Been thinking for a while of getting a torque wrench and have been looking at loads ranging from really cheap £16 in my local tool shop to the Park Tools ones for £80+.
But I have just seen the BBB TorqueFix for £50 and it seems to be perfect. Lots of wrenches will not got below 5Nm and this one starts at 2Nm and it tops out at 25Nm which seems to be ideal for bikes.
Anyone got one, is it any good or is there something better for the money?
Got one. Seems to be a nice little piece of kit and well made. Happy with mine - has stopped me squashing any carbon bits so far.
Won't help with BB torques (~40Nm), but you're into thugging it by then. Doesn't come with any Torx heads though.
I've got one and really happy with it.
Also got a Park Tools with the swing bar type measurement.
I use the BBB for anything up to 25nm and the Park above.
I've got found anything cheaper for the money, but Norbar are good and worth a look.
Great. Buy one.
Doesn't come with any Torx heads
Mine has a T25 head...
...apart from the T25 Torx head... 😳
i got one for £26 5 - 25 nm it's excellent.
Where from?
think it was ride on
but the www site not working
I looked into torque wrenches recently, and was dissapointed with what was available for bikes - 3-15NM there abouts. Unless you pay a lot of money, these cheap torque wrenches will not be in any way accurate or even calibrated.
I bought one from an online bike store, £60, set it to 5.5Nm and torqued my Thomson stem clamp which was new - it split it there and then. I got my money back.
If it's not got an up to date calibration certificate, you're better of with an allen key! Also, the wider the range, the less accurate they are, especially at the lower end of the scale.
Calibrated wrenches start at about £150 and rise to three times that.
I have the BBB one, can't say I'm overly impressed. Sometimes the ratchet doesn't seem to click when it should so you risk over-torqueing and I also found the hex bits a little crap. They're not made to the same tolerances as say Park allen keys so you need to be careful about rounding bolts.
I stumped up the cash and got a calibrated Norbar one for about £50 of ebay.
i have a teng one.. it's been excellent
The BBB wrench is calibrated. Comes with a certificate.
I bought a BBB one its naff - snapped off a pinch bolt on my xtr crank - even though i'd set a lower torque than recomended, just at the start of a holiday in the states (I was lucky that someone i was riding with had bolt extractors etc at his house, otherwise my holiday would have been ruined) - back to good old fashioned hand and allen key tighting - never broken a bolt that way...
Impressed with my BBB, particularly as it goes so low.
"Sometimes the ratchet doesn't seem to click when it should so you risk over-torqueing !"
Unless you're calibrated that seems a little subjective?
No I mean it was obvious even to a complete mechanical muppet that I was putting way more than 5nm on the seatpost bolt and it still wasn't clicking. Common sense prevailed and I stopped, then tried undoing it with an allen key and it took a lot of effort - was lucky nothing broke (I'd guess I'd used nearer 20nm...).
I've had it happen a few times now, you think it's as tight as it should be but the wrench doesn't start clicking, if you stop applying force and start again though it clicks immediately (indicating you're already above where it should have stopped before). I end up using my Ritchey torque key for most things now and am really careful if I need to use the BBB wrench (which kinda negates part of the reason for getting one in the first place :p ).
That was my experience FW!
There are some good one's available, but not in that price range. The unpronounceable Italian brand that CRC and Aspire Velotech sell does look promising though. I've no experience of it I must add, but I may well look into that.
'Sport Torque' is a new English brand of wrench especailly for bikes. I received a flyer when attending a race recently. I was interested and emailed them. Accuracey + - 20%! No calibration either!! No sale as far as I'm concerned.....