Originally Posted by
Dosu
Alright, do those Pittsburgh Professional wrenches go low and high enough for every part of a bike? the 3/8" goes to 5 ft lbs so that should be low enough?
No, 5 ft-lbs is 60 in-lbs and there are many fasteners on a bike that have torque values much less than that. Look at
Park Tool's torque table pdf and you'll see what I mean. It's these low-torque fasteners that most people tend to over-torque in the first place, not to mention that a clicker-type torque wrench is much less accurate at the bottom portion of the scale than at the top. You really shouldn't use the bottom 1/4th of it.
You can probably get away with just the 1/4" and the 3/8" but there are a few things that the 3/8" just isn't high enough to do properly.
Most people, even more experienced mechanics, tend to over-torque small fasteners and under-torque larger ones when not using a torque wrench. It's surprising how LITTLE torque is supposed to be used on small fasteners like M4 and M5.
Even that 1/4" HF torque wrench doesn't go down low enough for some carbon-fiber torque values like on stems and seat-posts. It's like "screw in a light bulb" torque without it breaking and the 1/4" doesn't go down that low.