Are There Any Line Wrenches That DON'T Kill Flarenuts? Snap On + 9 Others Tested

[Music] [Music] welcome back to the torque test channel has what you just watched in our opening sequence ever happened to you chances are if you've come across one of these hard to access abs control modules transmission cooler lines or even a simple brake bleeder you've felt the cheeks clenching effect you get when your wrench suddenly lurches forward a bit buggering one of those butter soft flare nuts and fittings in the process these are usually made out of soft steel or aluminum to promote a good pressure seal but that helps you digitally when trying to remove them that's why today we're investigating the good old-fashioned line wrench 10 different examples of the half by 9 16 inch wrench in fact most of which were recommended to us by the tool snobs of garage journal message board so if there's a flare nut wrench on the market that can keep your knuckles the least bloody or your swear jar the most empty is probably here rumor is the difference between a bad one and a good one is night and day so we want to quantify that as much as we can compared to standard open end wrenches flare nut wrenches offer two extra corners of engagement on a hex nut hopefully allowing you a better chance at turning your own torque on a rusty old blake bleeder into unthreading progress they feature a cutout to allow access onto those hydraulic lines otherwise let's face it we'd be using a box end wrench or sockets if we had the choice so with 10 different examples and brands to get through let's dive in in order of price so first we have the craftsman flare nut wrench which can be the lowest cost set depending on if you're buying craftsman at lowe's or online this is a more modern craftsman example from the last five years which means made in china after arrived and during editing we noticed it may not be the latest craftsman sold at lowe's though it's hard to keep up to be honest and low's website doesn't work for me half the time anywho we're going to first be measuring their hex opening and ranking these examples by their tightest tolerance on these tools more than any other as it's not always the case smaller tighter and less wiggle room is better by zeroing out the caliper at half inch we can see their measurements that are just over half inch so that's .008 inches for the craftsman in this case up next we have the crescent brand which is the cheapest overall set at fifteen dollars for three or five dollars a piece also made in china it's measuring point zero one four inches over half inch quite a bit more loosey-goosey in this case and here we have a new never used classic raised panel craftsman yes you know we can't leave an old school craftsman out like this the sears made in the usa craftsman that built the american diy wave of the 20th century adjusted for inflation these cost about 7.80 cents apiece are these actually good or do we just look back on them finally because we can't have them anymore well its tolerance says 0.013 inches over half inch so not the greatest start so far next up we have the harbor freight and no we're not slumming it with the pittsburgh line today recently they introduced their quinn line of flare nut wrenches our first taiwan entry of the day and their better best strategy on display here sold in only a set these were forty dollars or eight dollars a piece harbor freight's icon line doesn't offer line wrenches so this is our top game in town and it's seeing 0.013 inches next we got the gearwrench and often compared to hand tool for its affordability and quality though it's a brand normally known for their taiwan tools who are surprised this one showed up as made in china it does make some sense gearwrench is owned by apex tools and apex tools does have chinese factories fifty three dollars a set eight dollars and eighty three cents a piece and it's measuring point zero one two inches over next up in price is technically the vice grip 7lw nothing to measure here since it's adjustable but it should help in the coming tests to prevent slipping which is the end goal now on to some tool truck pricing levels starting first with the maco example made in taiwan 71 dollars a set or 17.70 at list price this measures .008 inches over so coming back down now and next up in price is the usa made sk tools flare nut wrench this is the only standard wrench today to be a bit different in length we found a bit shorter but sk is known for being one of the best choices for avoiding rounded nuts and bloody knuckles a set is about 91 dollars or 18 dollars and 20 cents a piece and it's measuring 0.009 inches over here and surprisingly up in price again we're including another gearwrench this time they're ratcheting flex head flare nut wrench design these sell as a set for 95 bucks 19 a