I need to buy a tough powerful battery impact wrench. I'm going to be taking rusted lug nuts off of field cars out in the sticks and I want something that will get the job done. What brands are best? What features should I be looking for? Any help is much appreciated.
Make sure that you get PLENTY of extra batteries for it. I watched my wifes brother think that he was hot shit when he pulled one of those out in the middle of a field and after trying to get the rusty bolts off (trying), the battery died & we drug the torch back to the place and heated the bolts and got them off. I told the kid to get a cordless Sawzall and he bought a "Craftsmen" impact wrench and it twisted the "ratchet" part and it looked like a twisted piece of square spaghetti. I think that it was Clark or Plowboy that suggested a cordless Sawzall a couple of years back for junkyard chasing. Chris
a buddy of mine bought a matco one, we were really impressed with it, lots of power and battery really lasted. depending on what you want to spend.
Hi Larry I use a dewalt 18 volt at work.We use it to take the bells off our boilers and chillers for cleaning tubes. It is the berries RLS
I don't think any battery-powered impact wrench will have enough power to pull lug nuts off of field cars. Get a nice, long breaker bar and have at it. (With a really long bar and no lube you can usually break off most of the lugs. This save a LOT of time and effort!) I'm not kidding. Get a good-quality breaker bar and buy a piece of pipe that fits over it, as long as you are willing to carry. Just make sure the bar can handle it - I use Craftsman and Snap-On and they both handle it fine but I once twisted a Chinese one right in half.
A nice non battery powered cheater bar with a tight fitting socket, sometime they break off sometimes not!
I agree with the breaker bar and long pipe. It works as long as you want to carry it, and a quality piece will last longer than an impact, especially a battery powered one. I've used a two piece floor jack handle as a cheater on a breaker bar on many rusted on bolts (rust is better than locktite) and when the nut didn't move or quit moving, the extra three feet of cheater was enough to break the stud clean off. The two piece was also easier to carry around.
6 point impact socket and arm-strong power,long pipe and big hammer, and 50/50 mix of trans fluid and kerosene, the only reliable tools.
only one ive ever used worth talking about was a Snap On unit. 600+ bucks though. Id go with a breaker bar and tranny fluid and acetone
I have an 18 volt Makita that works well, would I expect it to bust rusty lug nuts loose....no. The last time I used it on a field car it did a good job removing rusty u-bolts on an axle. I also have the 18 volt recip saw that persuades anything that needs to be cut. There isn't anything that will replace a breaker bar and a cheter pipe out in the middle of a pasture though.
Dewalt 18 works very well! We use it all the time on our farm equipment and stays charged a long time.
I have been doing all my work for the past year and a half out in the field/back lot, so I have to do without power. I recommend a breaker bar and a pipe you can slip over the handle for leverage, a good penetrating oil, battery powered sawzall/hacksaw, big chisel/hammer and some good vice grips. I hate carriage bolts , I had to chisel the nuts off two of them a couple days ago. Thank god for chisels and mini sledges.
I had an old one that clamped onto the car battery or a battery charger. It worked pretty slick. Had about 120 lb ft of twist. However I loanded it to some one at an ice racing event and lost track of it. I don't kow if they even make them any more but with the amps of the car battery behind it it would pull off all but the worst rusted on stuff.
Larry....are battery-powered tools traditional? Just kidding. I stick to the expensive high-end brands for cordless stuff, you get what you pay for. Dewalt's have worked well for me, going on 8yrs now. Lithium batteries are lighter of course and have more power density, so keep that in mind. Snap-On makes one, it's over $500, but they claim it has 400 ft-lbs of torque.....that 2x more than my flathead....hahahahaha
Here's the bad-boy: http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=yes&tool=all&item_ID=89708&group_ID=19913&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog
I have a Milwaukee 18v Lithium ION and it works great. Lots of power. Battery charge holds up good too
I got the Dewalt 18v for Christmas and have only used it a handful of times but it seems to have good power. Dewalt claims 300 pounds of torque but i haven't tested it yet.
I have had my Snap on 18 volt for 3 years now and it is a bad mofo I had to replace a battery last year tho.
Larry, I use a 110 volt electric, yep one with a cord, all the time. It's an old CP. You can either us a small generator or get a 12volt/110 power invertor. I have both and both work great. The 100 volt impact I have has 465 lb.ft of torque and works as good as my cp231 impact.
I had a DeWalt 18V for Bonneville/Maxton ... Worked okay but not great. Since Black and Decker owns them the stuff is not what it once was ... When the battery died10 minutes after the 1 year warantee expired I bought a Milwaukee 18V. Nice action and comes with a 5 year battery warantee
Get a 3/4" drive breaker, impacy socket, 6' heavy pipe for cheater, lots of your favorite penatratig lube. That will be less money to obtain. There is a bonus to using this set-up. You can beat the crap out of the field car with the pipe after you smash your knuckles trying to get the thing apart. Use the loosen/tighten method to gets the nuts off. Going at it with an impact might just break the studs off if the rust is very bad.
I recommend one of these, but it would be cheaper to hire someone to do it for you. http://www.maxprocorp.com/store.asp?pid=25992
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