24Chromium

I actually got lazy once used the big Snap-On torque wrench as a breaker bar - ONCE - and a fellow track rat came over and scolded me that I was going to ruin the torque wrench this way. A few others have confirmed the same thing to me since, so I follow their advice and only use it one way.

I suppose it's possible that I damaged the torque wrench that day. Maybe that's why my wheels were all loose. However, to me, after looking at all the facts very carefully, I honestly think it had to do with the new wheels. They didn't fit nice and snug against the rotor hat. It was only when I torqued them that they got flush. Maybe it was paint build-up on the wheel hub, or the pin holes, or ...?

TRAKCAR

I was told that the tooltopia bought torque wrench is Bi-something and you can use it as a breaker bar. Again, I am unsure and will test it agains a less abused one when I can.

mooty

i wonder why the nut has so many parts. it should be ONE solid piece of nut that's it.

i also use the toolopia bar as breaker bar. i dont see how it can break when you flip the switch and use it as breaker bar at say 550lb ft. your nut is at 440, so the tool thinks it's torquing the nut in the opposite direction to 550. but it will never reach there, the nut would break lose first. so as far as the tool is concerned it's acting as a torque wrench, no?

Izzone

It only checks torque in one direction, is a breeaker in the other.

make sure you put it in CW and you are fine

savyboy

Exactly

Exactly

Thankfully some people read their tool instructions.

ron_dargenio

That's what she said

24Chromium

Straight from my Snap-On QD Series user guide:

"Do not use a torque wrench to break fasteners loose."

ron_dargenio

Whew, $300 + for a breaker bar! It breaks the torque and the bank

johnr265

By the way, the washer may not be missing. When I first disassembled and greased mine, I couldn't find the washer either. Turned out it was tightly adherent to the inside of the nut and I had to carefully pry it off with a micro screwdriver.

savyboy

Does your tool flip to go both ways?

jenk12m

Well why does the torque wrench have a CW and CCW then?

TRAKCAR

What washer are we talking about? How do you lose it?

It has CW and CCW??
What's that mean? I just always keep the Nm indicator thing to the outside of the car, but don't change anything to break it loose. After all once you torque, you are supposed to loosen them and then re-torque, I just flip the switch and break loose, flip switch and torque.
Same thing taking braking the bolts loose after driving. takes more force, but that's it.

24Chromium

Update on my torque (or lack thereof)!

I took one wheel (in the passenger seat - it was hillarious!) down to BR Racing to have them check over the wheel and CL nut to help figure out what happened to me. Was it the missing washer? Was it something with the locking mechanism? Or, was it something with the wheel?

Brian, a master tech there who actually works as a pit crew member for the GMG team on race weekends, pointed out the obvious. The wheel was brand new and painted via powder coating. The CL nut mating surfaces on the wheel were not masked (they should be in my opinion) and instead were painted. Despite the fact that I torqued them to 600 NM, the paint liquified when the wheels got hot on track, and therefore, significantly reduced the torque. The paint actually squeezed out to the inner and outer extremes of the wheel's cone surface. This is why the CL nut's cone stuck to my wheel when I went to take it off. The paint solidified when it cooled and stuck to the nut.

Lesson learned: always re-torque brand new wheels. He suggested doing it once at 50 miles and another at 100 miles.

I am going to replace the missing washer. And check the rest of the nuts to see if any of those are missing too.

24Chromium

Pete, see page 5 of this thread, post #75. It's shown in an exploded view of the CL nut.

24Chromium

CW = clockwise (righty tighty!)

CCW = counter clockwise (lefty loosey!)

As you said, it takes more force to loosen. I think this is exactly why the SnapOn manual says not to break loose a fastener with the torque wrench. In theory, you should be able to, provided you turn up the torque well beyond the setting you used to get the fastener on in the first place. In other words, I put on the nut at 600 NM. To use the torque wrench to loosen it, I SHOULD be able to crank up the torque setting to, say, 700 NM and loosen it, with no damage to the torque wrench. But, this is obviously not what my manual states, so caveat emptor! That damn wrench cost me about $800, so I'm damn sure not going to ruin it because I'm too lazy to use a breaker bar I already have with me!