Impact Driver

[Jeemy]

Had this about a month now. Single best tool I've ever owned.

http://www.ingersollrandproducts.com/ap ... 2135qtimax

It literally fixed every problem job I've had lying around for 6-8 months, in about 10 minutes flat.

You can get them quite cheap here: http://www.marmax.co.uk/acatalog/1_2_sq ... tools.html

But if you hang about on eBay long enough, you'll get one new for £190, which is what I did.

Gotta figure about £150-200 for bits, but if you don't mind smashing your old ones slowly, or already have impact bits handy, I can't recommend this highly enough,

They quote 1000Nm on bolt breaking (out ways). Other tests say point of impact is more like 1400Nm. All the comparable models I looked at were in the 500-700Nm bracket from all the usual people - DeWalt, Makita etc.

Fantastic things. From the picture you'll have seen these at your local tyre remover.

[rip]

Ingersol Rand. I guess that means it is air powered?
It is a very useful tool, especially when doing a job which involves getting all 4 wheels on & off.

I have no power in my garage so air or mains tools are out of the question.
I therefore bought one of these recently.
Torque is quoted at 220Nm but in reality it only just released my Calibra's wheel bolts which were torqued at 110Nm. I don't mind cracking them with a breaker bar but the ability to spin the nuts off with my impact wrench is.

I spent a 'hands-on' day recently with my Calibra friends doing things like changing brake fluid on a few cars. Several of them commented 'I want one of those!'.

[Jeemy]

Its air powered.

I've bought so many cheap air tools which before I realised they were cheap, made me wonder whether my compressor wasn't up to it. This makes light work of anything and has renewed my faith in my air compressor.

As I say, this has broken stuff I had in vices with 3-foot breaker bars, no chance of moving, breaking threads/contact surfaces instead of the corrosion seal, etc, and is excellent on stuff where applying torque from a position 3 feet removed means the tool has no hope of locking onto the part at all.

I have to say, wheel bolts is the last consideration for me, when as you say a breaker bar will crack them, and I bought a little set of adaptors for a cordless drill - 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2" drive which make spinning things off easy when the threads are working.

Another thing I would say is this is just too much when working on small things, its liable to break fitments and parts and doesn't really have a "go-slow" switch - although it has 4 positions these are really only usable or applicable on re-assembly, when the same caveat applies - the impact applied is (for what one call tell) them same, and really quite strenuous; so thin washers, rusted shields or pipes that may be corroded onto the nut, are liable to get a snap/crush/pop/bend if you do as I did and start using this on everything! Much better to use gentle hand-adjustable power, i.e. a lot of gritted teeth and a smaller ratchet set.

Best to start small and work up; this is a last resort, but when the previous last resort was standing on things with both feet, bracing bars against the floor and crushing stuff too hard in a vice, its a welcome relief to just push this on and buzz the problem away; there is no strain on your hands in use either.