brightspark
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- yarm stockton on tees
its hardly critical on wheelnuts if u have half an ounce of savvy but wouldnt want u building an engine for me without one infact u build my own so no chance of that happening
After 50yrs of experience I would think that I have 'the feel' I very rarely use a torque wrench for most spannering jobs apart from fasteners that need accurately checking, but I could not tell you accurately what I have put on a fastening and I would defy any body to torque up stretch bolts with out a degree gauge because some do not actually get any tighter by an increasing torque figure. So I think to make a statement that you can accurately tighten something just with a breaker bar is flawed.You can "feel" torque with experience.
How can you state that ?? mine is accurate i know coz I check it, when rallying we always torque to the same figure every service and can always tell if the driver has fitted a wheel and to which corner with the X brace out of the car, because it takes more undoing, with the gun.ye typical torque wrench that you use for them ain't that accurate.
The main problem with overtightening is damage to the studs and it might not show its ugly head untill under stress ie when the car is cornering or breaking hard in an emergency maybe in a big compression or clipping a kerb etc when you want absolute control, and oh dear who's is that wheel ? at least a loose wheel will give you a warning if you are the least bit mechanically sympathetic !!
some torque wrenches are the same every time, others arn't. the cheeper ones or the overpriced branded up ones. do vary put it on a load cell, cycel it 10 times, then let it off wind it back to the same torque setting and repeat. the results can be supriseing.
if it comes to changeing a wheel on the in a hurry during an event, the actual torque it's tightend to seems to bear littel resembalnce to how tight it ends up. but i'm thinking thats got more to do with some parts been hot.
the other intersting one with overtorqueing wheels, and norm just to define it for you picky ones, i'm not on about a few ft/lbs i'm mean FULL FT. it can make the wheel stick to the hub as it distorts the centerbore of the wheel and crimps it to the hub as the bolts try to pull down through the wheel.
the moral of the story is get your torque wrench calibrated . i had mine done when i was doing a job at cummins diesel
My mate is a manager at a quick fit place, I just laugh now when he goes to QC wheel bolts the guys gun them up then just put the torque wrench on a bolt for him to make it click, I tell him everytime how pointless it is.