Hot take: Using a 3/8 inch drive impact to seat those stubborn 1 inch bolts on a 200 psi boiler door gasket saved my knuckles and an hour yesterday.

The extra torque from the smaller gun, with a reducer and a wobble socket, got into the tight corner behind the feed pump where my big 1/2 inch gun wouldn't fit, and it seated all twelve bolts perfectly on the first pass.

3 comments

3 Comments

susan_bell24d ago

You got lucky, but isn't that a huge risk for over-torquing?

nathan_shah23d ago

That torque wrench was set to 85 foot-pounds, exactly what the manual called for. Susan_bell, calling that luck is wild. I've seen guys snap lug studs going 10 over on an impact gun, this was by the book. You follow the spec, you get the right clamp load without stripping threads. Doing it any other way is just asking for a wheel to come loose later.

bennett.vera18d ago

Nathan's right about following the spec, but nobody's mentioned thread condition. If the stud or nut threads are rusty or dirty, that 85 foot-pounds creates way more friction and not enough clamping force. You could torque to spec and still have a loose wheel because the threads weren't clean.