Having a hard time torqueing anything below 15 ft lb

I own a torque wrench that says it goes down to 10 ft lb but it truely doesnt. it pretty much stops at around 25ish lb. Dont know why and i never gave it much thought, its very rare i have to torque anything under that...until today

so im trying to torque down spark plugs at 13 ft pound and valve cover bolts at 7 ft lb.
is there any tip or tricks for torqueing something that low? im so afraid im going to snap something since the low spec but when i tried to tighten it, i really felt like it had so much play left so i kept tightening it until i decided to give it a rest and come here for help.

it seemed like the spark plugs never really "catched" and just had so much more room to still be torqued down. is it normal for spark plugs to feel kinda "loose" (well not loose, but just not screwed in very tight, i was barely using any force at all and they just kept turning and turning, was using a 3/8 ratchet)

same exact thing for valve cover bolts, barely using any force at all, and it just felt like they were still so loose despite me cranking them down quit a bit.

Buying a inch pound torque wrench is not in the budget unfortunately, so hopefully someone here has some tips or tricks for these low stress bolts/ low torque specs

 

$15, pick it up today.

 

Plugs….hand tight and 1/8 to 1/4 more or 2 ugga duggas

VC….53 “ lb = hand tight and couple uggas

All else fails….German spec always works: Guttentite

 

If you're on a budget, go by feel. You know what 25ft-lb feel like, pull on the same length wrench with roughly half the force. Most small fasteners like that I don't usually bother to "torque to spec" since it's so low. Get it snug plug a little extra.

 

It's too bad there's not like a loaner tool program out there that maybe an auto parts store offers

 

That would be genius.

 

Not sure what you're using for a torque wrench, but this is one item that you get what you pay for. A $20 torque wrench might say it goes down to 10 ft-lbs., but just by the nature of $20 chineseum there's no way it's going to be accurate or even calibrated. Now, I'm not saying you need to go out and buy a Snap-on for some ungodly price, but you can pick up decent ones for around $100. If you're going to be doing much wrenching, it's a worthwhile investment. As for your problem at hand: get the spark plugs screwed down until contact, then just a bit more with a normal 3/8" ratchet. Same with the valve cover bolts.

 

I own four torque wrenches that span from 11in/lb to 150ft/lb and use all four of them mostly equally... and often. I highly agree with the comments above that they are a worthwhile investment.

 

Harbor Freight has a 3/8” drive 5-80 ft. lb. on sale for $14.99 right now. I have one that I got before I inherited my late father in laws lifetime of tools that included a set of Proto torque wrenches. I’ve used the Harbor Freight one and compared it to the 3/8” Proto and it’s close enough to spec I can’t feel the difference. Probabaly won’t last as long as an higher quality one, and for critical torque specs I’ll always grab the Proto, but the Harbor Freight one does just fine and is dirt cheap. For infrequent use and as a loaner to friends it’s a great cheap tool.

 

You’re best off having two torque wrenches. A big one for lug nuts and crankshafts and a smaller inch pound wrench for lighter work.

 

This. I use my foot pound and inch pound torque wrenches often because, as you point out, the foot pound wrench either does not adjust down far enough or is not accurate at lower settings. And it is easy to convert inch pounds to foot pounds, and vice versa. Just multiply or divide by 12 - or use an online converter.

 

When I need to torque in 5 or 6 foot pounds I use an inch pound (1/4 inch drive) wrench. Tekton makes a nice one and it's a good value.

 

That only gets you a little over half way for the LCA bolts.

 

Harbor Freight's torque wrenches held up really well in Project Farm's video also, IIRC. But different internal brands from HF than that $15 one IIRC. Hopefully this is the right video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4uECoH8cc

 

Another vote for the HF 1/4" lbs/in torque wrench. It works great.

 

One other point though, maybe it's helpful for folks replying in this thread.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but a LOT of the cheaper torque wrenches - especially the non-split-beam once that require you to twist a sleeve on the shaft to adjust the torque settings - MUST be set to a specific value when you put them away to avoid them getting out-of-spec.

Almost every one I've owned or passed on, that is setting it back to the 0ftlb-10ftlb range, and it was etched into the handle or printed. REALLY REALLY cheap ones like the scAmazon Basics brand, may only have that info in the instructions! If you get a good split-beam wrench, you don't need to worry about this. But leaving the torque wrench set to anything ABOVE (or potentially below) that setting can and will result in your torque wrench getting out of calibration.

Here's an example from Tekton's line, below. I will say, I've been using the larger Tekton split beam (model number TRQ 62203) for a number of years. It's big, it's beefy, and it's never out of calibration. But it won't loosen, only tightens, and is unfortunately a range of like 40-250ftlb I think?

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I don't think it's just the cheap ones that you're supposed to back off on for storage. I have one Mac and one Snap On I bought in the late 90's, both tool guys made it a point to tell me to back it to the minimum setting for storage.

 

That style pictured, doesn't matter who makes it, I don't think I've ever seen one you didn't need to set to a low (1%-5% level) setting before storage. I'm not a torque wrench guru, but I don't think you need to do it with split beam versions, and the old school ones that flex, with an arrow to point to your torque value. Dunno about the torque sticks they use at tire shops either, never owned one.

 

If you're referring to the one in your previous post that's the style I have from Mac and Snap On and that's what the fool dealer instructed me to do. I'm not an expert either.

 

I agree with multiple torque wrenches. You can "get away" with halfway decent, 10-150 ft/lb wrench for most of what we do. But if you get into doing more and more work, you'll want multiple. I have an inch/lb wrench for lower torques, and I've probably used it 5 times. But when I need it, I need it.

And on the other side, 150 ft/lb isn't all that high, like AZboathauler said. My torque wrench was a Pittsburgh 10-150 ft/lb model. It did last me almost 10 years. But just last weekend, tightening a third 125 ft/lb bolt, it broke. Maybe it was just time, but I think with the slightly cheaper wrenches, getting up to the higher torques is too much for them.

What you should expect is that any torque wrench is most accurate in its middle-range. So my former wrench was probably, to make up numbers, most accurate between maybe 50-100 ft/lbs. Much lower or higher and the error gets larger. Not a huge deal with higher torques, but with low-torque stuff that will strip or crack if you go too tight, it's really better to either go by feel like other people mention, or get an inch/lb torque wrench.

I'm going to Harbor Freight tomorrow when I'm in a bigger town and buying an Icon that goes from 50-250 ft/lb. Might pick a lower ft/lb wrench too, since that leaves a gap between where my inch/lb wrench tops out, and the bottom end of the ft/lb wrench.