sgull

I'm in the situation where I'm wanting to reinstall my crankshaft pulley (harmonic balancer pulley) bolt on my 92 Accord 2.2L to the specified torque of 159 ft-lbs. I'm using the special honda crankshaft pulley holder tool along with 1/2" breaker bar and a pipe wedged against the ground to keep the pulley from turning while I try to tighten it. My problem is my 1/2" torque wrench (the only one I have) goes to only 150 ft-lbs max. So I've tightened it to 150 so far, and I thought about if I just had another 1/2" breaker bar I could try to "guestimate" the final 9 ft-lbs beyond the 150 to tighten it a little tighter maybe by tightening a smidge more in place of the torque wrench. But I don't have another 1/2" breaker bar to attempt that anyway. I do have a 1/2" ratchet but I'm fairly certain it would be insufficient/inadequate to use in place of the torque wrench to guestimate/tighten the final 9 ft-lbs or so, would probably just break. Below is a photo of what I have going, the breaker bar and pipe on the holding tool and the ratchet with extension on the bolt. After torquing to 150 ft-pounds it seems (to me) plenty tight enough, although I'd hate to be taking a risk by not tightening any further. Think it'll be fine at 150 or do I really need to make sure it gets tighter than that?

MAD_MIKE

Well torque is simple enough to figure out.
12" from the center of where the extension attaches(center of the 1/2" square) applying 159lbs is 159 ftlbs. Do some simple math using your own weight to figure out where on the breaker/torque wrench you would have to stand to equate 159ftlbs. If you are more than 159lbs then it would be less than 12" from the center. If you weigh less, it would be further out from 12". If you happen to be 159lbs(give or take a few lbs) just stand on the breaker bar at 12" and whala, you are done.

But this will require some careful balancing on the breaker bar, so don't break your ***.

sgull

Okay I think I understand what was just explained. But I've got my one and only breaker bar there on the holding tool wedged against the ground. And I guess I don't want to try pushing/pulling any harder on my 1/2" 150 ft-lb torque wrench, past it's (click) max, which in essence I think would be just utilizing it in that instance as a breaker bar, and risking damaging it (wouldn't it)? And I can't really just substitute my breaker bar there wedged against the ground with my 1/2" ratchet and then trying to apply 150+ ft-lbs against that, as I mentioned before I think would break it. So it seems to me I at least need another 1/2" breaker bar to do this.

MAD_MIKE

The torque wrench can handle the torque.
Click types have a coil spring inside the handle. When you preset the click type to 'click' or give, what you are doing is preloading the spring inside to equal the torque capacity you need. Thus when you reach 150lbs the spring then compresses allowing the head to move a bit and 'clicking'. Allowing you to know you have reached your desired preset torque setting. The tool is probably capable of handling double it's capacity, if not people would be impaling themselves when they went 20lbs over the max accurate reading.

Not sure what your ratchet may be rated up to, usually they are capable of handling massive amounts of torque, before failure. But I do not know what the handle may be capable of sustaining.

sgull

Thanks for that last post. Good, I won't worry about giving some extra oomph on my torque wrench then, past its "max" to do this. And I'll be careful.

holmesnmanny

I tried estimating on my axle nut and I wound up having to replace the wheel bearing within a couple thousand miles or so. I would say just get one that is capable of exacting the torque so as not to possibly stress anything crank related. While I'm not sure that's really possible, I'm not sure it's worth the risk.