Why do torque multipliers are so expensive

[Memmeddu]

I've been watching videos about torque multipliers, how they works, their capabilities and they're a pretty useful bit of kit.
They are so simple but at the same time so expensive.
Why? It's just a planetary gear with an impute female square and output male one, with a piece of steel as reaction arm.
Can't really understand how these things are so much expensive.
I might even be able to build one from scratch because they are so simple

 

[awemawson]

I bought a Chinese one off eBay to undo some massive bolts/nuts on my JCB 3 CX. I thought it remarkably cheap. It felt horrible when turned by hand so I dismantled it, packed it with grease, and it was much better. It did the job for me, and for occasional use it’s fine. If I was working with heavy plant daily it probably wouldn’t last long though.
I posted a thread about it here on the forum “In praise of cheap torque multipliers” and reading that thread it seems mine cost £60

 

[daleyd]

They are quite niche so they don’t sell many - they don’t have the economy of scale of other more popular tools. Plus if there’s not many places selling them they can charge more

 

[Memmeddu]

That's The style I am looking for as it may work better for me
https://amzn.eu/d/4IQh2eu

The hand cranked ones are too bulky and if I can get it to fit in place I can use my 3/4" impact too so useless for me

 

[zzr1200]

The reason is simple, there is a fairly limited amount of purchasers willing/needing to pay the amount a decent one costs, most users will just put a tube on the end of a ratchet/strong arm bar.

It's only when you need a high torque in a limited space workplace that people consider a Torque Multiplier, I purchased s Snap-on 1/2>3/4 drive (1000 ftps output) years ago to tighten the cylinder head bolts of a Gardener Engine fitted in an Atkinson Borderer.

I've used it a few time since tightening output flanges on lorry gearboxes and the like, would I sell it, never it's one of those tools that is too useful, last time I used it 12>15 years ago.....

295 euro isn't a bad price, I paid £250, 50 years ago for my one.

 

[Cobbler]

The reason is simple, there is a fairly limited amount of purchasers willing/needing to pay the amount a decent one costs, most users will just put a tube on the end of a ratchet/strong arm bar.

It's only when you need a high torque in a limited space workplace that people consider a Torque Multiplier, I purchased s Snap-on 1/2>3/4 drive (1000 ftps output) years ago to tighten the cylinder head bolts of a Gardener Engine fitted in an Atkinson Borderer.

I've used it a few time since tightening output flanges on lorry gearboxes and the like, would I sell it, never it's one of those tools that is too useful, last time I used it 12>15 years ago.....

295 euro isn't a bad price, I paid £250, 50 years ago for my one.

That was 2 weeks wages for me 50 years ago

 

[zzr1200]

That was 2 weeks wages for me 50 years ago

I had to buy it on the Snap-on weekly never never plan, back then......
I probably didn't make much (if any) money out of the first job, but I have recouped it many times over since, being able to do jobs that very few other people have the tools for.

 

[Mikes]

I was given a quality German made torque multiplier a few years back. Excellent for lorry wheel nuts etc. Hate to think what it would cost to buy.

 

[Dilkris]

I've been watching videos about torque multipliers, how they works, their capabilities and they're a pretty useful bit of kit.
They are so simple but at the same time so expensive.
Why? It's just a planetary gear with an impute female square and output male one, with a piece of steel as reaction arm.
Can't really understand how these things are so much expensive.
I might even be able to build one from scratch because they are so simple

Lets be honest - the list of items falling into "why are these so expensive" - (especially these days post Brexit, Covid compounded by the Russia/Ukraine conflict), would be very much endless......

 

[zzr1200]

Lets be honest - the list of items falling into "why are these so expensive" - (especially these days post Brexit, Covid compounded by the Russia/Ukraine conflict), would be very much endless......

Just be thankful that these days there's a great deal of gear that comes out of the "Far East" that does work well, maybe not be of top notch quality by some peoples standards, but it works well and is still fairly cheap.

Snap-on and other top brands years ago thought "We Are The Best", they sat still long enough that other brands court up, just like the British Motorcycle Manufacturers did years ago....

Halfords Pro, Teng and many others producing good quality...

 

[MetalMonkey]

As mentioned above, they are a niche tool, and they tend to be used in the heavy plant, industrial and haulage industries - and everything in those sectors is expensive.

