How to Adjust the Torque on an Air Impact Wrench? In 3 Simple Steps!

Maintaining the vehicle in the driveway is trending nowadays. Doing the maintenance job yourself keeps you updated about the health of the car and turns your boring leisure into fun.

However, the trend leads to more problems since most people don’t know how to do things in the right way.

To provide you with the basic information, we are sharing with you this small guide on how to adjust the torque on an air impact wrench.

While removing the lug nuts is easy with a powerful impact wrench, it is not the case when it comes to fastening it. That’s because you need to follow the torque specs written on the owner’s manual.

This guide will help you in adjusting torques in both electric and air impact wrenches with easy to follow steps. Keep reading-

What Happens If I Don’t Adjust Torque?

Before we go into the adjustment part, you may want to know the reason behind the need for torque adjustment.

The torque is simply the rotational force that fastens the lug nuts and bolts up to a limit. You’ll find torque specs for the nuts in the owner’s manual of your vehicle. These are crucial in maintenance works for safety reasons. Excessive or insufficient torque makes the vehicle vulnerable as the nuts may come loose over time.

This happens because of the threads in the nuts. Over torquing the nuts will end up in broken threads that have the same result of a loose nut.

On the other hand, insufficient torque means loose nuts that can come out of its place due to the regular vibration and road bumps.

So, it is important that you follow the recommendations carefully and adjust the torque of your wrench accordingly.

Adjusting Torque in Premium Tools

Adjusting the torque in the expensive tools is effortless. That’s because of the flexible torque adjustment settings these tools come with. You can adjust the torque using the control dial almost effortlessly.

However, air impact wrenches don’t provide that option in most cases whereas the cordless ones do.

So, if you haven’t got one already, consider this as a crucial factor in choosing the impact wrenches.

Adjusting Torque in Non-Adjustable Wrenches

The easiest way to control the torque in the tools that don’t offer torque adjustment is using attachments. These do the work simply by not allowing the tool to rotate when the specified torque is achieved.

However, the attachments are expensive and don’t worth the money unless you are a professional auto mechanic.

If you have a cordless impact wrench, you have no better way to control the torque than buying attachments or getting a premium tool like the impact wrenches listed by The Tooly.

But in air impact wrenches, you can adjust the torque by regulating the air pressure at the source. Follow these simple steps to achieve perfect torque-

1. Connect the air impact wrench with the hose. Ensure that the air doesn’t escape through the joints when you move around. Leaky joints will result in inconsistent results.

2. Know the air pressure requirements of the tool and start the air compressor at its minimum power. This eliminates the risk of damaging the tool. Plus, you will be organized in controlling the regular in the next step.

3. Now, use the pressure regulator of your air compressor to achieve the perfect torque. You may need to adjust the air pressure quite a few times at first to get hang of it. With time, you should be able to adjust the torque within a matter of seconds.

However, this may not work in your workshop when you have multiple tools running at the same time powered up from one compressor. The simple solution to this problem is to use a tool air regulator. This will allow you to control the air pressure for each hose separately. So, maintaining high air pressure in one tool and minimum in the other won’t be any hassle.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to adjust torque in impact wrenches, it should be easier for you to work on your driveway in free time. We recommend reading the owner’s manual before working with lug nuts and bolts in your vehicle as different manufacturers have different ways to manage them.

Apart from helping you in auto repair jobs, impact guns let you do many other nuts and bolts fastening jobs easier than ever. That is made possible by the massive power these tools come equipped with.

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