Dyno Test: Best Tite-Reach Wrench Extender? + Mac & Snap On FS12

[Music] welcome back to the torque test channel and welcome to another one of our four science videos today's topic being tight reach wrenches do they work how much power are they robbing do they break and are 3 8 drive impact rated models really up to the task of some serious impacting by the most powerful 3 8 gun we've come across yet today we aim to answer each and every one of those questions with around 500 worth of tight reach wrenches that we somehow thought would be a good idea to purchase by torquing these by hand then using an impact wrench on the dyno and finally taking them apart to see why some did better than others in durability and force transfer that's going to include the actual tightreach brand itself's do-it-yourself bottle which is only thirty dollars their professional range that's rated for impact wrenches but for more than double the previous model at 70 bucks the mac tools version that's rated for impact wrenches as well and we paid 123 for and lastly the snap-on which is impact rated as well but 214 dollars wrench extenders like these all work the same way with the goal to move where you're working with a hand tool or power tool away from tight confines of a bolt or nut you're working on if these do work and work well we imagine there's a whole world of front engine accessories like water pumps tensioners idler pulleys as well as common type tasks like exhaust manifold bolts that would benefit from a tool like this and while they all sort of tackle the same task they're also sort of all designed the same way too two sprockets and a chain that live inside of an enclosed body with female and male drive vents but as we'll see later certain design or cost savings decisions make for quite a difference between these models speaking of the models let's start out with the do it yourself model from tightreach the product that sort of put them on the map right off the bat you can tell this thing is lighter duty because it's well light and smaller than the rest of the bunch today it's plastic body doesn't really inspire much confidence and the chain inside sort of just rattles around pretty freely since this tool is an impact rated we'll be using it by hand and calibrated on the dyno with a torque wrench to do so we'll be using a 12 inch long 3 8 drive maco ratchet for the hand run portions of these tests which we think being a foot long is a good choice for getting a feeling on those pounds foot let's take a look looks like this one has gotten to 19 so far but let's put some effort into it 24 and some snaps and pops already 30. and then 37 to 39 she's had it all done and looking the part to the chain almost poking out the side of that thin abs body and one drive end no longer being linked to the other now oh well their packaging does note 35 foot pounds and i guess they meant it probably best for those trim screws and such no real bolts that you expect to actually be tight as you're more than capable of breaking this tool by hand it really doesn't feel like a lot of torque in person to remove what this tool is able to tighten tightreach's next model their professional 70 version looks and feels the part though despite tight reaches images and description between these two models being very similar they're both made in china after all the tools are very much in fact different something i think tightreach is not doing well to distinguish when you're comparing them online it's bigger and it's sporting a cast aluminum powder coated body now if you look at their cell page and marketing material this guy is rated for 400 foot pounds of power tool action yet when it arrives the packaging says up to 150 newton meters which is only 111 foot pounds i guess we'll have to find out for ourselves first for some hand tool driven action which coincidentally is what i refer to my early 20s as a period of let's take a look ultimately wasn't able to cause this professional model to skip a beat when used by hand but also 70 80 foot pounds while trying hard as possible so not too much output in the grand scheme of things for impacting we're going to be using the milwaukee gen 2 3 8 mid torque rated for 550 pounds for this sort of thing and we've been able to get 475 out of this specific one which is so far the highest 3 8 model we've come across we'll be getting into our live charts on screen once this guns into its top mode mode 3. here's mode one which isn't very eventful only about nine to ten foot pounds here's mode two of three and only able to generate 29 foot pounds so far so let's add some spotting marks onto this socket so you can sort of see what's going on and hit this tool with milwaukee's top beans which would normally be 475 foot-pounds on this dyno within 15 seconds we'll be pausing the graph at times as we stop and start the impacting yeah so this thing vibrates a lot it's hard to brace it so that it does any real work here but once you do it does make some power transfer [Music] although ultimately not a lot more than you can generate by hand we were only ever able to get this around 95 97 later with short bursts from the gun every other second we could strap on a half inch gun here with an adapter but as you'll see it doesn't prove a lot trucking a great youtube channel check them out tried this sort of thing with an m18 high torque and adapter and didn't get any real extra performance out of it while his was still not breaking either it just wasn't transferring those impacts effectively enough to make a real difference in stepping up that power ours started separating from the shaking as you see here but is easily remedied by snugging up those center bolts that hold it together we'll have to look inside later on to see if it enjoyed that now for the mac x9e psw designed for impact use and also a cast aluminum body like the tight but our spendy tool truck model is just better this one was 123 dollars and is made in taiwan it has a permanent 3 8 male drive on one end and then a female on the other no sort of adapter to deal with here here's it driven by hand ah and here's mode one which unsurprisingly doesn't do a whole lot but check out mood 2. this is mode 2 on the mac versus mode 3 the highest setting on the milwaukee with the tight reach on screen so we're already at 94 foot pounds admittedly not a whole lot but well ahead of where the tight reach was with the same amount of impacting under mode three a lot less bouncing around as well doesn't make your hand sort of numb just from holding it let's try out that top mode 3 now starting from about 92 and just see how high it can go if it doesn't die so so 218 is about as much as she's going to make miles ahead of the tight reach when that one's test ended the mac was a hundred foot pounds up on it but in the end this milwaukee can make 475 in 15 seconds and it's making 218 in three times the test length here so chains yeah maybe not the most efficient intermittent