I keep breaking 1/2 ratchets on my lug nuts.

[Loaderman22]

Or bend the pipe.....

Or spin the bolt itself.

 

[Deanes]

Maybe time for a new wheel. Not sure why you are having to deal with lug nuts so often? I did have that same issue and actually nearly lost a wheel. From having gotten loose, the holes in my wheel wallowed out and no amount of tightening would keep them from loosening. ( the shoulders on the nut had little to grip against.) I got a used wheel from a tractor junk yard. A little paint and replacing the wheel and no lug nut problems for two years now.

 

[Rebeldad1]

harbor freight and craftsman have broken on me getting lug nuts loose. I am rough with them using a 6 ft pipe.

I do have a impact driver maybe that will work better.

either you have a really big tractor or you have way over torqued the nuts.
would recommend you get a torque wrench to torque to factory specs and a 3/4" socket set.

 

[aircommuter]

How is a breaker bar different from a pipe on the wrench?

Your kidding right?

 

[5030]

Always keep in mind that with steel wheels, the lug nut holes are 'coined' or stamped in the wheel and overtightening them will distort the coined in flange and the deformed flange (from over torquing the lug nuts) will prevent the lug nuts from achieving a secure contact with the raised portion. Why it's imperative to only tighten the lug nuts to the specified (in your owners manual torque value) and that also applies to a motor vehicle as well, in fact any stamped wheel on anything. That really applies to alloy wheels. Lug nuts on any wheel are always torqued DRY and not WET torque and by wet torque I mean no never seize on them. When torquing any wheel, always do the final to torque setting in a staggered manner.

 

[5030]

I never use a cheater pipe on anything. I always use one of my impact wrenches to loosen the nuts. If my Thor 1/2" drive impact won't loosen them (1400 foot pounds breakaway torque), my Ingersoll Rand 1" drive impact will (2200 foot pound breakaway), will. In fact I use the IR on the fixing bolts on my shredders when replacing the swing blades. Both impacts can twist off weak bolts in a flash and destroy non impact rated sockets as well and some of the imported 'impact' sockets will also split.

Why fiddle around with cheater pipes and ratchets that are not designed for additional force other than your 'armstrong' power.

Little heat on the offending nut works as well.

 

[Dennis Mohn]

Now comes the question, has anybody used a torque wrench?....

Do not use a torque wrench to take something like that apart if you ever expect it to work when you are putting something together. A torque wrench may have a ratchet head , but it is not intended to be used in place of a ratchet or breaker bar.

 

[Dennis Mohn]

Of course.

The next question though is, has anybody calibrated their torque wrench?

When I worked equipment repair I used three different size torque wrenches. Each was recalibrated at least once a year, and I kept the certification slips in the box with the wrench incase anyone if it had been calibrated.

 

[5030]

I 'calibrate' my own using a digital torque meter or should I say 'check' them regularly. If you store a torque wrench in the 'relaxed' position, with the value at zero, there is no internal pressure on the mechanism, consequently, the torque values indicated on the wrench stay pretty stable. When you store a wrench with a torque setting dialed on the wrench, that is when the values change and Every new wrench I've ever seen, in the instruction manual it always states to store it in the 'relaxed' position, not that anyone bothers to read instructions anyway....

 

[Dennis Mohn]

Just to make sure it is clear, a Torque Wrench is not the same thing as a Torque Multiplier.
A Torque Wrench is used to make sure that a bolt is as tight as you are supposed to have it, and a Torque Multiplier is used to loosen nuts and bolts that are too tight to get loose without breaking your ratchet or having to use an extension to increase the force. A Torque Multiplier uses a planetary gear system to use a smaller force to increase the torque to loosen a nut.
David from jax

multipliers can also be used to tighten and final torque on very high settings , such as crane swing bearing or swivel pin settings where the torque requirements may be over several hundred to thousand pound requirements.