I do not want to bog down the diy forum with my rocket science ideas but I just wanted to see what other thought of my idea to solve a problem; not specific to BMW. I was under the car today trying to wrench the transmission sump pan bolts down to 9lbs per the Bentley manual after my partial flush. I went to Napa ready to fork out $50 for a digital torque wrench and they started at around $200, not in the budget. Under the car it is very hard to get directly under a pointer type torque wrench, fairly cheap, and see what the heck the number is within at least 5 psi. I need to get glasses and the scale is always 2 ft left or right of you. I cut and bent a little strip off a page of the Bentley manual about the size of a match stick. I taped this to the scale in such a way that the pointer would cause the paper to move in a manner like a small Beagle wagging its tail, when the desired torque was reached. Can you see how this would be easy to see and increase the accuracy of the tool. Kudos or just more stinkin' thinkin?
Why would you need a digital torque wrench? You could set the torque you want and when it clicks it's there with a traditional torque wrench. Or am I not understanding?
It's hard to visualize, but if it lets you know that you've hit the desired torque, then its a great idea. You'll be happy (and maybe surprised) to hear that apparently the inexpensive bending beam torque wrenches are the most accurate (according to EUROWERKZ1) as discussed here: http://bmwcca.org/forum/showthread.php?p=11167#post11167
So if mine is a little tweaked and reads 4 from the get go, suppose I would just subtract that from my reading, right?
I'm no torque wrench expert, so don't know either. I would hazard to guess that you are probably correct. Many "clicker" torque wrenches are below $100, and that is the type most people use. You're supposed to check their calibration once in a while though.
That is a clever way to eliminate parallax view when you can't see the scale dead on. You are correct about subtracting/adding the offset to the reading. You can tweek the needle if you want, but you don't want to damage it further.
