Torque Question? Help an old altar girl?

Alas, she lives. Where have you been hiding CyberPriusII? Long time no see 'um around the WWW --- At least long time da Catgic no see 'um.

I am sure one of the Motorheads on this forum will be glad to help a damsel in torque wrench distress.

My condolences to you on your choice of an Oregon residence where the gov't is punishing your Petrol-Conserving Prius via picking pennies from your Penny Pincher Purse.

You are correct. There technically are no and never were any Altar Girls. Post-Vatican II these functionaries are called "Altar Servers." However, Altar Boys did exist. "Alter Boys" is a Pre-Vatican II (1962) term that was used when this testosterone-fueled, budding "Saint Joseph" assisted in celebrating the all in Latin, and only in Latin Mass.

FWIW FYI: Today, March 19th, is my name’s day.

 

Torque wrenches are generally designed to cover ranges (from inch-pounds to foot-pounds).
When the spec calls for lower ranges, I'd use one calibrated in inch-pounds. Heavier work (larger bolts/nuts) require much more torque. A wrench covering that range will be calibrated in foot-pounds.

 

Hi Cyberprius. Usually inch pounds are used where lower torque settings are required, because it's a smaller unit. It's the same reason that you might prefer to use inches for measuring something that's small, but feet or yards or miles for something much bigger.

There are exceptions, I have seen people specify torque settings of 300 inch-pounds and higher, but usually it's lower settings like under 120 inch-pounds (10 foot pounds) that often get quoted in this unit. Of course the conversion is easy enough, divide or multiply by 12, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Probably the most important aspect of whether or not your torque wrench can handle inch-pounds is not the unit itself (as times 12 is easy enough), but rather that a wrench calibrated in inch pounds is more likely to be accurate down to lower torque settings. All torque wrenches have a minimum setting, below which they are not accurate. My 1/2" drive wrench for example is only rated down to 10 ft-pounds, and I've seen some that are only rated down to a minimum of 20 foot pounds. So a wrench like this is going to be no good for smaller bolts with lower torque settings. So personally I wouldn't worry so much about what units it's calibrated in, but rather you should look at the maximum and minimum torque that the wrench is capable of.

 

Yeah that's basically it. You want a big one for things like wheels nuts an tensioning heads (though hopefully you wont need to do that). But you really need a small one if you want to use it on things under about 10 to 15 ft-lbs.

Personally I've never bothered to get a smaller one because I usually trust myself to guesstimate those smaller ones. I definitely don't bother with a tension wrench on mundane things like a the sump plug. Actually I think the only things I've use mine for are the wheel nuts and the one time that I had to do a head gasket in my previous car. When I change my spark plugs I might use it though. This is where a "baby" one could be handy, from memory the spec is only 13 ft-lbs.

How so. Have you been trying to calculate how much torque was needed to make Linda Blair's head spin around or something?

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People mostly use torque wrenches to avoid over-tightening fasteners, so you may want to avoid using German Torque specs (Goodentight) and Irish whiskey when tightening things.

 

To help you understand the units thing, it's the product of force times the lever length.
As an example, 15 inch pounds (or lb-inches, it's commutative) is the torque (twist) you'd get with a pound of force applied to a lever 15 inches long. 60 foot lbs is (for instance) the torque from 40 lbs pushing at a distance (or lever length) of 1.5 ft. You would get the same torque with 30 lbs and 2 ft or 10 lbs at 6 feet (but it makes for a bulky wrench).