Review Ridgid 86927 18-Inch Adjustable Wrench
February 25th, 2010
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Posts Tagged ‘Wrench’
Review Milwaukee 9072-20 1/2-Inch Impact Wrench
February 21st, 2010
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Milwaukee 9072-20 1/2-Inch Impact Wrench Best Review
I used this wrench to remove the front wheel axle nuts on my car, so I could replace the CV half shafts. The torque spec on these nuts is 174-224 ftlbs, and the wrench spun them off with ease. It hammered for less than a second and the nuts were off. Obviously it removed the lug nuts easily as well. There’s a couple of minor annoyances. The forward/reverse switch is backwards from every drill I’ve used – you move it to the right to loosen, left to tighten. This isn’t hard to get used to, but it also doesn’t have enough resistance to being moved. A couple of times I bumped the switch from right to left without realizing it, and hammered the lug nut for about a second before I realized I was tightening. If you’re right-handed, it’s easy to bump the switch from right to left while you’re moving your hand to drop a nut out of the socket. It would be safer for right-handed people if left was loosen. I learned to check the position of the switch before every use, and be careful to put my index finger low on the trigger, away from the forward/reverse switch. The other annoyance is that the shank doesn’t seem to be quite big enough, so a deep socket precesses noticeably when you pull the trigger. This doesn’t hurt anything when you have the socket on a nut, but it bugs me. It could be the cheap impact sockets I’m using, or maybe all impact wrenches do this. I also wish that the tool included a little T-handled punch to press the detent pin when taking off a socket. I use a 6mm hex key.
I don’t use it to tighten – there’s no reliable way to know what torque you’ll wind up with. I turn it to the lowest speed setting and spin the lug nuts on until they’re snug, then use a torque wrench to tighten them to spec. The manual says to practice until you can estimate the torque from the duration of hammering, but I can’t see how this would be reliable. The ability to specify the torque would be nice, but I’ve never see an impact wrench that has that feature.
I’m happy with the tool and recommend it. I’ve had it only a week, and I’ve only done one job with it, so I can’t say how reliable it is. It seems to be solidly built, so I expect it to hold up well.
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