The Army's Fascinating M1 ABRAMS Impact Wrench

welcome back to the torque test Channel now I knew this would be bulky and heavy and maybe very official looking but I had no idea it would show up looking like a dang MRE what we have here might just be the coolest all-around kit we've ever got the chance to test we bought a standard issue US Army Robo impact the impact wrench servicemen and women might use to perform repairs and maintenance on Army equipment and vehicles including M1 Abrams tanks and it's got some of the more curious attachments in bits these eyes have ever seen that frankly I have no idea what this is for like square drive into female male spline So today we're going to try and get this impactor run on wall juice to measure its torque capability since it's very much expecting something else with the connector looking like this compare that to corded and cordless impacts from days past to today that you might own at home as well to see how it Stacks up against those and convert it over to cordless to run off of the spiciest cordless packs we have just to see what it can do then briefly take it apart to peek inside and finally test some of the very different and very cool attachments that comes with this that we found pretty fascinating and once we're done with it here we're going to ship this full kit to a randomly chosen one of you guys that own our rank charts within this next month as a thank you simply because we think this is something that's really cool to own so yeah we bought this US Army Robo impact made by aircraft Dynamics a specialty tool maker out of Ohio for more than 50 years thanks to a viewer by the name of Jesse who pointed out it being used in a clip by the second armored Brigade combat team while servicing an M1 A2 aboms replacing parts of its tracks is it the most powerful thing in the world who's to say I guess we'll take a look but seems to get the job done here using it almost like a spring compressor to line up those tank tracks and tanks many like these are pretty crazy their suspension being basically long torsion arm bars that Flex up and down rather than Springs something they oddly share in common with F1 cars which also use very shrunken down versions of the same principle for different reasons but I imagine you at times need some serious power tools to Service Hardware of that size or when that doesn't work you need a backup plan with some more sauce which this kit also affords and we'll be taking a look at that the first step and well steps 1 through 10 to testing this tool is figuring out how to power it this comes with a standard issue NATO plug receptacle 24 DC and up to 500 amps so yeah basically you could power a generator with this plug but it's just powering this handheld impact wrench now this is made for a 1 and a/4 in male NATO port on a Humvee but we don't have one of those Humvees so we bought a few things one this adjustable voltage and current ACDC inverter to be able to supply a custom level of power from the wall to this tool wired this up with three 10 gauge leads from both positive and negative to encourage the least amount of resistance and most ump we can deliver this is currently dialed into about 24.1 24.2 volts which we imagine the tool should welcome then we ordered this NATO spec generator plug all of this stuff is ridiculously heavy for what it is which is basically a way to have large leads come out of our inverter to this recepticle just a whole lot of anodized aluminum steel and rubber on each of these things that feel like mini barbells then lastly a NATO generator plug adapter to take this big center pin ring style and convert it over to the two pin generator plug and we should still be getting yeah 24.3 volts I'll take it that all slides together like two 5 gallon buckets might and from there we dial in the amount of current it likes and just keep turning things up until Peak amps don't seem to be increasing and we get Max RPM from this tool which is advertised 1800 and it's measuring 1800 RPM to looking good so let's see how she does this is called a Max torque test 10 seconds in Reverse time to plug this whole oversized and now over complex assembly Al together and see how she gets on [Applause] 252 footb well she's smooth but that's not going to set too many records of Blaze we had a feeling this might happen though Jesse told us these are more than likely a result of nearly Cold War era ages of contracts that once secured they're just made and those are going to be made all at once then in storage for forever or or continued production but with little to no updates un less for durability reasons but for comparison here's a Japanese made ingr ran corded impact from the early '90s that we tested and didn't think did all that bad for the era and this here we see the Army impact able to top it in this reverse Direction so there is some potential there often what we do around here when something is plugged into the wall and we want to see numbers that are more fun is convert it to battery powered I'd say cordless here but there's still going to be plenty of those cords you see modern tools sometimes actually get more watts total out of battery packs than we get from our silly 120 volt here in the States this 10 amp stacked lithium Flex volt for instance says 2520 WTS on the side of it yet we're usually limited to about 1,800 from the wall since this is already 24 volt all this took was like an adapter to make it male prong then crimping together some leads and Presto Chango since this Tool's already DC this is basically ready to go so let's see how it works we're going to just head over into our longest reverse test best case scenario so it's longer test but we'll put the previous run on screen as [Applause] well 319 ft-lbs and not really an improvement either the 10 gauge leads weren't really getting hot either it's just not a current limitation here it seems so makes sense that a 24volt battery making a similar 24 volts as the inverter they also test out the same and make roughly the same RPM which I think tracks but this got us thinking and it might be some good news if it's already being supplied with enough Watts from this thing what if we turn up the voltage voltage is often tied more directly with RPM and impacts make more torque with more Hammer speed so RPM so we tried 25 with nearly no change but when you think about it ave's 24volt NATO receptacle is really just going to be 2 12 volt batteries run in series and while a running car's battery is more like 14 volts due to the alternator what if we just double that to 28 volts like the humy isn't just parked but also running and it's soaking up just as many amps as before but at a higher voltage and it sounds pretty happy too this one's now seeing 2,500 RPM now this is at 28.4 volts up against the Japanese ingr r man corded again 601 foot- PBS yeah that's more than a little bit of a gain there pretty happy with that it does sound like a different animal at higher voltage Army folks if the bolt is stuck make sure that armor is running which I'm sure they could have told us no doubt equipment like this is designed to take a whole lot of abuse and bad decision-making so we also tried turning this up to 292 to 30 volts with no real gains over that 28 volt run in fact more often than not it would result in lower Peak figures so that does seem to be The Sweet Spot 