motorcityxj said:
What about servicing torque wrenches? My brother has a few craftsmen, and he was burned by the warranty and a shifty sales men who told him (about 5 years ago when he bought it) that the craftsmen warranty applied to the torque wrenches. His is no longer accurate. Anyways they will not repair or replace it.
What are a good value and most durable style of torque wrench in your guys opinion?
His wrench is this style by the way ... you twist the collar on the shaft to set the poundage.
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...OOL&subcat=Torque+Wrenches&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes
For durability a beam wrench wins. It's hard to hurt one of them unless you run over it or something. I guess you could bend it from overtorquing, but you could probably just bend it back or bend the indicator needle to match.
A dial wrench should hold its calibration pretty well if it's carefully used, because it has only the one moving part - the shaft that holds the socket is twisted, and an arm attached to that actuates the dial, which is zeroed with every use. But it's also easy to break, for the same reason. There's no safety stop to prevent you from twisting it too hard and killing it.
Click wrenches don't seem very forgiving of abuse and dropping and throwing, but they're nearly idiot proof for overtorquing, since after the click occurs there's no further engagement of the mechanism. My guess is that, especially with a number of relatively cheap ones available, this is still the best value for the buck.
Edited to add: Click wrenches are more complex than others, and use springs that are more likely to go out of calibration than torsion bars and beams. It's important for long term reliability to remember to zero the wrench setting after you use it.
My favorite torque wrench is one that I don't think is made any more. I can't even remember the brand. It's ancient. It's essentially a beam wrench with the beam enclosed, actuating a dial. The dial is not spring loaded, so it holds the reading. You must zero it for every bolt, but even if your hand shakes or the bolt pops a bit, it will record the maximum torque and hold it.
I've never tried a digital one, so can't comment on that.