kettensäge said:
Years ago I got some help from a co-worker familiar with engine rebuilding. It was my first car and engine rebuild. I had a beam type wrench and was talking with the guy and he offered to bring his clicker over and "supervise" the assembly. We set the crankshaft and began tightening the main caps with his wrench. We went in steps as recomended. He set the wrench for the correct torque on the first step and started tightening. Tighter and tighter until the bolt snapped. He looked at me very surprised and wondered why the wrench never clicked. We got the broken bolt out, got a replacement and finished assembling the engine with my Craftsman beam type wrench. That was in 1982 and I still use the same wrench to this day.
Clickers are more accurate, faster, and easier to use but they must be turned back to zero torque after use and must be stored properly to prevent problems.
Beam type wrenches are adequete for the average guy and even good enough for a backyard mechanic. I have used mine to assemble at least a dozen engines from a 4 cyl. Subaru up to a street/strip 355 SBC without a problem.
I would suggest a 1/4 or 3/8" drive clicker and a 1/2" beam type for the bigger jobs.
Most newer engines bolt torques require an angle gauge as well.
I had a decent beam-type torque wrench many moons ago, but I never used the thing and damn if I know where it went. I think it was a SK brand, which were pretty good tools at the time. I had acquired a fair amount of tools way back before I got married, back when I actually believed I'd someday do a complete rebuild on a nice small-block Chevy engine. I kinda lost interest in working on cars after all the electronic ignition and emission stuff came out and you needed to be a rocket scientist to understand how to tune the damn thing. I would love to go back to the days when you opened the hood and it was all just there in front of you, easy to access and disassemble. Nowadays I look inside an engine compartment and it looks like a mass of robot intestines. Close the hood, call the tow service.
Like many of my age, I go back to carbs, points, and a dwell meter and a timing light (don't know where they are either) to set the dwell time and spark advance. Since then my mechanical abilities only extend to brakes, plugs, wires, batteries, lights, oil changes, and the occasional cobbled up exhaust parts MIG welded together. I suppose it's never too late to get back into the game, though. Heck, I just bought a code reader, so at least I might have an idea where to start.
So far, I used it on Lady BK's Jetta when she had a flashing trouble code pop up. PO301 told me "Misfire on cyl. 1", so I bought plugs and wires and started there. Number 1 plug (originals I discovered, with with 120K on the car) had a honking huge gap due to a gouged out ground electrode. Changed the plugs, reset the code, ran it again, no codes found... returned the $80 wires to Advanced Auto and got away with a $15 fix. Kewl. If I had that thing towed to the VW dealership they would have told me it needed $1000 worth of work, guaranteed.
