subevo

just thought i would share this.i bought the car battery operated impact gun from argos list price £24.99 on sale for £19.99.looking at it and for the price i thought it was cheap crap until i tried it.its main purpose is for removing wheel nuts.i was amazed at its power even when i put a large tube on my wheel wrench and tightened the bolts as hard as i could the impact gun removed it with ease.this is a major time saver. just jack the wheel up and remove the bolts in seconds.no need for an air compressor or other expensive equipment.it also works in reverse to put wheels on. major thumbs up.be amazed.

ajm

sounds like a good deal. I forked out for a snap-on battery powered ipmpact wrench which is also very good but quite pricey.

Leslie

I bought a similar one through a newspaper ad and I was surprised how good it is. Well worth the price.

Les

David_Dickson

Be carefull though...
when using it to put them in again, start the nuts by hand a couple of turns first to make sure it isnt cross threaded. If you put it in squint and cross-thread it all the way in with the gun you will want to cry.

Dont tighten them right up with the gun either, hand-tight using an average extansion bar is about right. Ideally you should use a torque-wrench and set them properly. I dont know what the scobs recommended torque is, but alloy wheels generally are around 85 lb/ft, which isnt as tight as you might think.
Over-tight wheel nuts can be just as bad as too-slack ones.

Dave.
**regularly has to deal with rebuilding things when people dont do wheel-nuts up right!**

LanciaChris

Im currently helping in the restoration of a 73 bay window vw camper, and for all the work weve done on it (including engine rebuild, new inner and outer sills, more new panels than id care to remember etc etc, one of the biggest hassles has been getting the bloody wheel nuts off. After trying everything we could think of (blowtorch, wd40, 3 foot breaker bars!) we had to grind the buggers off and get new studs. I bet the battery gun wouldnt have done it then

Mice_Elf

Subevo - do you have a product code for the item? Am trying to find it on the Argos website, but having no joy.

Cheers.

AndiThompson

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/st...ategoryId=8046

*pats mice*

TelBoy

Excellent stuff. Didn't realise you could buy these things. Most useful thing i've learned from SN in aaages!

Mice_Elf

Marbly-uss.

Cheers Andi.

DRUNKNORGY

I've got one and its a good piece of kit (comes with a few half decent sockets as well)

vindaloo

I bought one yesterday. It seems to work OK. It got the normal and locking wheel bolts off my Citroen just now.

It feels a bit slow and takes it's time building up to each thump. I suppose 50watts only goes so far.

For 20 quid I'm well happy...provided it doesn't fall apart.....

Vindaloo.

TelBoy

Got mine too. Haven't tried it yet tho.

Why do they say only use the sockets supplied..??

johneturbo

i recently bought one of these, i went for the machine mart one
its a bit more money £30 but works great..i thought that impact sockets are only black in colour? i got my for undoing shock absorber top nuts,as the piston turns if you doing by hand but with these they can spin it quick enuff to undo them

here's the one machine mart do

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.asp?p=060810013



[Edited by johneturbo - 8/28/2003 8:33:46 PM]

unclebuck

very useful. me want....

UB

DRUNKNORGY

if it feels slow, connect it to the battery direct. a good battery should spin it up properly, I would imagine they are black as part of the heat treatment process as they have to be a bit tougher than the normal monmkey metal ones

TelBoy

Used mine at the weekend. On two of my wheels, i have wheel nuts so tight even this thing won't shift them!!

I'm assuming that's *too* tight then?! Unless they're corroded in. Still, got WD40 on the job, in case anyone wants an update. No, thought not.

TurboKitty

Uh, yeah, that'd probably be too tight.

I thought you took your wheels off regularly to polish them anyway?