What lb rating toquie wrench should I buy?

[rockhammer]

What lb rating torque wrench should I buy? I bought one that goes from 120 lbs and up I think it is too much. I checked the book says to have a torque wrench just not the range of torque.

Thanks

 

[JEEPRUSTY]

well the torque values are often expressed in inch pounds so your 120 ft pound behemoth would snap off pretty much all of the fasteners on a bike.

 

[Agemax]

torque values on a GS range from 6.5 lb/ft to 72 lb/ft

 

[Steve]

I have always gone by the general rule that you should not trust the top 25% or the bottom 25% of a torque wrench. For that 120 lb wrench, that means you should only trust values between 30 and 90 lb. There are a LOT of fasteners on a GS that are less than that, including the cylinder head fasteners, which only go to 27.

I have a 3/8" drive clicker that goes to 80 ft/lb and a 1/4" drive clicker that goes to just over 100 in/lb. Yeah, I have a 1/2" drive, too, but it doesn't get used on the GS.

.

 

[Guest]

I use two both clickers are 3/8'' drive one that is a 10' ft.lbs to 100' ft.lbs and one is a 25'' inch lbs to 250'' inch lbs . That way I have covered all my needs. I do have a couple old dial torque wrenches but they haven't left the tool box in a very long time.

 

[cowboyup3371]

I have a 1/4"-drive (inch pounds) clicker, 3/8"-drive (foot pounds) beam, and 1/2"-drive (foot pounds) clicker - the 3/8" drive one gets used the most.

 

[posplayr]

I always use this method for critical torques (head bolts and cam caps). Gives you great confidence even with a HF torque wrench

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showpost.php?p=814483&postcount=2

 

[rockhammer]

Thanks for all the input. I bought a 5-80 lb wrench today.

 

[cableguy]

Don't forget to back off the adjuster until the spring is slack when it's not in use.

 

[silverhorse47]

My spring was slack whether it was in use or not. What should I do to get it back into progressive torquie? I have a vice and know how to use it.

S.

 

[Guest]

I still use an old beam type torque wrench, got two, amazing how accurate they are still. I use to use the method of setting torque by tighten until you squeak it once or twice:-\\\

 

[mawg]

And never use a torque wrench to loosen fasteners. It screws up the calibration.

 

[tkent02]

I saw an electronic torque wrench thing at Harbor Frieght yesterday, like an extention with a digital readout on it. Supposedly tells you how much torque is applied to the extension. You can use it wth any ratchet or breaker bar. Sounds like a great idea to me. Has anyone used this, or maybe used a better non Harbor Frieght version of it?

Other than that, the clickers are fun to use but the beam types stay calibrated for centuries.

 

[Guest]

I've seen these torque extensions you're talking about and did a little research on them. As a possible alternative to an actual torque wrench...back when I was just beginning to work on these old GS bikes. My research indicated that most reviews stated that they are not to be trusted with anything that really needed to be torqued to a really precise amount.

However, several people said that they use them to calibrate their torque wrenches. That you could put it in a vise and use your torque wrench to see if the read out matched your settings on your wrench. But that came with a disclaimer that most of these were anywhere from 2 to 5% off. So it was said if you wanted to get a general idea of how close your torque wrenches were, that these could be used for that. Of course, keeping the 2 to 5% margin of error in mind. Hope my reply makes sense.