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Message started by Blinky on 02/21/13 at 06:12:03

Title: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Blinky on 02/21/13 at 06:12:03

I have a versy tensioner on the way and guess I should buy a torque wrench. After all these years just going by feel, a touch of arthritis has ruined the calibration in my wrist and elbow. The truth be known, I guess I have just been lucky but facing all those bolts on that big aluminum cover, I no longer trust my luck.

I plan on getting a 0-75 beam style from Sears for less than $20 unless anyone knows of major issues with a beam style vs. the much more expensive dial and click style. Let me know.

thanks and good hunting

Title: Re: Beam Style Torgue Wrench?
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 02/21/13 at 06:48:08

A quick scan thru the torque specs in the book gave me the answer. Very few bolts require a real specific torque. Most are broad ranges, like 15 to 22 pounds & such. A beam is fine, IMO & thats what I got & thats where I got mine. Ive been in the places youre going & it worked out just fine.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torgue Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/21/13 at 07:32:18

Beam torque wrenches are considered clunky, old-school, imprecise, inconvenient, and not for REAL mechanics.

I disagree, somewhat.

One thing they do well is provide proper torque forever. Yes, they are not as slick as clickers, but clickers are notorious for going out of calibration.

I have an old (40 yrs maybe) Craftsman beam wrench I use most of the time. I have couple of clickers to use (they are faster) when the torque values aren't critical, and when the beam wrench is too long or hard to read in strange situations you get into with aircraft, etc.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torgue Wrench?
Post by WD on 02/21/13 at 09:51:58

What's a torque wrench... ::) ;D ;)

Beam is fine. The TW I have access to is some cheap clicker the ancient one got conned into buying last year. Probably from Northern Tool or the discount bin at the farm store. It works, I guess.

I don't use them so...

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Paraquat on 02/21/13 at 11:09:44

I like my beam (I've always called it a needle and gauge type) better than the clickers.

The head studs my type of car uses are to be screwed in hand tight and the nut tightened to 30-65-100 ft lbs.
I was at a friend's house working on another friend's car doing a HG with his clicker type. New gasket, brand new ARP head studs.
We set it for 30, did them all. 65, did them all. 100 did them all. On the last one I didn't like the feel at all. I let someone else try it and they said it was fine keep going to 100. I asked the owner of the car and he said if this guy say's it's good go for it.
I said "What do I care? It's not my car".
Twist and snap.
I don't know what the torque wrench was actually set to. Maybe it was a bad stud? It's not the first horror story I've heard about clickers getting stuck or providing false feed back that gets progressively worse over time as the spring holding the locking collar gets weaker.

I think the beam types offer a better feel is the short of it. The downside, as noted above, is you need about a 2 foot radius over whatever it is you're tightening to use these beam types.

--Steve

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Cavi Mike on 02/21/13 at 13:51:31

I always felt the beam ones were better but all I ever use is a clicker because they're less bulky and there's nothing to bend when stuff falls on it. And like JOG said, TQ ratings are wide open anyways.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Pine on 02/21/13 at 14:37:37

I always liked my beam style... I knew when to slow down pulling and just slowly crept up on the spec. With the clicker I have.. you just yank until it clicks...you cant know your getting close...'cept of course experience.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Oldfeller on 02/21/13 at 15:08:45

Hate clickers, don't own any at all. Biggest problem with clickers in a manufacturing plant is somebody "missing the click" and busting an assembly, then there was the clicker that went out of calibration on the low end and made us rework a half day's production for a loose clutch assembly.

Clickers suck.

Beams are better. Just don't get one rated much bigger than you actually need.

Beams loose accuracy if you are way way low or way way high in their total range.

