Lonely Raven

As I'm reading through my Haynes and reading posts and guides online
I realize I need a good torque wrench to work on my Porsche 924S. I'm
still trying to get over my fear of working on my car, so I need to get the
right tools so as not to botch anything.

I figure unless people have another suggestion, I'll try and track down
a Snap On one, but I see there are like 10 different ones!!

Should I stick with Snap On, or will something else (cheaper) suffice?
Should I get a 3/8 or do you find 1/2 more commonly used?

I do apprecaite any guidence in this, since I can't afford to buy the tool
myself, I'm going to ask for it as a Christmass present. I know my pops
was planning on buying me some tools so I could work on the Porsche,
at least to maintain it, but I'm honestly not sure where to start. And he's
for sure the LAST person I want to pick out my tools. He has a bad habbit
of buying whatevers cheap because he never knows if he's going to use
the tool again....but when it breaks, he goes out and gets something
really expensive because he's pissed off that the jobs not done, the
tools thrown out, and his knuckles are bashed!!

I'm trying to learn from his (in)experience. LOL

RMills944

A torque wrench is good to have anyways, but dont get the cheap ones, get a decent one where you dial the handle to teh torque you need and tighten till the wrench clicks.
The analog gauge ones with the seperate piece of steel that moves along the gauge as you turn is not worth it.

RMills944

For clarification Look here:

GET ONE LIKE THIS:
http://www.toolking.com/shop/view.asp?ID=5148

NOT THIS:
http://www.toolking.com/performance/view.asp?id=2187

fezz

i bought a Craftsman digimatic (numerical display and dial in the torque in .5 ft/lb increments) 5 ft/lb to 80 ft/lb capacity - should be good for almost all proceedures.
90 bucks at Sears.

Chris_924s

See if you can borrow one first from Pep Boys or Auto Zone. Sometimes they will let you use them for a deposit or ask you to leave your license.

Lonely Raven

Chris, that's a good idea, but you know once I start working on my
car I'm going to want to work on it whenever I can and whenever I need
to. So owning one is a must.

I'm going to check out that craftsman one. That sounds neat and about
1/3 the cost of the Snap On one.

special tool

Just so everyone knows - the type with the swingy piece of metal is the real torque wrench - its just not as easy to use.

Lonely Raven

Should I be looking at a 1/2" wrench?

Jfrahm

IMO the beam type are great if you don't use them often. The click-type you have to be pretty careful with or they can lose calibration badly. However if you get a beam type you can also use it to check the calibration of the click wrench from time to time, and they are only $10 or so.

The click types need to be reset to 0 torque after you are done with them or they are likely to not be accurate next time. Even then I would not attempt a major service without checking the calibration.

-Joel.

Z-man

1/2" is good, but it depends on if you have 1/2" or 3/8" sockets that you'll use!! The Craftsmen ones are real nice. (The good ones are about $100)

Also: I'd get something that goes higher than 80 lb. ft: lots of stuff on our cars goes greater than that. (Ex: lug nuts should be torqued to 96 lb. ft.)

Also: try not to use adapters (3/8th to 1/2 adapter) or extensions while using a torque wrench, since it will give you an inaccurate measurement of the torque the bolt you tightened is.

And one more thing: NEVER use a torque wrench to loosen things that are real tight. That's what breaker bars are for!

HTH,
-Z.

Granite 944

My suggestion is to buy a good brand name wrench. (This is a sure case of "you get what you pay for"). And once you get it, treat it like the precision tool it IS. Don't use it for anything but torque up, don't throw it around, and drop it on the floor, use it as a breaker bar, and on and on as common sense should say. I also aggree that a clicker head (break away head) wrench is the way to go. Most important, as was said above, when done using it, and when putting away for storage, make SURE you unscrew/turn down the torque setting on the wrench. (if stored for extended periods above about 20ft lbs on the wrench, the spring inside it will slowly retain some of this compression (memory) and thus lose its reliability, needing to be recalibrated sooner.(True for every quality of wrench). Your eventually gonna want to get a couple of different ranges of wrenches. Remember, the front pulley is about 155 ft lbs?
Have fun!

Manning

The Craftsmen wrenches are fair at best and remember they don't carry the lifetime warranty that the rest of the Craftsmen wrenches and such carry.

Lonely Raven

I didn't realize the Craftsmen didn't carry the warranty on the Torque
Wrenches...that makes me want to bypass them.

Dave H.

i've had these two snap-ons for about 10 years. worth the money:

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/pro_d...re&dir=catalog

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/pro_d...re&dir=catalog

dgz924s

Raven....There is one for sale here in DM would you like the ph#? Snap-On 1/2" 75.00 Dal