Help on buying a torque wrench

I would go with the the below. Under $20 and "they" say the beam style are accurate for longer. Your right - clickable are hard to find sub 10 ft/lbs, as I believe that is a whole different wrench that measures in inch/lbs.

I've heard that finger tight + 1/8 a turn gets you approx. 7 ft/lbs.


Craftsman 3/8-in. Dr. Beam Style Torque Wrench, 0-75 ft. lbs.
Item# 00932999000P

Or

Craftsman Micro-Clicker Torque Wrench 3/8" Drive
Item# 00931424000P

PS the clickable is on sale for like $36 which is more than half off. I would get that one with 3/8 drive and 10-75 lbs. I have one and If I remember correctly you can set it slightly lower than 10 ft/lbs. I will check when I get home.

While they do have torque specs for many bolts, there are really only a few that are critical. I only use my cheap Harbor Freight torque wrench ($9 if you use the ubiquitous 25% off coupons) when I do the axle nut. Short of leaning on the drain plug and stripping the threads, almost anything will be fine. When you loosen bolts for the first time from the factory or the dealer, you see that even they do not follow their own specs. I have had drain plugs I had to loosen with a lot of force (common) and others that loosened with very little effort, for example. If I were into torqueing I would buy a second one for torques below 25 ft. lbs and I would buy a beam style which are more expensive. I go for cheap and guess work myself. It's worked so far. Never stripped a thread by over-tightening and never lost a bolt except for a license plate bracket bolt on the Grom, but that got fixed with Loctite.

I bought these from amazon.

I didn't want to keep the most expensive one but But I ended up keeping the ACDelco ARM601-3 3/8-Inch Digital Torque Wrench. It cost the most, but I like it being digital over the standard click type.

ACDelco ARM601-3 3/8-Inch Digital Torque Wrench







TEKTON 24320 1/4-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench, 20-200-Inch/Pound


ACDelco ARM602-3 3/8-Inch Torque Measurement Adapter 3-59 ft-lbs