Torque Wrench?

[Keith60]

Any recommendations for a reasonably priced torque wrench for occasional use? 

[tallpaul]

Torqueleader and Norbar are two brands that I trust. Gedore used to be good but the last lot we bought at work keep failing calibration. You pays your money and takes your choice but try to get one that is calibrated. It is a measuring instrument, so a degree of accuracy is needed or you may as well not bother with one. Failing that, Ugga duggas work for most home mechanics...!

[Brockett]

Torque wrenches are devices that encourage the tightening of fixings beyond anything I would have done with a spanner.  Just saying ....

[Rusty Nuts]

 
The longer handle can give rise to the feeling of " that's not very tight, I'll just give it another tweak..oh, bollocks!"
I have two Teng torque wrenches, and always use the smallest one if I can depending on range. But, I've had them years, never had them checked or re-calibrated. No idea how accurate or otherwise they are by now

[Mr Nick]

My 1/2" drive is a Norbar, and I have a cheap 3/8" drive. I seldom use them unless it's something reasonably important that will be tighter than I'd probably be comfortable doing by feel, like cylinder heads.
Impact wrenches/drivers only come out when I'm removing fastenings, or sometimes to spin long threaded ones up on the lowest setting. Even the smallest one I have runs to 170Nm, which is way beyond anything I need to tighten, and the 950Nm one is handy to have available, but seldom ever has to see the light of day: the threat of it is enough to scare things loose.

[sillyboy]

I've got 3. a britool 210nm, a draper50nm and a norbar150?nm. the norbar is never used. the britool is good and the draper3/8" for small stuff.

[STORMY]

I’ve got a couple of Teng torque wrenches, they’re sold with calibration certificates seem well made. My only concern is reading the numbers off in less than perfect light, but that’s because they print everything much smaller these days 

[Mr Nick]

My cheap Chinese one had a calibration certificate as well: I totally believe it...
A friend of mine was shifted to China by his work to help open a new factory and the house they gave him was within smelling distance of a few factories, yet there was an official government certificate of clean air on the wall in the hallway. The locals had been indoctrinated to the point they would not question it.

[hotbulb]

I've a couple of old Williams Superslim wrenches for the bigger stuff -  I've not had them calibrated, but they are, I'm sure, a lot better than guesswork. For the bike I've a 3/8" one from the Halfords Pro range which has a certificate (now out of date, but Hello??). I feel that, as long as they're looked after (kept clean and not battered/abused, and wound back after use) they should be sufficiently accurate for many years in infrequent amateur use.

[Ianmc]

When I was an apprentice in a BMC car garage in the early sixties,(remember BMC ?),everyone used the same torque wrench for everything and it was never checked for calibration, and we never sheared any bolts off that I can remember.Bolt torques are within 10% either way anyway as the conditions of the fasteners can vary so much, as in dry,rusty,oily,greased threads etc.I still have my torque wrenches collected over the years, there are 5 in total ranging from1/4” drive up to 3/4” drive.We used to recondition R.R. Diesels that were in shunting locomotives, on one particular engine the main bearing bolts were tightened to1000ft.lbs.and I had to use a double barrelled 1” drive torque wrench and as I wasn't strong enough to go to 1000 ft.lbs.,I used to turn the engine on its side using the roll over assembly stand and use the overhead crane instead as the torque wrench had a welded on loop just for this purpose.

[fourelms]

Torque wrenches are devices that encourage the tightening of fixings beyond anything I would have done with a spanner.  Just saying ....

I'd be pretty upset if, the Suzuki production line used a suck a tooth approach to building their bikes😉

[Brockett]

Yes but, they are using new and unused nuts bolts and washers on new parts.  unlike me  

As a side note I was looking in the VX800 service book for correct spark plug tightening. No torque figure is given.
The SV handbook reads:- "turn the spark plug by hand, for new plugs, half a turn past finger tight".   "When re-using a plug, one eighth of a turn past finger tight.

[Mr Nick]

Allowing for the sealing washer already being crushed by the additional 3/8ths of a turn on first use. Enough to do the job without arguing about dry threads or with anti-seize.

Suzuki will use calibrated tools as they'd strip too many cheese fasteners otherwise...

[Rusty Nuts]

An eighth of a turn? Right, just to be safe, what's that in degrees and minutes or radians? Shan't sleep soundly until we have a definitive safe answer.

[Brockett]

45 degrees is it ?

[tallpaul]

Yep