wrench everyday, but not on every nut and bolt I tighten. Its just not necessary to torque every single one.

[richiepearce]

our toque wrenches are used daily, not on every single nut and bolt feel is important. Angle gauges are often used after setting the base torque.

[Herman Tyler Jr.]

Hello Inverlass!
I want to thank you for your reply! I just love to see a female get her hands dirty, particularly the females with skills. You may or not agree that when a vehicle leaves your care, that customers life can at times literally be in your hands “it’s not always about money”. This is a journey enjoy and embrace the ride.
Jr.

[Herman Tyler Jr.]

Hello Superman!
Thank you for your reply! In your reply you made a statement “Its just not necessary to torque every single one.” That reminded me of a friend of mine who job at that time was to secure the U bolts for the universal joint at the rear of the drive shaft of an HO vehicle. We put the car on the line for all the marbles we had at that time. He let the clutch pedal go and the U bolts twisted themselves apart, drive shaft went everywhere, we lost that race. This had never happen before and never happen again “why?”
Jr.

[Jane]

The problem experienced with the U bolts, can be caused by any one or more of the following…
Poor quality steel Clamp and or Nuts. Using the wrong size or type of steel.
Metal fatigue. Can happen rarely to even new U Clamps when the steel was bent when cold.
Too tight, bolt already over stressed causing is to snap under load.
Too loose, causing it to slip under load.

A good example of this situation caused a pilots window to be blown out of its frame in flight. Here, there are 700 small HT steel bolts holding the window in place. This nearly ended in disaster. Why? the Engineer used a box of bolts that looked the same as the old ones. These bolts though were slightly thinner and unlike the old ones he replaced not high tensile steel.

I recall my dad telling me about an 12 axle crane that he was called out to fix, in -40 C mountain road. Though the breakdown truck we had could lift 100 tons there was no way to lift this 300 ton monster. So it had to be fixed where it was on a busy road. This caused a 50 mile tail back on the road. The Cops were furious. All U bolts on the offside sets of springs had snapped. It was found out that the mechanic from a different shop had used the burner to bend the saddle bolts to get them to ‘fit’; this changed the properties of the metal in the process. One giant pot hole plus the freezing weather and these U bolts gave up. Instead of holding, the bolts stretched bent out of shape and stripped their threads. The mechanic who did this, in taking short cuts; ended up in jail for three months. Luckily no one was killed, this time!
Hope you found this interesting
Jane

[celticbhoy]

We use accutorque torque sticks at my work and they are as accurate as my torque wrench, but for engine work I always use my wrench. Not experienced enough to tell the torque without using the wrench.

[Tyler Killgore]

Anytime I crack into an engine, the torque wrench comes out. But that is the only time I ever use it on anything. Most things are able to be eyeballed. My torque wrench actually has a longer handle on it than any of my other wrenchs, so if I used it for everything there would be a tendancy to over snug things.

[dreamer2355]

I use my torque wrench at work for just about everything.

The manufacturers give us those specs for a reason 😉

[drthrift035]

Great topic. I have noticed that a lot of people do not use torque wrenches when they work. It is not the best way to do the job.I would like go one step further , I also believe to protect yourself change out the old nuts and bolts with new ones directly from the manufacturer.

[drthrift035]

Hi Jane. I had to read your post again because of the whole 3 months in jail thing.

” It was found out that the mechanic from a different shop had used the burner to bend the saddle bolts to get them to ‘fit’; this changed the properties of the metal in the process. One giant pot hole plus the freezing weather and these U bolts gave up. Instead of holding, the bolts stretched bent out of shape and stripped their threads. The mechanic who did this, in taking short cuts; ended up in jail for three months. Luckily no one was killed, this time! ”

Now I understand what you are saying.

[NissanMaxx]

First I just want to say I like the Maxima in your profile picture wizkid. 😉 Second welcome back dreamer2355. I haven’t seen you on the forum in a WHILE. Now I’m not going to lie but where I work the techs here don’t really care and don’t bother with torqueing bolts. I’m probably the only one who actually does it, but I don’t use it as often as most techs would. Only on bolts I find important. Lug nuts, spark plugs, axle nuts, things like that. When I was younger I would always help my dad fix his cars every time it had problems and he NEVER torqued any bolts or anything. We never had an issue so I honestly thing torqueing isn’t really all that important. Considering we never have issues when we don’t torque bolts.

[WOTStang]

I use mine to double check wheels after using torque sticks, *everything* engine related, driveline related, and some suspension components. Anything else like interior fasteners, body work, brackets that hold things under the hood/under the car.. etc, you can gauge exactly whats needed.

You do tend to learn what a torque setting feels like after wrenching for awhile with a torque wrench. But things like head/intake/timing cover, cv axles, flywheel bolts, pressure plate bolts are very important! (I’ve saw far too many stripped out flywheel threads due to people overtorquing pressure plates to flywheels.. dunno about you, but i dont want a clutch assembly coming through the floorboard of a car!). It really does only take a few extra minutes in a job to do things properly, and plenty of other ‘safe shortcuts’ (experience being the best one!) to cut time on your job.

Story time again: Worked with a kid that had just started 2 weeks earlier, who was doing a waterpump on a 3.8 ford and a few bolts broke off in the timing cover as it was being removed. He extracted them successfully and had to helicoil a few of them.

When it came time to reinstall, the torque spec was 21 ft/lbs, and i came back to see him putting them on with his cordless 3/8s impact driver. I asked him what he was doing and he said “i dont have a torque wrench, and i dont want it to leak!” He though torque specs existed to make sure it was ‘tight enough’ and not because there is a certain amount of pressure each bolt needs to seal the gasket evenly. SO anyway when he did this, all the OE bolts went in fine, but he pulled the helicoil out of every single one he had repaired.

So off came the water pump again, except this time when he took out the OE bolts, every single one of them snapped the heads off… (thank ford for putting steel bolts into an aluminum housing that expands and retracts as coolant flows through) and he had to extract/repair the other 7 threads as well. It turned a 2 hour job into a 3.5 hour job with no additional pay for him (as he was on hourly training pay).

So basically, he lost 1.5 hours of what would have been flagged time for himself if he had been paid flat-rate because he didnt spend another 5-10 mins to ask another tech for a torque wrench that he didnt have to properly tighten the water pump bolts. He would have had the whole job done in 45 minutes too if not for that.

[Lorrin Barth]

The trouble with torque wrenches is they are long. The manufacturer will provide a torque specifications for a fastener the engineer placed in a spot where I am challenged to get any tool on it. Then all I can do is wish I could hit it with a torque wrench. Such is life.

[Jamie]

Mine get used quite often, Well at least 2 of them. A lot of stuff I’ve got a good feel for, and or like mentioned above you just cant get a torque wrench in there. When it comes to anything on the engine or trans I torque em to spec. A lot of the time I have to use new bolts/studs anyways so torqueing them to spec is a good habbit. A lot of stuff is plastic now too so rather than cracking something new out of the box, or giving it more reason to fail prematurely I really try to check the torque on them.

I believe Eric talked about it in one of his videos about how precise an engine actually is and how much moving it actually handles, along with the heating and contracting of metals. An engineer making 6 figures a year deamed “X”nm for a reason and Ill go with it.

What kills me is the amount of techs that will see something like say a valve cover gasket leaking and just crank the bolts down even tighter. Its leaking because its worn out……

[Author]

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