piece due to obviously more complexity but still again made in china in this case nothing to measure here as it moves we're just including it today because we're curious this design seems a bit risky and we would never spend our own dollars on trying this out so you guys are financing that by watching this right now thanks for that last up we have the snap-on made in the usa she's a pricey one 52 and 80 cents a piece a 264 set of five but this has the reputation of being the top dog if you're done messing around with rounded flare nuts and bleeders this is the one stop shop to buy once and cry once sort of arrangement but no one really knows exactly why it's measurements of .0035 to .005 tell the story so far though that's twice like a toyga and here's our ranking list where you will be seeing these scores as we tally them we're on a 10 point scale here 10 is best one would be terrible we filled in their 9 16 tolerance measurements here as well these are not purely ranked 1 through 10 as we tried that first and many of the brands end up matching or getting very close to one another and excuse the results to try to order them sequentially so the snap on gets a 10 here and then the next closest would be the macon craftsman but there's some gap intolerance there and it steps down to eight points if you see what i'm talking about then pretty evenly spaced so 7 6 5 4 etc points awarded in cases where there are gaps or even worse scores it drops down more like here it's pretty close to a ranking order though our first test is meant to be similar to brake bleeders thinner than trans cooler flare nuts and lines so we custom ordered these aluminum nuts but their threads just failed first on every test so the next best thing is grade two nuts that are soft steel to make them more similar to aluminum fittings that you'll come across and because we've never seen a pristine bleeder we put these in a fixture and made these exactly 30 percent rounded pretty much that is on a half inch nut which our measured 0.498 inches the hex points measured 0.564 across that's a difference of 0.066 inches so take 30 off of that difference in the gap there and that's 0.544 at the hex now boom precision rounded with the dyno calibrated to turn bolt tension psi into foot pounds on this 5 16 24 thread grade 8 bolt and soft nut we're going to measure how much progress the nut makes before the wrench slips this has the benefit of ignoring your effort turning and buggering up the hex nut and just measuring how much work you're able to accomplish by turning it up first the craftsman the craftsman reached 27 foot pounds and the threads on the nut were pretty much done when we took it off so basically maxed it out quite good the crescent is next basically the cheapest you can buy in line here's a close-up of that 13 foot-pounds not amazing next is the vintage craftsman and this one was able to max out the threads as well top marks pretty good here's harbor freight's quinn this was about 12 foot pounds does not like rounded stuff very much gearwrench up next also 12 foot pounds it kind of felt like turning mud now for the vice grip 7lw designed for this sort of buggered bolt action if your half inch nut is no longer really half inch it doesn't really care it adjusts to its size also getting maxed out points here and now here's the maco tools could tell early on it was going to slip eventually but it made it to 19 foot pounds before doing so and here's sk sk made it to 220 then didn't make it any further the ratcheting gearwrench oh boy yeah they do not like anything that's partially rounded that cam action lever arm appears to hold on to just hex points so if they're gone well zero torque at least here alright snap on time the snap-on quickly maxed out the bolt no sweat but you can tell she was digging in here doesn't come away unscathed and here's an overview of their new scores with the same process but with our 30 rounded 9 16 grade 2 nuts recalibrated on the dyno with the torque wrench the threads last a bit more before failure which is usually around 35 to 40 foot-pounds now and the ratcheting gear wrench still the same luck there back to our ranking now and here's what that looks like all the tools that maxed out the threads get tens and the tools that came close to those torque values get a nine just one in this case then if a bit further down of the pecking order you get eights sevens and sixes down to some of the lower scores here so far the vice grip and the snap-on are batting a thousand but the vice grips only competing in two tests so far next up we have some unmolested hex nuts fresh out of the bag but these are coupling nuts rated grade a basically as soft as you can commercially sell a steel nut these are basically for like curtain rods and closets the benefit here is the internal thread size