That time a torque wrench lied to me on a 737 elevator cable turnbuckle

I was doing a rigging check on a 737-800 at Detroit Metro last Thursday, and the cable tension felt way off even though my wrench clicked at 50 inch-pounds. Turns out the 3/8 inch snap-on torque wrench I grabbed was 2 years out of calibration and nobody had tagged it. It took me 3 hours of re-doing the whole assembly and second-guessing myself before I borrowed a coworker's wrench and got it set right. Has anyone else had a bad part slip through because the tooling was bad, not the actual components?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant.sam10d ago

That Snap-on 3/8 is a solid wrench - was it the one with the red dial or the digital readout that went bad on you?

eva90810d ago

lol "solid wrench" is being generous for what that thing put me through. @grant.sam it was the digital readout one that finally gave up on me, and honestly I think it was embarrassed by how many times I dropped it off the lift. I'm pretty sure that wrench has seen more concrete than my work boots at this point. Still hurts the wallet a bit thinking about replacing it though.

kim19110d ago

Actually the real issue nobody's talking about is how those digital readout wrenches are basically impossible to fix yourself. Drop a regular torque wrench and you can recalibrate it or just keep using it if it's mechanical, but those digital ones have sealed circuit boards that snap on the inside. I heard a guy say the repair cost from Snap-on is almost the same as buying new because they just swap the whole head unit. So yeah, you're probably better off just getting a standard clicker type this time and saving yourself the headache down the road.