OEM Manual Torque Spec Question

1RB2534 said:

Point taken (lol), no matter what the formula or how it's written, if JoJo can get back where he once belonged it's a done deal. Bottom line if ax^2 + bx + c = 0 then whether it's a caret or raised mini 2, I guess it's all academic. But sometimes disconcerting to old farts who left their home in Tucson Arizona for some California grass. Get back JoJo.



Well there you go, confirmation that Ronno was in fact trying to enlighten me to some in depth history. I had never seen that nomenclature before in all my days. Who says you can't teach an old man (or dog) new tricks.

So when I put a barbell weight on a digital scale and record it's actual weight. And then set my old Torque wrench to this weight in ft lbs (err I mean ft lbs * Force). And then hang said weight from the end of said Torque wrench handle that's inserted into a welded stationary socket. I can verify if (or if not) my old Torque wrench is still in proper calibration. I thank you guys again for keeping me calibrated. Happy wrench turning.

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You have arrived, but only by taking the long and winding road...........

Ronno6 said:

You have arrived, but only by taking the long and winding road...........

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Lol, you laid the ft lbs on me there. But then as I get older it's just more about trying to stay on the road, as it's been long and winding for some time. We may stab it with our steely knives but we just can't kill the beast.

bertsmobile1 said:

That is not far off how they are in fact calibrated
Don't forget the "foot" bit, very few torque wrenches are 1' long so your x pounds needs to be hung at 1' from the centre of the square

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bertsmobile1 yes on that or else do length conversion calc if the handle fits the rope better. But as usual you bring up a very good point and sometimes back when I still drank beer I'd sit staring at the sun set wondering whether the wrench builder designed spring pulls inside to accommodate a length conversion calc so even a longer wrench would still be pulling the same lb force at the handle that matched the base ft lb unit premise. But I surmise your summation is the correct one.

Granted they could design the spring any way they wanted, but then if they did, like you say they'd have to let it be known so any calibrator down the road would know where to measure the force. And that would be causing a standard chaos of such. But then some electrical engineers will design entire jobs with position and negative reversed from the direction of electron flow. And really it doesn't matter until you are removing battery cables. But admittedly that's a bit different.

Now I have a tendency to ramble too much so in my previous post I did not elaborate that I would have had to do a few more steps beyond seeing if the clicker clicked when hanging a weight matching the wrench setting on the handle (at 12" as bert illuminated). That only would tell me if said weight clicks the wrench at the matching setting.

I then would have to step the setting (Edit->) Up (not down) say 3 lbs at a time (or 6 lbs for an old wrench I did not have much faith in) and see if it also clicked then. Once I reached a setting that did not click, I would then need to step the wrench setting back (Edit-> Down (not up) 1 lb at a time till it clicked again to see what Y lb setting the wrench was actually clicking at for the physical X lb weight hanging on the handle.
(Edit-> if you had enough increments of weights you could step the weight down intead. Sorry for the sloppy error I was a bit tired last night when typing this)

Most torque wrenches I've used all differ a few lbs +- it just a matter of being aware this. But of course you don't want to use one that very far off. It costs so much now days for a private person to get a T. Wrench calibrated that many folks do like me. They buy cheap T. Wrenches and test them as soon as the bring um home. If they are way off take um back.

I have a pretty good mid range one that I treat with tender loving care that I paid $150 from Sears. It's a Cadillac and operates so smooth. It's very close to dead on and I use it as my base comparison. But even it will need to be checked over time or if God forbid I dropped it. I always store them at 6 lbs. Some specs say Zero others say 10 lbs, so I store all mine at 6 lbs cause I don't like getting near zero, it's too easy when grabbing it to go past zero.

I have another one for inch lbs and another for very high ft lbs. Of course I don't really use um much anymore since I sold my motorcycle and my old truck. On most lawn mower items I can generally just read the book setting and know pretty much how much to pull with any given length wrench. You might chide me on that but that's the way I've always done it on lawn engines and even some stuff on bikes and trucks. I ALWAYS torque head bolts in proper rotation no matter what it is. Or critical things like axle bolts or handle bar controls. Some folks don't inch pound those handle controls on their Harleys, and they laughed when they heard I did. But they wouldn't laugh if they had them come loose while they were riding.

1RB2534 said:

Lol, you laid the ft lbs on me there. But then as I get older it's just more about trying to stay on the road, as it's been long and winding for some time. We may stab it with our steely knives but we just can't kill the beast.

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Well, you know, you can check out any time you like.............but, yoiu can never leave....

Ronno6 said:

Well, you know, you can check out any time you like.............but, you can never leave....

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Lol, yea go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall. But it does help to keep our base concept in days when logic and proportion sometimes fall sloppy dead. Looking at history we know sometimes the white knight talks backwards and the Red Queen loses her head. Especially at election times when men on both sides of the chess board get up and tell us this or that or at. Like hookah-smoking caterpillars gone chasing rabbits, and God knows who is going to fall. So I tend to listen with discernment to what every dormouse said. Thanks again for the enlightenment Ronno6 (and Bertsmobile).

BTW I added an edit to my rambling torque wrench check in post 12, which most folks probably didn't read enough to catch. Sorry for the sloppy reverse depiction of setting vs weight change.