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Old 01-19-08, 09:38 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Candia, NH
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Re: impact wrench question


How much torque it will take to remove is anyone's guess since many things can affect it.

Overall I'm rather disappointed in the performance of 1/2" electric impact wrenches. There are a number out there that claim to have around 240 lb-ft of torque for under $100 which can't even break loose a lug nut. Dewalt makes one with that torque specification in the $160 range that also doesn't perform well with stubborn nuts.

There are 2 that I can somewhat recommend. One is a heavy duty version of the Dewalt I mentioned above. It claims to make 325 lb-ft of torque and managed to break loose the lug nuts on my car but it still struggled for a bit before they moved. Milwaukee makes one with a claimed 300 lb-ft and it performed similarly to the heavy duty Dewalt (removed lug nuts but struggled at first). Both of these wrenches are over $200.

Makita makes a model rated in the 260ish lb-ft range for a little under $200 but I had given up on electric wrenches before I tried it.

I have pneumatic tools but I wanted an electric wrench for when I needed to quickly break something loose and didn't want to fire up the compressor. Every one of the sub $100 wrenches were useless for everything except for driving large lag bolts. The over than $200 ones worked OK but the fact that they were working hard just to remove a lug nut really irritated me so I returned them. Not including the price of the compressor, my $150 pneumatic impact wrench is at least twice as powerful as the best of the electrics that I tried.

If your clutch basket nut is even slightly stubborn, I can promise you that the cheap electrics will not loosen it. The expensive ones probably will but for only a little more money you could buy a decent compressor and pneumatic gun which will make you a lot happier in the long run.
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