A breaker bar consists of a long steel bar that attaches to a head with a socket drive. This head usually rotates up to degrees to allow the user to get the bar in the optimal position for creating the leverage needed to remove a difficult nut or bolt. This guide will examine the factors to consider when shopping for the best breaker bar and review various models on the market, some of which may be especially suited to specific needs. While length is perhaps the most important attribute, there are other important factors to keep in mind, including material, weight, head rotation, and comfort.
Ahead, learn more about these and other crucial characteristics of breaker bars. Breaker bars work on the basic principle that a longer handle creates more torque. By producing more torque, the breaker bar is better able to free a locked nut than a shooter-handled ratchet that creates less torque.
Breaker bars come in a broad range of lengths, from 18 inches to 40 inches. It may also produce too much torque, creating so much force that it shears off a bolt rather than loosens it. This risk makes it a good idea to always use safety glasses when using any size breaker bar. At more than 3 feet long, a inch breaker bar can produce a staggering 1, foot-pounds of torque.
These bars are also ideal in cases where the operator needs to keep some distance from the nut being loosened for the purposes of safety. Use a inch breaker bar with caution, as the amount of force it creates can easily break metal parts into pieces.
Most breaker bars consist of chrome-plated vanadium steel. The weak point of most breaker bars is the head, which tends to snap long before the bar does. While many breaker bars use the same type of steel for the breaker bar head, higher-end models use chrome molybdenum. A harder and tougher steel alloy than vanadium steel, a chrome molybdenum head is less likely to bend or break under pressure. The weight of a breaker bar impacts its durability as well as its ease of use.
This makes it more susceptible to bending or even breaking when a significant amount of force is applied. With that in mind, most breaker bars weigh between 1. The heads on many breaker bars attach via a hinge that allows them to rotate back and forth up to degrees. This makes for greater ease of use by allowing the operator to rotate the head to the bar in the optimal position for leverage.
While a rotating head makes a breaker bar more functional, it can also negatively impact its durability, as the joint between the head and the bar creates a weak point that can break under intense pressure. Applying the pressure needed to work a breaker bar places a significant amount of pressure on the hand, which can make a breaker bar painful to use.
While wearing gloves helps, the hard metal handle can still be painful on the palms. Many breaker bars have ergonomic molded handles designed to fit the contours of the hand.
This improves grip while also distributing the pressure of the bar throughout the hand. Some breaker bars also have knurled handles.
This roughens the metal, making it easier to grip and preventing the tool from slipping out of the hand while applying pressure. That said, smaller sizes can come in handy for removing smaller frozen or heavily corroded nuts.
Avoid using adapters to change the drive size, as this could cause damage to the machinery or the breaker bar. While most breaker bars come as single pieces with a set length, some are extendable. A breaker bar allows the user to take advantage of extra leverage supplied by a longer tool while still applying the same amount of force to the tool. For example, by slipping a length of pipe over the end of a ratchet, the user can apply extra leverage to the tool through the breaker bar, thereby putting more force on a stuck or rusted bolt.
This process of using an extra piece of pipe slipped over a ratchet is sometimes called using a cheater bar. While this method can work well, be forewarned that this process may cause the tool to fail catastrophically; applying extra force to the ratchet mechanism may cause it to slip, thereby risking damage to both the tool and the bolt, as well as to the user.
To solve this problem, manufacturers produce breaker bars without a ratcheting mechanism on them; this applies more force directly to the socket and to the bolt, rather than to flex from the ratcheting mechanism. Will impact wrench break bolts? A pneumatic or electric impact gun should be the tool of last resort because it often simply breaks the bolt.
Use the proper impact socket, wear gloves and safety glasses. Since these tools can be quite powerful, save them for larger nuts.
If possible, use the impact on the nut side and hold the bolt with a wrench. Is a torque wrench really necessary? Torque wrenches may seem like a luxury you don't need, but they are actually used for a very specific, very important reason.
The most common and prevalent use of a torque wrench is for changing rims. Torque wrenches allow you to tighten lug nuts without damaging the rim. Should you grease wheel bolts? Yes, copper grease should be put on the hub spigot, this is where they normally stick. Ideally you shouldn't put any grease on the threads or on the contact face with the hub - as number cruncher says this is basically a friction coupling to your wheel.
Torque should go through this and not through the wheel bolts. What is a flex handle breaker bar? The flex handle set multiplies your force when you need to tighten an engine mount or are trying to break loose a seized lug.
A durable alloy-steel construction allows these breaker bars to handle whatever you throw at them. What is the best breaker bar? Performance Tool W Crescent CRW Craftsman Capri Tools
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