I've always wondered........

[JeffL]

Do you think they actually own a torque wrench at Orange County Choppers? For lack of anything better to watch, I'll watch this on Monday nights, and I dont think I've ever seen them use a torque wrench on ANYTHING.

"Half turn before it strips."

[Karaya One]

Well, they are working on farm equipment.

And since they don't do motor work, that glorified assembly shop really only needs a hammer, a pair of vice grips and duct tape.

[benVFR]

Well there stuff is so randomly stuck together I'm guessing the torque wrench might not be all that helpful...

Without an engineer to figure it out for you, how are you supposed to figure out the torque spec for pig iron which has been powder coated and needs to be bolted to custom aluminum which has been chromed and then re-drilled out cause you didn't calculate the sizes correctly, and you're using a soft chrome bolt?

Literally they'd need a different torque spec for every single bolt they do except maybe forks and wheels which they don't seem to build themselves, so the way they are they'd probably just be trashing bolts & threads left and right.

[Tricky Mike]

Originally posted by Karaya One
Well, they are working on farm equipment.

And since they don't do motor work, that glorified assembly shop really only needs a hammer, a pair of vice grips and duct tape.

Yep.
Same goes for Billy Lane. That guy is all hammers and hacksaws. Makes for great drama TV, though.... you know his bike isn't gonna start as the deadline nears.

[ultraTwist]

Yeah, I'll never understand why people are so interested in that stuff, art I guess. At the same time you never see anyone follow the design and manufacturing of say a Volkswagon or Honda or any sport bike, or a router, or a PC or say a missle some thing that's really hard to build. I did see some stuff on the 777 once, never got repeated.

[benVFR]

They've done several VW beetle build ups on some of the shows... Monster garage did a drag racer and there was another (cancelled show) where they had the two teams build competing beetle drag cars.

Very cool, the old VW stuff is pretty neat and satisfyingly different then the standard V-8 American Hot Rod stuff. Hot Rods seem only slightly better then choppers in terms of everyone doing almost the same thing and then just painting it different and attaching different shiny bits.

[rjh200]

One of my recent favorites is on TLC call Wrecks to riches. Where they restore and recreate classic muscle cars and throw in some modern day bits.

[FireFly]

Ive seen paul Jr. use a torque wrench a few times specifically, brakes. Seen Vin use one on drive train apps.

[Stoneman]

In the end though, it all worked out...

[JeffL]

On second thought, its not like these bikes actually get ridden anyways.

[Karaya One]

Originally posted by rjh200
One of my recent favorites is on TLC call Wrecks to riches. Where they restore and recreate classic muscle cars and throw in some modern day bits.

We were watching that show last night with the blue GTO clone. Barry White is the guy, and he does nice work. A muscle car with all modern brakes, suspension, motors, etc.

But - he never keeps them. Just send them off to the auction.