That Tuesday in Tulsa where every torque wrench lied to me

Last Tuesday I was doing a routine brake job on a King Air and three torque wrenches in the shop all clicked early. I checked the calibrations and they were all off by 10 foot-pounds. The snap-on guy came in and confirmed the whole set needed service, but I had already torqued about 40 bolts with them. Took me an extra 3 hours to redo every one with a borrowed digital wrench that actually read close. Anyone else had a day where the tools just turned against you like that?

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1 Comment

william_torres15d ago

Man, that brings back memories. A buddy of mine was doing a full engine swap on his old CJ7 and his click type torque wrench was way off. He torqued all the head bolts to what he thought was spec, fired it up, and blew a head gasket like two days later. When he finally got a good wrench on it, every bolt was like 15 pounds over. He had to pull the whole top end apart again in his driveway in the rain. Said he nearly threw the wrench into the neighbor's yard.