| Toque
Wrenehes
A torque wrench, shown in Figure 2-10, is designed to tighten
a nut, bolt,' screw to an exact degree. A torque wrench is
extremely handy because, i~ you become familiar with a job,
you always run the risk of undertightenid overtightening things.
If
you're replacing a spark plug and you don't tighten it enough,
it will wo itself loose and fail to deliver a spark. If you
overtighten a spark plug, you strip the threads or crack the
plug. Similarly, parts that have gaskets can if the bolts
that hold them aren't tightened enough. But if you overtighten
same bolts, the gaskets will be crushed, causing the fluid
to leak anyway.
Most
really good torque wrenches are expensive, but a cheaper one
is goi enough to serve your purposes. If you'd rather not
spend the money unti: you're sure that you're really going
to like working on your car, borrow a torque wrench just to
get the feel of how tight a nut, bolt, or other part should
be. Or you can just forget the whole thing. I've never used
a torqu, wrench; my set of socket wrenches accomplished everything
quite well ft the work in this book. If you are planning to
buy a torque wrench, get one with a slim profile, because
torque wrenches are bulky anyway and often don't fit into
tight places.
If
you use a torque wrench, keep the following in mind:
? Grip a torque wrench well down
the shaft (not up close to the dial) and operate
it smoothly.
? Tighten a series of nuts or bolts in a sequence that
distributes the pres¬sure evenly, instead of in strict
clockwise or counterclockwise order.
? When tightening a series of bolts,
tighten them all just until they're snug. Then
go back and tighten them all a bit more. Then go back and
tighten them all the way to the torque specifications. Doing
so ensures that the entire part you're tightening is under
even pressure, prevents leaky gaskets, and increases the life
of the bolt and the part. This and the pre¬ceding tips
are good to follow when you're using any kind of wrench to
tighten anything.
? Before using a torque wrench,
make sure that the nut or bolt turns freely so that the torque
wrench gets a true reading of the proper nut tightness.
You can use a lubricant such as WD-40 on the threads and run
the nut up and down a few times to free it before using the
torque wrench on it.
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