Torque Wrench & Wheel Stud

[MiniGT5]

Hey Guys,

After snapping my wheel stud back in september I am now looking at getting a torque wrench. There seems to be two common types as follows: -

1/2" Drive. Marked range: 40-210 Nm / 30-154 lb-ft. Overall length 475 mm. (Aprox £30)

3/4" Drive. Marked range: 70-395 Nm / 51,6 - 395 lb-ft. Overall length 670 mm. (Aprox £110)

Question is what reange do I need for wheel studs and any other settings e.g. cyl head etc.

Also does anyone know the length of a wheel stud for a standard spacered drum so I can get a replacment before I strip it down.

Cheers
Neil

[Stephen]

I would recommend the Halfords medium torque wrench (with a trade card anyway). Half inch drive and useful for evrything but the little bits. So torqing down head bolts, wheel nuts etc that will be fine

[mccarefree]

Hi Neil,

I found that I couldn't get by with one wrench; you just can't cover all torques accurately. If it helps, I bought a CeKa Tools 42-210 Nm for the heavy stuff (It will do everything apart from front hub nuts, but lets be honest, that's pretty well a job for a scaffold pole until the hole lines up!). It's a 1/2" drive but came with a 1/2"->3/8" adaptor and a short extension bar. For the lightweight work, I picked up a Draper 10-80 Nm with a 3/8" drive. That will actually back off to less than 5, so you can even use it for rocker box nuts. Remember to ALWAYS back of the tension as soon as you've finished using it. Good luck. M

[Simon1275mpi]

1/2" Drive. Marked range: 40-210 Nm / 30-154 lb-ft. Will do all the jobs on the mini, bit push on the gearbox mainshaft nut though...

The larger one starting at 70Nm... the mini wheel nuts are only done upto 54Nm ish.

As with Martin, I've a smaller wrench for the timing chain cover and other little jobs.

Cant help with the stud length, better safe than sorry and measure you unbroken ones :-)

[MiniHaven]

yes totally agree with macrefree ALLWAYS undoo the torque setting to the lowest number after you use it , if this simple rule is not observed the tool will become uncallibrated and useless , this will mean you will be torqueing up to an unspecified un measureable torque which could mean using a car with the possiblities of the wheels falling off or over tightening the wheel studs and snapping them .
It is one of the most broken of the simple tooling rules out there , ive even seen tyre speciallists do it wrong !!!!

[MiniGT5]

Cheers guys.

I think I'll be going for the smaller one then

N