Ideally, you should be working at about mid range in a beam unit for it to have longest life and best accuracy. This generally means you have to own 2 beam units, one very small (inch pound range) and one for up to 50 foot pounds max. The 150 foot pound car units are too too big for motorcycle use.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Digger on 02/21/13 at 18:35:43

54777F7D7E77777E691B0 wrote:

......Ideally, you should be working at about mid range in a beam unit for it to have longest life and best accuracy. This generally means you have to own 2 beam units, one very small (inch pound range) and one for up to 50 foot pounds max. The 150 foot pound car units are too too big for motorcycle use.

I like beam-type torque wrenches. And, I'm a big believer in keeping them in the middle of their torque ranges (in their "sweet spots"). As a result, I own four: a 0-50 in-lb one, a 0-200 in-lb one, a 0-600 in-lb one, and a 0-150 ft-lb one. The big one is occasionally needed, some examples being the lug nuts on the rear wheel of my GL1800 and the rotor bolts on my KLR650s.

One of the biggest drawbacks of a beam-type torque wrench is that you have a hard time seeing the scale sometimes. Here is what I do to deal with that problem:

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee201/Digger109/TapeonTorqueWrenchScaleE.jpg

I place a small piece of masking tape at the target reading on the scale. It is now a lot easier for me to see when the desired torque has been reached.

IHTH someone!

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by HondaLavis on 02/21/13 at 20:52:03

Working on aircraft, I get to use a LOT of torque wrenches. Per the Army, a clicker is slightly less accurate in the top and bottom 10%, and have to be re-calibrated every 6 months. I like their ease of use, but they are a lot touchier than beams.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by mustang on 02/21/13 at 21:50:49

beam fine for what you are doing.
three sizes one quarter inch three eights and one half drive.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Blinky on 02/22/13 at 06:23:23

My thanks and appreciation to all for your input. I will get to Sears this evening and pick up one.

Good hunting

Title: Re: Beam Style Torgue Wrench?
Post by rat907 on 02/22/13 at 06:35:17

241A110C010C01630 wrote:

agreed, I've had a no-name beam torque wrench since i got out of the military. I had it checked for calibration and though it was under torquing, it never over tightened.

if the indicator beam (pointer) ever lost zero, a simple bending of the bean back to zero put it right back in service. i have known many mechanics that go through clickers every year (oe less) due to calibration or breakage of the mechanism.

my beam is going strong for almost 20 years now after working on personal and friends autos and week end illegal street racing.

A point to remember when using torque wrenches. if you use an extention or size adapter3/8 to 1/2 inch or vice versa other than a socket or wrench type end... it changes the value of the reading by an unspecified amount less than what you are reading.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/22/13 at 06:41:59

RAT907 said, "A point to remember when using torque wrenches.if you use an extention or size adapter3/8 to 1/2 inch or vice versa... it changes the value of the reading by an unspecified amount less than what you are reading. "

I can't see how this would happen.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by rat907 on 02/22/13 at 06:44:26

the slop in relationship to the fit which compounds when using an extension and/or adaptor... only a torque wrench calibration instument will telll you the actual values

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/22/13 at 06:57:09

4053460B0205320 wrote:

the slop in relationship to the fit which compounds when using an extension and/or adaptor... only a torque wrench calibration instument will telll you the actual values

I will accept that if the rotational axis of the beam wrench is not aligned with the center of the object being torqued, the values might vary some,.. but only because there might be some additional friction in the joints as they act somewhat like a crude u-joint. But,... torque is torque.

If what you are implying were true, then if you got ten extensions, snapped them all together, the torque at one end would be way different that at the other. That would not happen.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/22/13 at 07:52:08

2C243B3C2D3F293A3C7879480 wrote:

If you use an extension on the wrench handle it will change the value. If you use an extension in the socket it will not.

