Murray Missile 

Over in this thread.... https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...orque-wrenches someone posted a link to some inexpensive Pittsburgh PRO clicker type torque wrenches on eBay. I posted that they looked like some of the brand name wrenches I had dealt with over the years and that I would order one and test it out on my torque analyzer. I ordered the 1/4" wrench as I had a need for an Inch Pound torque wrench. Said wrench arrived today and I tested it as promised. The ads all state it is has an accuracy of +/- 4%. At the wrenches lowest setting, 20 In/Lbs the wrench would repeat within 1 In/Lb which is 5%, this is an acceptable variation, considering how low a torque this is it's actually quite good. I tested it at 10 In/Lb increments up to its upper limit of 200 In/Lbs and found it to be repeatable within 2% from 30 to 190 In/Lbs and within the advertised 4% at 200. Folks, that ain't too shabby, especially for a $20 torque wrench. YMMV but if you're looking for an inexpensive clicker for home/hobby use they may just be a good deal.

zvez

Exc! thanks for taking the time to test it out and post the results. That's pretty good accuracy for $20!!

Murray Missile 

No problem, I needed one anyway and had the equipment. I was pleasantly surprised, I honestly expected to end up with a really heavy 1/4" drive long handle ratchet and not much else. The ratchet head even feels decent.

Wanderer

And, if you watch the sales at Harbor Freight, it can be had for 10 bucks....

HillRider

Being from Pittsburgh, it's nice to know that at least one of our namesake tools is pretty good.

Retro Grouch 

20 in/lbs at the lowest setting! Will that work for bicycle use?

himespau 

Good to know it works. I'd picked one up a while back and always wondered how accurate it was.

SBinNYC

Accuracy is expressed as a percentage. The question is a percentage of what? While you might think it's a percentage of the reading, it is often a percentage of full scale. There's no explanation of how they are calculating accuracy for this wrench. I'd assume it's based on full scale, which makes the accuracy seem a lot better than it actually is. In this case the full scale is 200 in-lb, so the 4% accuracy means each reading is good to +/- 8 in-lb.

Looigi

FWIW: It's pretty straightforward to rig up a lever arm and use a known good scale (like a fish scale) to check the calibration of a torque wrench. It's good to do when you buy one, particularly and inexpensive one, and something you might do periodically. Of course you can also use the fish scale and a wrench to torque something which you can't get to or fit with your torque wrench.

themishmosh

If you get a working one... great. Many are getting these and they are flat out not clicking. I learned the hard way when a bolt head sheared off as I was torquing it down. Found out that mine doesn't make any click whatsoever--so make sure you test it out first on something unimportant.

Also make sure you store these clicker torque wrenches in the lowest setting--there is a spring inside the handle that gets compressed the higher the torque setting.

zvez

20 in/lbs is about 2.2nM so that should work on a bike, it looks like on my roubaix 5nM is about the lowest of my fasteners.

GeorgeBMac

+1
... and all my bikes are triples as well... (3x7, 9, 10)

Murray Missile 

The smaller wrenches do not have a distinct "click" like the larger wrenches, it is pretty soft and requires a light touch and it's easy to miss it if you aren't familiar with it. You are correct though, try it out on something like bolt clamped in a vice to make sure it is actually working AND to get a feel for the wrench. I've found the "soft" click to be true of even expensive wrenches. It's also a good idea to take 2 or 3 "warm up" pulls on a static bolt before applying torque to the actual fastener, I'm not sure of the science behind it but I've seen the difference on the torque analyzer when testing wrenches. We always did 3 static pulls before doing the actual test and recording the results.

I always believed this too but in working with scores of adjustable wrenches over a 15 year period that were locked on a single setting for years on end I rarely found one that was off when reset for a different torque. The ones that were "off" almost always showed signs of heavy usage and abuse. They were used as breaker bars, pry bars, hammers, etc. I do still reset mine before storing them, years of habit, but if you forget don't panic that you've ruined your wrench even if it's been like that for years. The probability is high that it's just fine.

One of the reasons it is recommended to not use a torque wrench at the extreme ends of the scale. The accepted variation for torque wrenches in the automotive, ag and heavy equipment industries is usually +/- 5% of the scale reading. With some exceptions for sensitive or critical applications most of their assembly torque specs are +/- 10%. I found my particular wrench to be well within the claimed 4% and closer to 2% of the scale reading, that's based on 3 pulls at each setting.

anga

From https://www.cditorque.com/education.html
Here is the response to my request for clarification.

Murray Missile 

^ Thanks! I just knew you were supposed to do that but didn't remember why.

JBC353

Great info, thanks.

cradom

I bought one from ebay too and received it tuesday. It seems to click file, however the rivet(?) that holds the head in kept falling out and the head would come out. Banging on it didn't seem to help so I just super-glued it in (the rivet, not the head). Don't know why they use 2 piece rivets anyway and not a split pin.

Murray Missile 

The ratchet assembly has to be free to float in the main body but a split roll pin would still allow that. Probably used these for cosmetics or to discourage disassembly by the curious, that never stopped me LOL. Mine seems secure but I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks.

dwmckee

Pittsburgh Tools is just a brand; these are made in and imported from China...

easyupbug 

I maligned these tools from HF (China) on this board due to my neighbor have gotten terrible accuracy out of the three he tried. As the store owner suggested when he got in a new batch and Bryan got one of those all is now well. For a few months now it has remain as accurate and repeatable as any I have seen, within 4% down to very low settings. Hard to read with these old eyes but it does the job and if it holds up for $10 on sale it is a steal.

Murray Missile 

Probably from a different supplier, that is one problem with stuff like this. What you buy today may be very different from what they sold 6 months ago or will sell 6 months from now. Definitely a gamble.

I've also run into situations where high dollar name brand stuff turned out to be repackaged no name items. For example, Chevy aftermarket HEI distributors, I bought one for $45 brand new off eBay, no brand name on the box. A friend paid $180 for an MSD (big name high performance ignition supplier) distributor that looked exactly the same. We put them side by side and examined them VERY closely. We even went so far as to disassemble them and examine the hidden components. Except for the label on his they were virtually identical right down to the mold and tooling marks on the components, the wiring harnesses were routed and bundled exactly the same and the ink stamped part numbers on the electronic components were identical right down to a void in one of the numbers. He was NOT a happy camper. You don't always get what you pay for....

easyupbug 

Now that you say that I don't remember the first wrenches he went through to be hard to read in anything but good light, and did think they did not feel as robust.

Kimmo

Hah, get this - inspired by this thread, I do a worldwide search on Ebay for 1/4" torque wrenches, and the cheapest one that comes up is local pick-up only - and the guy's in my suburb!

I need some of that luck in my hunt for a badass 1" fork.