Electric Impact DRIVERS -any good ?

[jackpe]

Any good for our purposes? most seem to be used for screws in woodwork, but any good for a car mechanic (freeing stubborn bolts and so on) and if so what do you recommend for someone on a budget?

Cheers!

[Edmundo2]

In short yes. No doubt inferior to air powered version used by proper garages but useful non the less. We bought one for use swapping wheels on our hill climber. Saves a lot of time vs brace. It's one of the better spec/power Clarke ones from machine mart.

[Humper]

Got one of these foe my Xmas, cheaper on Amazon Im pretty happy for the money, works well.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24V-Cordless-Impact-Wren...

[Skyedriver]

Looked at theae for some time, the stronger ones that shift seized nuts & bolts have bigger batteries and hence cannot get into tight spaces.

[CAPP0]

I've got a 24v Clarke one, I think it was £110-ish, but tbh I'm a little disappointed at it's torque - if something is on tight I still have to put a breaker bar on it to shift it. Maybe I'm expecting too much?

[S0 What]

Decent ones over or around the £200 mark are good, anything round the £120 or below is crap IME.
Personly i put screws in with a screw gun and take off tight wheelbolts/nuts with an impact gun ??

[cpas]

I was thinking about getting something like this. I'm happy to break the initial tension with a breaker bar but one of these would be useful for winding a stiff nut off a long bolt. Are there mains ones available?

[cpas]

Ohh - cheap as chips

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clarke-CEW1000-Electric-Im...

[lexusboy]

I've just bought one of these for work as it was getting to be annoying dragging an air line around and so far it hasn't failed, even with undoing a crank pulley bolt on an RX400h

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=yes&am...

[BBS-LM]

lexusboy said:

I've just bought one of these for work as it was getting to be annoying dragging an air line around and so far it hasn't failed, even with undoing a crank pulley bolt on an RX400h

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=yes&am...

My mate has one of them and they are great. He just uses that all they long and forgets about the air line.

[rsv gone!]

cpas said:

Ohh - cheap as chips

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clarke-CEW1000-Electric-Im...

I have one of these and it makes short work of the 46mm nut on the back spindle of my bike.

Conversely, I have a 18v Hitachi and it struggles with wheel nuts. Disappointing.

[Mr2Mike]

rsv gone! said:

I have one of these and it makes short work of the 46mm nut on the back spindle of my bike.

So does my 1/2" ratchet. The spindle nut shouldn't be torqued up to silly numbers.

[cpas]

Mr2Mike said:

rsv gone! said:

I have one of these and it makes short work of the 46mm nut on the back spindle of my bike.

So does my 1/2" ratchet. The spindle nut shouldn't be torqued up to silly numbers.

I'm more interested in using it to undo them - doing them back up is the easy bit

[Mr2Mike]

cpas said:

I'm more interested in using it to undo them - doing them back up is the easy bit

What I mean is, if it has been torqued up correctly then it shouldn't be overly hard to undo. Bear in mind that the little pressed steel spanner in the tool kit should be capable of undoing it.

[lescombes]

I have one of the Clarke 24v CIR220's... works well for me... I use it on the road for home visit services undo's wheelnuts/bolts fine... and also the caravan leg wind up & down...

[rsv gone!]

Mr2Mike said:

What I mean is, if it has been torqued up correctly then it shouldn't be overly hard to undo. Bear in mind that the little pressed steel spanner in the tool kit should be capable of undoing it.

146 takes some leverage to undo before it corroded itself into position.

[Matt Seabrook]

This works for me but pricey but does have over 600lbft of torque.

[ShaunTheSheep]

I got the mains powered Clarke one from machine mart a couple of years ago for £45 IIRC. I only really use it for wheel nuts but it's never failed yet, even ones that were done up stupidly tight on proper a windy gun - it did take a bit of doing though but came good in under 40 seconds.

Came with a free replacement set of carbon brushes too.

It's much bigger than a windy gun so not useful for a lot of suspension nuts which i would have liked to use it for.

[Gtom]

Impact driver or impact wrench?

I have got a panasonic impact driver with adjustable torque settings and its ideal for small/delicate things. I also have a dewalt impact wrench with 400+nm and that is brilliant for the heavy stuff.
You can get some 1/4" hex (impact driver size) to 1/4-3/8-1/2" adapters from Screwfix for a few quid. Don't expect them to last forever so buy a couple of sets so you don't get caught out.

[ShaunTheSheep]

Gtom said:

I have got a panasonic impact driver with adjustable torque settings and its ideal for small/delicate things.
...
You can get some 1/4" hex (impact driver size) to 1/4-3/8-1/2" adapters from Screwfix for a few quid. Don't expect them to last forever so buy a couple of sets so you don't get caught out.

This has played on my mind over the past few days :-) I'd already figured the idea of battery / electric is probably better than pneumatic for a non-professional like me who's stuck working on their driveway. Mainly because of the noise of air tools but also space requirements.

Decided to order a wee impact driver for the day to day ratcheting jobs. It looks small enough and with no cords / airline hanging off it it'll hopefully be quite usable in practice. It's only got 105nm torque but that's comparable with a similarly small sized air gun / air wratchet and i reckon most nuts and screws i remove don't actually need much torque. Will soon find out...

The 2 pneumatic tools i've still to find a good substitute for are a wee blower (tin of air duster doesn't always cut it...) and something mains powered for doing tyre pressures. Any leads or ideas there greatly appreciated.