Yes, an extension on the socket will not change anything significantly. The only way doing something to the handle would affect anything would be if you actually torqued handle. That is why the actual plastic handle on a beam wrench pivots. Proper procedure is to make sure when applying force to the wrench handle, the plastic handle on the beam is somewhere in the middle of its pivot travel, to make sure the force being applied is applied at exactly the same place on the beam, and the there is no torque being applied to the beam.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by SALB on 02/22/13 at 19:48:12

When I was a mechanic in the Army, we had to use crow's feet on the torque wrench, and there was a formula (which I no longer remember) to correct torque values. As far as which is more accurate, a properly maintained and calibrated clicker is. As far as which is better for a shade tree mechanic, definitely the beam. ;)

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by arteacher on 02/22/13 at 22:30:22

I like a clicker because quite often you are not in a position to read a beam accurately.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by mustang on 02/22/13 at 23:43:03

cant be much....

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/23/13 at 07:57:30

242F2F262A25243E3F4B0 wrote:

I like a clicker because quite often you are not in a position to read a beam accurately.

That is a huge advantage for the clicker. I just worry about the clickers going out of calibration.

When I was running a flight school years ago, we had a minor maintenance capability that, of course, used torque wrenches often.
-- That's where I learned the hard way that the torque put on a fastener can sometimes be off 10 - 20% with a clicker.
-- We finally hooked up with a guy at another airport that would calibrate and adjust them for us periodically in exchange for flying lessons.
-- We had to toss a few clickers because they could not be adjusted to acceptable accuracy.
-- The beam units last forever.

The beam units, though, are more inconvenient and harder to see in cramped situations. There were times where one guy would be doing the torquing and another guy would read the value. We did use Digger's trick, by the way, of putting a piece of tape on the scale of the beam wrench to make it a LOT easier to read. Those astronauts have a pretty good handle on advanced technology, eh?

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/23/13 at 08:07:23

You can calibrate a torque wrench pretty easily if you just want to make sure it is in the ballpark. The following is not real precise. There are shops that do this for real and will charge maybe $50 to calibrate and adjust a torque wrench. Just put the drive side in a vise (with some soft metal sheet to keep from putting vise marks on your wrench) and make sure the handle is level. Tie a cord or safety wire 12" (that's one foot, bill) from the center of the drive.
-- for a clicker, set it on a weight in the midrange of the scale,.. say 40 pounds.
-- attach 40 pounds of something (I use lead ingots stored for bullet casting) to the safety wire and see if it clicks. Barbell weights are handy for this if you are confident in the weight being accurate. Go up or down a pound or two or three to see where the actual click point is.
-- for a beam wrench it is easier. Just attach the safety wire at the 12" point, and attach a known weight to the wire. If the scale reads the weight properly, you're golden. If not, you'll have to start carrying a correction every time you use that wrench.

A lot of our fasteners use inch-pounds. So, if you want to test your smaller wrench graduated in inch-pounds, find two one-gallon plastic milk jugs (they weigh only a couple ounces each), fill them with exactly one gallon of water each, tie them together and you'll have a weight that is really close to 17 pounds. Put the drive end of the wrench in the vise, set it on 102 inch pounds, and tie the two jugs on the wrench at a point 6" from the center of the piece clamped in the vise. If it just clicks,.. marvy.

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Super Thumper on 02/23/13 at 08:49:29

A "Click Type" torque wrench is more accurate than the beam type. I bought one of these from Harbor Freight and it works great. they are currently on sale for only $19.99 ! They are also available in 1/4" , 3/8" & 3/4" drive sizes.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=torque+wrench

Title: Re: Beam Style Torque Wrench?
Post by Gyrobob on 02/23/13 at 10:25:16

5F4148444A455942432D0 wrote:

A "Click Type" torque wrench is more accurate than the beam type. ...

I doubt it. Clickers wear out. The only thing that can happen to a beam torque wrench is to damage it.

If you took your cheapo clickers to a shop that calibrates these things, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

Have you tested them at all to see when they actually do click?

I like clickers because of the convenience, but if I am using one on a project where torque is really important (cylinder heads, for example) I always verify they are at least in the ball park by using one of the tests I mentioned above. I don't have those concerns with a beam wrench.