TIL my cheap torque wrench was lying to me about a bottom bracket

I was putting a new Shimano BB-RS500 into a customer's carbon frame and my old Harbor Freight clicker said 50 Nm. Felt WAY too tight, so I borrowed a buddy's Snap-on digital gauge. Mine was off by a solid 15 Nm, which is a stripped thread or cracked shell waiting to happen. I've been using that thing for maybe 200 jobs, trusting it completely. Now I'm sending it out for calibration and using a beam-style wrench as a backup. Has anyone else had a budget tool fail a critical check like this?

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3 Comments

graygonzalez6mo ago

Honestly, that's a pretty wild margin of error for any wrench.

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nora_taylor796mo ago

Harbor Freight tools are basically just guessing at the numbers.

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felixfisher6mo ago

Remember that time their tape measure was off by a quarter inch over six feet? (I'm still mad about that cabinet project.)

3