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

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.

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

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.

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 02/21/13 at 15:08:45:



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:





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!

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

Gyrobob wrote on 02/21/13 at 07:32:18:


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.

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