is now larger compared to its outside hex than our standard nuts so larger bolt means all the threads survive in these next half inch 9 16 test only up to the wrenches to rank themselves now due to slipping and we weren't super happy with the small amount of resolution we were getting when converting to foot pounds so we're going to be leaving the display in bolt tension psi from now on for your reference the divider is by 15.5 for half inch tests and 10.5 for 9 16 tests as shown with the torque wrench here we're going to be measuring the point just as the wrench slips as additional torque generated by marring the nut is not super useful to rank with here's a 9 16 side by side of newer versus older craftsman raised panel just 324 psi from the raised panel and a hole 598 from the newer half inch is a similar story 402 versus 676 that's about 26 versus 44 foot pounds moving on to the half inch crescent it reaches 659 psi or about 43 foot pounds and it's 9 16 wrench and moves into first place with 689 psi which is about 66 foot-pounds for 9 16. harbor freight quinn tallies up to 495 and half inch and it's 9 16 549 for the same ranking position gearwrench's turn in half inch about the same as quinn at 507 and it's 9 16 moves into second with 615 psi besides you being limited by space to fit the sort of vice grip tool we're also limited in extra leverage we were able to budge this tool up to 628 in half inch but it's getting a bonus point in the ranking for not slipping at all here and same deal with 9 16 just was not slipping off of that soft nut makko's turn here in half inch it jumps into the lead with psi for this size and also 9 16 with 705 and here's sk also super impressive in half inch with 702 and it's 9 16 does well but a little bit lower in comparison with 610. the ratcheting gear wrench found something it likes and takes this half inch coupling nut to 436 as shown here we found that a simple open-end wrench can even make a little bit more progress than that in 9 16 though it does build some steam 680 or so before repositioning the tool where it found some rounded spots it didn't like and here's the snap on 681 for third and half inch was surprised to see that but in 9 16 let's see 925 so this is how things rank before we head over to our last testing series snap-on gets something other than a 10 for once and 8 here surpassed by sk and makko in half inch then same old story over here with snap on being enough out ahead that there is no 9 again the ratcheting gear wrench did pour in half inch and pretty well in 9 16. the vintage craftsmen seem to like working on rounded stuff more than these new nuts very weird the vice grip scored sixes here but got bumped up to sevens due to never actually slipping not sure how else to score those like the others it's certainly got pros and cons takes up some space to lock onto that flare nut a lot more to even turn it but she grips no rips our last test series before we look at hardness and that won't be ranked is asme proof torque per asme standard b107.100 section 40 and 66 you use a hex mandrel and torque on these things until they cam out of position or the tool fails so we'll be using these tool steel hard as nails hex bit sockets with the torque wrench we're interested to see after some use what these wrenches can bring as we're assuming you don't toss out a wrench each and every time one slips on a fastener and this gives us the chance to measure some reverse action craftsman half inches up first and we saw 54.6 before caming out here's vintage craftsman 57.3 so it's moving into the lead crescent now crescent a full 78.7 pounds that's pretty up there harbor freight quinn harbor freight 58.8 58.8 gearwrench gearwrench moves into the lead with 85.8 on hard stuff the vice grips slip rather than digging into that fastener and it gets 62.4 foot pounds matco and the amaco saw as high as 58.4 in half inch sk here's sk 91.2 super up there in torque for a half inch nut wrench once we got the ratcheting gear wrench to bite saw only 30.7 foot-pounds before slipping snap-on and here's the snap-on it ties sk with 90.7 that's gonna max out the points for sure and now on to 9 16 for some bigger numbers craftsman sees 81.6.6 the vintage sees 71.3 crescent 75.6 harbor freight quinn was the first angle we shot and noticed we didn't fit everything on screen but 46.7 here still pretty low 46.7 gearwrench sees as high as 69.4 69.4 the vice grip appreciates the larger size to grip onto and gets 86.8 maco moves way up there with 89.2 and goes into the lead 89.2 sk does decent but shears off in the process drawing a small amount of blood as well the ratcheting actually likes this size and moves way up compared to us half inch scores 90s and finally the snap-on which maxed out this wrench ultimately wasn't able to improve upon that score but it