Tool Review: 12v Impact Wrench

[AmDaMan]

Right folks, this was a bargain at £23 from machine mart. It's the clarke CIR13C. There were other ones around that more or slighly less but were dodgy makes such as cosmic etc. According to the Auto express reviews it was the best bang for your buck but that was the 120ft/lb version, this updated version is 250 ft/lb.

The bloke at the shop said it would be no good for rusted bolts as it's only 20 quid and 12v, and you need one that cost £300+ for those... what a load of poo.

I was having problems with the strut top mounts as we all know they are a crap design on the clio and a lot of times the top of the struts have to be drilled if you want to adjust them in any way. I was having problems with mine and was worried I would have to drill them becuase it had already bent a few tools. A few seconds with this and they were off as you can see below. Don't let the plastic contruction fool you it's a very powerful tool indeed.

Just look at some of the bolts and nuts it got off, i couldn't believe it, even the throughly rusted ones, and the big one... the hub bolt which is torqued pretty damn tight and required a breakers bar and lots of force, took it off without breaking a sweat!! All from a 12v £20 tool it was awsome.

In conclusion i recommend you buy one as it's a bargain and you won't pull your hair out with rusty stuck nuts and bolts again!!! Plus it's only £20, I was only indending to use it for these bolts but now I'm going to use it for anything that gives me bother

 

[AmDaMan]

The misses, the kids, your boss?

It will scare the misses, don't have kids or a boss

 

[AmDaMan]

hmm. May well purchase one at £23- been looking at a dewalt for a ton or so or just getting a compressor and one for about the same.

One thing though- its worth using impact (black) sockets with them- bit safer as less chance of damaging the socket.

It is yeah unless you have good quality normal sockets - my smoos ones have held up fine, but a cheap socket I used cracked earlier. The black ones are shatterproof and designed for the high torque bursts.

Nathan - The car you see in the pictures was bought for £60, If I had a split balljoint on my daily driver it would be changed as you would notice a deterioration in steering and possibly some kind of knocking. But this car is just sat there so there's really no need.

ps gobbo: I'm taking the hubs and shocks off and swaping them with the 1.4 just doing what I can to prepare the 1.4 for the engine swap.. Fancy helping me swap the rear beam over?

 

[AmDaMan]

plus gas? Do you mean heat it up??

Gobbo, i'll let you know then as i bet theres quite a bit to do! Also we would need to put the 1.4 beam back on the valver to keep the valver rolling. Might need another set of axle stands too

 

[AmDaMan]

gobbo : Ok mate i'll let you know in the week then, cheers.

northwind: never seen that, where can you get it??

muvver: the smoos sockets are superb!! quite thin yea and very very strong and look damn good too I got mine of ebay and it was an absolute bargain at like £25 for the set! I've been using them with the impact wrench and they have been spot on, even used one for the hub nut, no problems at all.

 

[AmDaMan]

I prefer the 12 pointers, why don't you like em?

 

[AmDaMan]

major bumpage!!

My 1st one snapped it's handle when un-doing a hub nut but it still worked!!

I took it back and got another under warranty.

My lastest one doesn't seem to be as good as the 1st one so that's going back shortly as you get a 1year warranty on them.

Awesome tool.