Whats the best impact wrench for puttin on wheels?

[spills1969]

I just got a job at a local chevy dealer (forgive me ), and I gotta buy all my tools. So I was wonderin how many ft-lbs of torque I shud wanna get out of an impact wrench to mainly to be puttin on wheels. Any suggestions?

[Nick]

snap-on/mac

and don't forget the assortment of torque bar, wheels arent on as tight at you'd think, you can strip the lugs if you overtighen

[Deep]

Originally posted by Oldman
snap-on/mac

and don't forget the assortment of torque bar, wheels arent on as tight at you'd think, you can strip the lugs if you overtighen

Super nice, but expensive.

[spills1969]

Snap On's outta the question. The Snap On guy comes by every Monday and the one I want is over $700, and I found one in the Northern catalog for 200. But does anyone know about how many ft-lbs are needed? Just so I can get an impact wrench and set it at about max torque and not worry about stripping the bolts, and enuf so they wont come off.

BTW: Anyone heard of Ingersoll Randal? Thats the brand Im lookin at gettin for now; impact wrench, air ratchet, blower, impact sockets, etc...

[Eye8Pussies]

damn....you have to buy your own tools??

[Deep]

You didn't know that man? I worked as a service advisor for a while and there were guys in the shop that had over 10G in tools. They'd been around for ages but it adds up, a nice Snap-on toolbox is like 4G, a nice set of air tools is another 3G.

Spills, if you don't need somthing too serious, then shop for a gun that has a good warranty. We have a store called Canadian Tire in Canada that offers lifetime warranties on their 'professional grade tools' some of them are shit but they still come with a kickass warranty, if it breaks, return it for a new one.

[TRDragoon]

my advice, you can get any kind of impact gun, at your own risk....a really nice one will cost your $450....

but for tightening wheels, you better get a torque bar (80 ft/lb) youshould get one from snapon, cuz i thought they'd never snap......one guy snapped it just 2 days ago at our shop...you do not use torque bar to loosen bolts

if you use impact gun, you can over tighten and damage the nuts...and you would hafto replace it with your own money for the customer.

Torque bar is way to go!

to keep in mind, any tools you use daily like in toyota's case, 10mm,12mm,14mm wrench, Torque bar(21mm), flathead and philip screw driver, yous hould get them in snap on....cheap brands strips really easily and too much hassle to go back for warrenty...

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Eye8Pussies
damn....you have to buy your own tools??

At Circuit City, installers must do the same.

Personally I'm a fan of Craftsman tools, but I don't personally own any. Lifetime guarantees are certainly nice. Snap-on is also very nice. A lot of guys at work use Snap-on.

Funny thing is, I never heard of Snap-on until I played Auto Modellista.

[Nick]

a 100$ electric impact can put out as much torque as some of the best air impacts, they just weigh much more

[88 LE]

Originally posted by spills1969
BTW: Anyone heard of Ingersoll Randal? Thats the brand Im lookin at gettin for now; impact wrench, air ratchet, blower, impact sockets, etc...

I have a Ingersoll Rand 1/2" drive impact wrench. Works fine for me.

Taking lugnuts off with a impact wrench is fine, but for putting them back on you want to use a torque wrench.

[Nick]

or an impact torque bar

[arcasmachineracing]

Originally posted by Oldman
or an impact torque bar

Yeah, either way would work, (88LEs suggestion) but in this case, I am thinking that you would need to go with the impact torque bar, due to the time a hand-powered-torque-wrench is gonna take you. Duh. :p

Anyways, yeah, ever though about going electric, fauckin rally style baby, no pnumatic lines in your way, and a set of 18v battery packs sitting around on chargers and your set! :p

[88 LE]

Originally posted by Oldman
or an impact torque bar

Something like this?

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/pro_d...re&dir=catalog

[Nick]

yup, there's about 10 of them all different colours for different torque spec and lug nut size

there's a nice little chart too that you can put up on the wall to see what make/model takes which bar

[Wraith]

you never suppose to use a impact when you put on your wheels... Use a torque wrench.

"The best racing cars in the world are made by hand "