Torque Wrench

[presquevu]

Hiya,

I am pretty new to biking and want to have a go a tinkering this weekend with the YBR, planning on doing an oil change and also want to take out the spark plug to inspect it.

The manual says I need to tighten these two bolts with a torque wrench, I guess this is not just a suggestion and I have to go buy one right?

With that in mind should I go for one of the cheap ones? Don't mind spending £20 or so but the cheapest on I can see on the Halfords site is £70! The ones on the Machine Mart site cost more!

Can anybody recommend a cheap one, or do I have to stump up the cash?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, want to have a go at servicing the bike but could do without bits falling off coz I brought some dodgy gear down the market

[crazymotorbik...]

Hey,
I bought a challenge one many moons ago from argos. Cheap as chips and mine has kept in cal.....Checked using a calibrated acratork.
Cheers,
Shaun.

[presquevu]

Cheers, didn't even think to check argos

Is still for sale @ £23, has some good customer reviews on there as well. Will likely go with this one, save myself 40 odd quid

https://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7403813.htm

[hazza]

I got one last week from machine mart for 17 quid....
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[Hockeystorm65]

...you do not NEED a torque wrench to remove and replace the spark plug and the oil sump drainer. However, a torque wrench is a useful thing to have in the tool kit anyway for those repairs where you end up entering more sensitive territory.
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Good judgement comes from experience.....experience comes from bad judgement!

[Teflon-Mike]

OK, for general servicing, a torque wrench isn't really essential.
Good old fasioned spanners are sized so that the size of the spanners 'lever' is about right to put the usual fastening torque on the sized bolt head it grips with comfy hand pressure.
Why bigger spanners are longer, smaller ones shorter, right?
AND, old fasioned spanners, give very direct grip and 'feel' of how a bolt or but is fastening.
IE: old fasioned mechanics use spanners, and develop a 'feel' for how tight stuff should be.

Then we get to 'critical' fastenings.... these are the ones where the torque pressure needs to be set more accurately than just by 'feel'.

Most common 'critical' fastenings used to be cylinder heard bolts on engines.

Usually needed to be very tight to keep the top of the engine on under pressure, but also, need to ALL be set to the same torque, very closely to stop the head warping or flexing and the gasket failing.

Which I mention, becouse MOST torque wrenches are still usually HIGH RANGE Torque wrenches for things like cylinder head bolts.

IMPORTANT BIT:
[img]Other useful purpose for a torque wrench is to avoid putting TOO much torque on a fastener, and stripping threads.[/img]

In these days of aluminium engines and cheap decent quality socket sets, VERY easy to not develop a feel for fasteners.

In my youth, DIY socket sets tended to be pretty dire and cheap sockets would split before you did much harm on an old iron engine... these days sockets are a lot better, and engines a lot softer, and modern mechanics reaching straight for the leggo set sockets (Oh fancy tools, touchy feelie, clippy rattly, play time tool box) rather than spanners, with less feel through the ratchet, and ability to put a LOT of force on a small fastener.... things get stripped!

For THESE kind of jobs, LOW RANGE torque wrenches are VERY VERY useful.....

And probably what you REALLY need.

Go buy a 'Torque Wrench', and chances are what you'll be sold is a high range one, that goes from around 40Nm to about 180 or so. For a spark plug, sump plug and the odd M6 casing screw, you probably need a range something like 0 to 40Nm.

Laser Torque Wrench - 5-25Nm ¼" Drive £40
Is one of the few low range torque wrenches on the market, available at screwfix & Machine mart

Clarke CHT674 Torque Wrench 5 – 25Nm £20
From Machine mart, is what I got a week or so ago... because its half the price! And does the job. thogh only goes up to 25Nm where my 'big' wrench starts at 40, so I have a gap... but hey, I'll live with it!

This may be worth a thought, if it is JUST to do low torque fastenings, and you want that bit of peace of mind.... which for newbie mechanic, is GOOD.... better to learn how to do it 'right' and avoid stripping threads, than the hard way.... having to deal with sheared studs and stripped threads!

BIT of ADVICE Torque Wrenches are NOT 'fancy' Ratchets... seen people weilding them as undoie tools far too often.... they are a calibrated measuring instrument.

You use a Torque Wrench AFTER doing up your fastener 'lightly' to close to the correct torque by hand and feel,. and then merely use the Torque wrench to 'SET' the final tightness.

Use a Torque wrench like this and even a 'cheap' one can last a life time. (or near enough!)

Other thing is with 'cartridge' Torque wrenches, with vernier scale, they have a spring in the handle that sets the 'crack off pressure' when the headf snaps to let you know you have reached torque...

When you have 'done' using your wrench ALWAYS wind the setting screw all the way out, and just 'off' the scale to take pressure off the spring to stop it relaxing while its not in use.

Do THAT and again, even cheap torque wrench can last decades.

As for accuracy? Expensive ones are great, and they can be really nice to use, and stuff, but, effoff expensive for amount of use they will often get.

I'm a pretty enthusiastic DIY mechanic, my Torque wrench doesn't come out all that often.

BUT accuracy is often not AS important as consistency.. main reason for using one is normally to avoid over tightening fastenings, and to get an even holding pressure on an array of fastenings, like a cylinder head bolt patern or around a casing, where withing a few Nm actual setting doesn't matter as long as ALL the fastenings in the array are within a small % or each other.
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[DrDonnyBrago]

[Codemonkey]

[Rogerborg]

Y'all from the future?

I have a beam torque wrench which I've used maybe half a dozen times over the past 20 years.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Torque_wrench_reading_view_0688.jpg/220px-Torque_wrench_reading_view_0688.jpg

I used it to develop some mechanical sympathy, rather than trusting to one of those new fangled clicky ones - I've heard too many stories of people saying "I set the torque wrench to the recommended value but the bolt still sheared!"
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[presquevu]

[Teflon-Mike]

[stinkwheel]

I have never used a torque wrench for a sparkplug.

If they have a compression washer (which almost all do) and you're using a new plug, it's finger-tight plus one quarter turn. No more.
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