still takes top honors there 100.1 on the ranking that makes for a couple more tens here for the old snappy a 10 and a 5 for sk whose 9 16 broke off grouping it with the gearwrench and vintage craftsman the huge disparity of the ratcheting designs from two sizes here and the only other traditional wrench brand to reach near snap-on in the second test being matco now for the hardnesses before we total and average these points enter our two thousand dollar hardness tester the rule with this guy is each time you see it on screen and if you're still watching you have to check to see if you're subscribed which if you're not well that's perfectly fine too but if you thought you were and you aren't well there you go alright asmu hardness specs for wrenches of these categories is 38 to 55 hrc pretty wide range hardness alone doesn't determine toughness and harder isn't always better unless you're asking my wife ask sk though breaking off completely is probably not preferred we ground down into the wrench ends of these tools and for the craftsman we saw 46.8 hrc on the average for the vintage it was 47.4 about the same crescent's wrenches were lower at 43.4 harbor freight 45 gearwrench saw the lowest on the day at 43 flat matco sees another 45 sk 48.5 so stepping things up the ratcheting gearwrench 46.6 and snap on 51.2 psf for several checks by far the hardest wrench not something you can often get away with without fracturing but seeing as it's so different in its results and performance today it must be part of the puzzle to a success the vice also saw 51.5 but a different category of tools those jaws need to be hard to bite into things you hearing this brands we're giving you the keys to the city here a harder wrench made out of a good alloy steel like chromoly that can be tough at those hardness levels enough meat on the end to prevent fracturing under load and a tight tolerance i mean brands please feel free to copy this formula for all the guys out there who don't have a tool truck or want to spend 264 on a small set let's total these findings though and see where everyone falls these scores are added up and averaged out to even them for the few wrenches that couldn't compete in all the categories that's 7.38 points for the craftsman a5 for the crescent also an identical five for the vintage craftsman did we just get a bad unused one or are your experiences similar i still use my grandfather's craftsman stuff somewhat often oh well the ring chart doesn't really care harbor freight 3.88 ouch i guess not much of a step up from the pittsburgh ones they do look good though and they're from taiwan it's a bit weird 5.5 for gearwrench 8 for the vice grips and we'll touch on that in a moment why that's sort of both fair and unfair at the same time 7.63 for the matco 7.88 for sk 3.5 for the ratcheting oof and 9.78 for snap-on needless to say snap-on is top in first followed by the vice scripts usa made sk taiwan made macko then china made craftsman followed by gearwrench vintage craftsman and crescent then the ratcheting gear wrench which we only included because we thought it was sort of a bad idea to begin with and we have to say despite a few flashes of brilliance yeah no please don't reinvent the wheel on an already nut rounding category of wrenches and nuts please the vice grips have the advantage of not having to compete here and also being sort of big overall with worse access and difficulty repositioning that onto the nut after you do turn it a little but it's also the only one to have basically never slipped on any of the nuts we tried and it got an extra point in each case for it we would absolutely recommend having a pair of these handy when you need them for ugly looking fittings bleeders and nuts after all nuts when you come across them are rarely exactly 14 millimeters anyways so this will help with that as for a set to have in your toolbox well yeah snap-on if you can swing it or sk and maco we noticed sk wrenches sold individually are similar price or sometimes less buying it that way versus buying the set so pick up the ones you need and leave the rest that's what i'd be doing what were your thoughts and surprises leave them down below this one grew in scope quick so took us some time to cover sorry about that 10 tools 10 different tests often on two cameras 170 different video clips we shot let us know if you want to see some other types of wrenches tested more concisely and shorter hopefully till then check out client graphics channel he does amazing stuff on this type of content with better equipment than us click subscribe to follow along and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 304,290

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Id: kkCIjl5aEoA

Length: 24min 57sec (1497 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 18 2022