My Clymer manual is on it's way & I'm gonna need a torque wrench. Looking at 1/2" drive Craftsman beam type, 0-150 ft/lbs., $26.99 on line/local pick-up. Any other suggestions, cautions, whatever?

The 150 ft-lb wrenches are fine for larger torques but I'd get a different one for low torques.  I think the rule of thumb is, don't trust the accuracy at the top and bottom 20% of the wrench's range. I bought the $40 clicker from Northern Tool and it is pretty good.  But sure enough, it takes a little "exercise" to get it to behave consistently at low torques.  So I bought a little 1/4" drive beamer for the light stuff.

 
I would have to disagree on that point.

Ran QC calibration labs that calibrated both, clickers only went 1-2 years before requiring internal tweeking to get back to low and top range spec, often they would do one but not the other and were scrapped or re-spec'd to the zone they actually functioned well in.

(mostly they got scrapped if they were plant owned tools, the personal tools only folks got all funny about their$200 Snap On or Proto clicker wrench that wouldn't calibrate any more and we would re-spec them for them to be used only in the zone they were reliable to use if it was reasonable to do so.   Or we told them to take them home, they could not come back into the shop as they were junk/nuts/useless for the range the set up man actually worked in)

Deflecting beam units remained relatively consistent and faithful unless taken way out of range (damaged) but you had to buy one that was aimed at the range you were working in for the application you were doing to get enough graduations to pass a GR&R study.

0-150 foot pounds is a bit silly for fine work -- way too broad.  Get a 0-50 and a 50-100 ft pound unit and use the one that best fits what you are trying to do.

One sterling use of a broad range 0-150 beam type is detecting issues with fastener pull up (bolt stretching) on LARGE bolts.  If you get a lot of bolts that stretches before hitting torque, or one that will not maintain spec torque after a half hour at rest, you can determine that with a beam unit much quicker/clearer than with a clicker unit.

Personal preference for my pocketbook is a beam unit because you can see the torque build up and you know you are almost there.  

A clicker leaves you blind, and ---- was that the click?  mebbe not, a little more and we'll see, nope, a little more .....  nope .....

Clicker types retain their accuracy much longer if you do not leave them on a setting & back them off each time before storing. I have an old beam type I use to check accuracy of clickers occasionaly by rechecking recently torqued bolts.

Thanks for clearing up the reliability of the clicker torque wrenches.  I'm always a bit nervous when using mine anyways, since I never tested it after buying it.

I think buying an inch-pound torque wrench is also a good idea.  The crank case bolts are especially easy to shear off, since there's usually oil around the threads.  In this situation, lower torque should be applied.

When I was seventeen I worked for a dealer who was just getting started. He had Yamahas & Bonanza mini-bikes. Some of the Bonanza mini- bikes had Hodaka engines & were scary fast. The chopper style one they had was fun to ride wheelies on. One interesting thing, if there was any kind of problems with the Hodaka engines, they just sent us a complete new engine. I borrowed an Ace 90 frame from a friend who had just moved up to a Yamaha 250 dirt bike & built an engine for it from the 'bad' engines. Had a lot of fun until I started beating a kid whos' dad bought a 125 from us, suddenly we had to return all those warranty engines. I quit a couple of months later for a better job (turned 18).

That job paid off when I turned 20 & wanted a RD350. Owner sold me one for $847. List back then was $1299 & they were in such demand he didn't have to discount them at all, couldn't keep them on the floor. Two crates (4 bikes) wouldn't last a month.

Did you know a lot of the battery drills which have adjustable pressure are torque wrenches.

get your self a fish scale
measure the length of the wrench you need to use from the center of the bolt to where you can pull on it with the fish scale.
take the torque value and divide it by the length of the wrench

25 ft.lbs / (8 inches /12 inches per foot) = 37.5 lbs

90 in.lbs / 6.5 inches = 13.85 lbs