28 to 28 1/2 volts which means yes a modern corded impact wrench which some of the top spec in that category actually originates from Harbor Freight and well of course cordless High torqus these days they both can still Top This army unit but it was much closer than we expected military grade of course doesn't always mean cutting htech just more often very customized to a certain application and for use by well all skill levels let's say which brings us to the rest of this sometimes head scratching kit will'll take the impact apart coming up but we wanted to definitely take a look at this torque multiplier included with it we've recently tested multipliers and found them pretty fun even if at times maybe a bit sketchy they take your hand tool input and multiply out by using a planetary gear set sometimes a multi-stage one this 4 to1 input to Output ratio as we measure it multiplier is unique in a few ways though for one it's mostly CNC machined in the head which is not often the case on the ones we've bought no doubt helping to justify the many thousands of dollars it originally cost it's also a sort of male female spline or Groove slotted design on the casing and the inner housing very strange and almost resembles the oddl looking sockets bit sockets and extensions that come with the kit that also feature a strange male female spline pair all stuck together and finally the reaction arm on this multiplier what the tool braces off of to apply that torque has quick release locks and can flip around in either direction based on where you need to brace off of it's very cool means you can also put a long pole extension on the arm if more convenient to work on like one of these let's see what it can do and also maybe figure out what its torque ratio input to Output is with the arm chained up for bracing a/2 in torque wrench brings this to about 150 and then the tool clicks not the wrench even with the hand ratchet it clicks over like a break away torque wrench and just stops turning the socket and continues to click and click away without any progress It's not a ratcheting design multiplier it's not anti- backd drag it's just not progressing any further our first thought was that coming with an impact wrench they somehow designed a mechanism that torque multiplies an impact wrench and this thing was designed to work with an impact wrench but no luck there frankly I put this tool away and left it overnight to think about it then it occurred to me we're thinking about this all wrong these aren't tools that they're trying to sell to a consumer advertising the highest numbers trying to get you to buy one over the other these are made for a purpose and that purpose is probably more than anything else to not accomplish anything stupid perform the job yes like this impact wrench but also just SPC out to be able to do that job and well not perform an M kill on your own equipment by making it immobile from some new recruit going ham tightening some nuts and bolts and stripping them out with that in mind while it's not as measurable to test this way I figured let's first tighten the dyno then try to use this multiplier in Reverse with the current nut and thread size on this Skidmore foot- pounds of torque would be this display time 1.1 so we're looking at 705 ftlb here and with a breaker bar like this one that comes in the kit and a pole as an extension like you might use with this quick disconnect reaction arm design we got no more clicking and 700 ft-lb coming right off this part here according to the digital torque adapter on here set to 250 took about 248 foot lbs to turn which makes for a 2.85 to1 torque ratio into to out which isn't all that high for a 4:1 rotation tool but this clicking yeah that's pretty interesting as I'm sure you've probably figured out at this point it's a slip clutch allows you to tighten to about wor thinking 165 ftlb and forward almost like a torque wrench that's more durable and can't really get out of calibration then when you're in the direction that you can't mess things up by overtightening them it's just removing stuck stuff it does allow for full beans and as it turns out that's on each of these attachments that the breaker bar is meant to be used on as well that breaker bar being Blackhawk when the line was usamade tools which is mainly under their Proto name now so yeah each one of these is like a male and female male splin cup that overcomes a preload and then slips forward at a specified limit but works locked in place in Reverse almost like a ratchet Paul each one of these is actually the same a cup and a halfin male square drive adapter splined into it then the socket or extension or attachment pinned onto that square drive so basically each one of these is the same part and easy to replace so some of these attachments are made for the impact like this Universal extension with a super loose head and you can see the pinned universal joint down in the base of the socket haven't seen a design like this without the usual pin retaining colar and I believe it's missing the tension spring inside to make it less complex and less components that can fail which I think underlines the entire thought process of a toolkit like this make it so you could issue it to even a gorilla and they can't harm too much but with enough ump especially in the removal direction to be able to complete the task in most cases it's been a while since I needed to use some SAE sizes well let's get this thing open and Marvel at its well Simplicity and strangeness compared to modern examples the planetary ring gear in this is in the nose Hammer cover which is strange you normally find that in the tool it has a massive old school needle bearing out front like an inch wide needle bearing for smooth less bouncy slower wearing operation and a completely contained hammer and spring mechanism which means this already not all that heavy and very much not large in diameter Hammer is hollow with a reset spring inside of it a simple design and one you might find on a gas engine powered Railway impact which is also very old school and two large planetary gears up here besides taking off the handle which isn't all that eventful this is about as far apart as it goes the hammer mechanism appears to be pressed into the shielded bearing it rides on and this is not coming off unless there's some type of trick to these overall stupid simple but works makes enough grunt to do the task it was commissioned for but also won't do anything too damaging much like the rest of this fascinating and really just fun to dive into kit probably going to result in more vehicles and Equipment repaired than damaged and works everywhere in the world with silly sized Universal connections no doubt there's highly qualified technically trained people using these daily but it appears the overall best result is designing it for a pissed-off gorilla in a hurry Simplicity reliability less Parts if it ain't broke don't fix it appreciate you guys coming along for this one we make episodes every Friday we're going to ship this off to a random owner of our rank charts around 25 days from now click some stuff below if you want to follow along with the channel and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 995,323

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Id: N81a_EmLgZE

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2024