blow force transfer mechanism on the planet after testing this milwaukee was proper stuck in the tool but as it turns out it's just thanks to a peeled over hog ring nothing else simple fix and you're on your way obviously this amount of force is not something you're making by hand with this ratchet or taking off but check this out with an impact unimpeded yeah that's a bit of a difference that gun does make some power so this apparent inefficient transfer of impacting power can it be solved with money with something made in the good old us of a this is the snap-on frw10 it's made from simple steel rectangular tubing with cutouts on the drive ends by far the simplest in design but also most expensive at 214 dollars the male drive in can be pushed through to work from either side let's see it first driven by hand then mode one and mode two bringing things from 67 to only about 76 not dramatic yet now for mode 3 the top beans maker on the milwaukee on screen versus the mac in the tightreach professional the snap-on climbs up fast and like the mac not a huge amount of vibration and this is just the impact falling out so even though it started below the mac here it made more power quicker and ultimately more overall but not night and day we're able to show it to you but i'm doubt you'd be able to notice this thing in person as a glaring difference between the mac and the snap-on so let's look inside of each one of these to see how much each enjoyed this sort of activity the diy tightreach conveniently made an easy access window for our use and yeah i was not having a good time here the chain linkage appears to have just sheared off and broken apart completely that chain being quite tiny and light and no country of origin or brand markings on the chain just size the tightreach professional comes apart easily with just two hex cap screws a bit too easy if you ask us these work themselves out just from impacting inside you'll quickly find a lot of metal debris or shaving sort of metal dust really everything's intact and the sprockets still spin well enough but these sprockets themselves have some serious flattened over edges that have built up a lip on the face like a bur of mushroom material on each sprocket tooth likely the source of these shavings inside these sprockets look very traditional bicycle style sort of thin and pointy not coming across as a purpose-built sort of mechanism for this task the chain is branded pusa which we originally thought might be ap usa but we couldn't find info on either names but we'll assume is china since that's where the tools are made but let's move on and see how a tool that performed as far as we can tell a order of magnitude better looks like in sight the mac is held together with three hex cap screws and was happy to find some blue loctite on each held together pretty well inside looks a bit more purpose-built the chain has sort of distinct passageways and roots for the chain to wrap around the drive end for more teeth engagement the female drive end is also a larger diameter sprocket than the socket end representing some mechanical advantage rather than simply one to one and that sprocket looking chunkier no thin points to mushroom over and minimal wear as a result but there is some fine white dust or powder on the inside and on the chain and that appears to be a result of wear against the inner aluminum housing on the inside radius for the drive end sprocket on the aluminum body sort of cap cover that goes over this and on the inside edges where it's routing and tapering that chain for almost obvious reasons there almost like the timing belt tensioner of an engine but if we're using just bare aluminum for some bad reason not sure how much it will affect the tool in the long run maybe just open it up from time and again and blow it out with some compressed air and spray some chain lube and you'd be good to go easy to do the chain does come with some brand markings kmc which is a bicycle chain factory in taiwan where this tool is made seems to be a long standing and performance driven chain manufacturer but yeah still for bicycles so maybe not meant for impacting though really how many chains are the last model the snap-on doesn't come apart unfortunately even if you take these snap rings off but we could see inside from the ends and found little to no wear or shavings and dust there and its chain has markings for hkk japan an industrial manufacturer in japan making chains targeted for the highest load values this exact 35 h chain you can find for 50 alone it's their superior capacity plus model and is rated for 2 400 pounds tinsel strength seems like snap-on spared no expense on the chain alone for this one so that's nice to see so i guess if we had to rank these in durability and performance it would go in order of highest to lowest price at the end of the day which might not be a shock for you but is not how things often go on this channel the snap-on made a little bit more made it faster and did so with less wear and has a lifetime warranty to boot the mac made around the same also doing so without shaking itself apart and it did so with less coin but you may want to check it for wear and spray out some aluminum dust from the housing once in a while and it only carries that one year warranty the tightreach professional made less than half the beans these other two did and did so violently with a lot of bracing against the tool required while they may rate this for 400 foot-pounds an impact rated by milwaukee at 550 won't make 100 or more on this tool so that statistic is not very useful to you if you use this with an impact you're going to run into a lot of bolts that are seemingly very stuck but may not be in reality we think realistically this tool should be used by hand and then when you're doing that and only that it works pretty good but investing in an extra long high tooth count ratchet or cordless ratchet might be more of a universally used investment at the end of the day the do-it-yourself tightreach oh boy i mean can't say i recommend this to anyone unless they have a very specific low torque task they plan to do often it's just too easy to break without really trying all that hard and if you need to do what this tool is sort of designed for you need the professional tight reach unfortunately though their 30 to 35 foot-pound claim before it breaks is dishearteningly honest though not sure the average diy person knows what 35 foot pounds feels like until it's too late what would be your choice among these options let us know down in the comments appreciate you joining us for this for science video we really like making these ones suggest more down in the comments below and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 169,528

Keywords: frw10, snap on, snap-on, tite-reach, tite reach, tight reach, wrench extrender, ratchet extension, impact extension, Mac tools, X9EPSW

Id: lK2jfJLKrK4

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021