Not the usual sort - but one for a car. Designed to remove stubborn wheel nuts, etc. Max torque 250 ft.lb. 1/2" square drive. Reversible. Runs off the car battery or other 12 volt DC source capable of 100 watts. Costs 20 quid from Maplin.
It's a large heavy and robust tool. Makes you wonder why the cordless ones are so much more expensive. Like about 15 times the price.
Batterie sare about 15 times more than the motor?
And it is probably shit quality - should I mention (probably only a bit less completely rubbish) ryobi impact drivers being available for about the price of a cheap battery or two more than that?
My cordless impact driver cost about a fiver - you whacked it with a hammer. That was ca. 30 years ago.
What is wrong with a telescopic wheel wrench for £6.
Adam
In message , ARWadworth wrote
Have you ever had to use an impact driver (the one you hit with a lump hammer) when everything else sensible has failed? Those telescopic wheel wrenches would bend long before the nut moves :)
With 1/2" square drive and 250 ft.lb torque? Where?
It's not the same thing. This driver with suitable bits can be used for undoing those awkward screws like the cross head ones holding on door hinges etc. That you'd have used a hammer and impact driver for before. Which I do have but never liked the inward force the action of hitting with a heavy hammer produced.
Almost, I watched the mechanic do it. If the people who changed your tyres put the nuts back on to using the correct torque settings instead of just hammering them on with an air gun you would not need either.
Adam
Kwik Fit have stopped using air guns & now use torque wrenches.
They shure do. I watched them while waiting for a puncture to be repaired. The guy didn't look at the setting when going to another car...
The torque setting on my car is 110 ft.lb. I defy a slightly built person to undo that with the supplied wheelbrace.
years ago when my dad ran a garage workshop, he had a set of sockets for doing up wheel nuts with air guns. There was a set of 5-6 of the things, different colours and all about 6 inches long. Each colour was a different torque setting and I seem to remember they were bloody expensive.
We were rather sceptical at first but after testing them with a real torque wrench they were amazingly accurate. They seemed to work by having a certain amount of twist in the long, thin shaft.
Never seen them since...Dad still has his set and they still work perfectly
Darren
Ah, bad form following up myself I know...
Darren
B&Q sell a 14.4v Impact Driver for £39
Did they slip? If they do not, then anyone can overtighten them.
Trouble with all these things - including a torque wrench - is that it requires the operator to look up the setting. Which 99% won't bother to do.
I presume they work by the thickness of the long shaft absorbs the rotational force of the air wrench at specified torque. releasing it back to the wrench between impact blows or something.
No, they have a slipping clutch, for want of a better word. I used to use them on aircraft some time ago.
As an aside, I was having a wheel looked at a few years ago and it had to be refitted after examination. To my horror, the young lad used an air driven impact gun to tighten the wheel nuts and then got a torque loader, supposedly to check they were tight enough. To my horror, each nut he used it on, the nut did not revolve and the torque loader just clicked. Needles to say, I got those nuts checked when I got home
Dave
When I last used KwikFit (I now use an independent), they used a cordless (rather than an air-driven) 'impact' wrench to remove the wheel nuts (screws, technically!) and to initially replace them (followed by a manual torque wrench). I'd have thought that cordless things would be more prone to being nicked (the way they're left lying about).
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