The cheapy chinese ones work kinda. But not really if you want one that is accurate (i.e. you can trust the torque value ratio it will provide) rather than just something to give you a random amount of mechanical advantage.
The best bet is to try and pick up a second hand bargain, again because they are niche, s/h prices seem to either go very high or very low. Finding one at the right price is part luck and part patience.

If you are in no hurry, just keep searching for a good quality used one, that would be my advice.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

As mentioned above, they are a niche tool, and they tend to be used in the heavy plant, industrial and haulage industries - and everything in those sectors is expensive.

Especially lost time!

When fixing a breakdown on a £1M machine that's not making the £250 a minute it normally would, the cost of an "expensive" tool is suddenly just "noise" on the balance sheet.

Definitely the kind of thing I would expect companies rather than individuals to buy.

 

[More Amps]

Just had a quick peek and quality brands like Kennedy are charging £500! Had a try at Amazon found Vevor https://www.amazon.co.uk/VEVOR-Torq...pcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE for £60 - that's much more like it!

 

[zzr1200]

The best bet is to try and pick up a second hand bargain, again because they are niche, s/h prices seem to either go very high or very low. Finding one at the right price is part luck and part patience.

If you are in no hurry, just keep searching for a good quality used one, that would be my advice.

I wouldn't touch a s/hand one, one of my old bosses lent his one (the firms) out to an engine rebuilders next door, do undo a crank pulley bolt, he popped back to collect a item he needed machining.

He finds them using an impact gun on the torque converter.... they never had it again, but they did get a bill from Snap-on for check n repair.....

There not that expensive these days.

Torque Multiplyer for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for Torque Multiplyer. Shop with confidence.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[awemawson]

Just had a quick peek and quality brands like Kennedy are charging £500! Had a try at Amazon found Vevor https://www.amazon.co.uk/VEVOR-Torq...pcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE for £60 - that's much more like it!

That is visually identical to the one I bought when working on my JCB 3CX and after dismantling, cleaning and greasing it has proved entirely satisfactory for my light usage.

 

[MetalMonkey]

I wouldn't touch a s/hand one, one of my old bosses lent his one (the firms) out to an engine rebuilders next door, do undo a crank pulley bolt, he popped back to collect a item he needed machining.

He finds them using an impact gun on the torque converter.... they never had it again, but they did get a bill from Snap-on for check n repair.....

There not that expensive these days.

Torque Multiplyer for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for Torque Multiplyer. Shop with confidence.

www.ebay.co.uk

Any of the cheap "pepper grinder" ones on eBay are going to be the chinese ones with rough internals, if you have a look at the torque test channel they did a teardown and comparison on them and you do get very much get what you pay for.

If you just want to occasionally remove something and need a bit of extra grunt it will probably be fine but if you are trying to torque something using the specified torque ratio, forget it.

Probably the cheapest "cheap" one that actually is respectable is going to be something like the sealey (norbar style clone), which they still want £200 odd for.

I picked up my Norbar one for £30 and I reckon its barely seen any use. Took me a few years of looking to find one at the right price though.
If you have the time to look out for them, I suspect there are a lot languishing in toolboxes that only used once or twice a year.

But yeah, I'd probably steer clear of the ones that have been the HGV shop loaner.

 

[zzr1200]

Any of the cheap "pepper grinder" ones on eBay are going to be the chinese ones with rough internals, if you have a look at the torque test channel they did a teardown and comparison on them and you do get very much get what you pay for.

If you just want to occasionally remove something and need a bit of extra grunt it will probably be fine but if you are trying to torque something using the specified torque ratio, forget it.

Probably the cheapest "cheap" one that actually is respectable is going to be something like the sealey (norbar style clone), which they still want £200 odd for.

I picked up my Norbar one for £30 and I reckon its barely seen any use. Took me a few years of looking to find one at the right price though.
If you have the time to look out for them, I suspect there are a lot languishing in toolboxes that only used once or twice a year.

But yeah, I'd probably steer clear of the ones that have been the HGV shop loaner.

MM, that one looks nice has a clean input square drive, even the socket looks almost new, signs of use, almost new.

I'll agree them must be loads of T/M's sitting in tool boxes that mechanics have purchased, but the good ones get sold, to someone in the know when the owner retires...

Yep, it's those impact gun marks on the corners of the input drive that give the game away....

 

[frank horton]

as for special expensive limited use tools I add a charge over and above to the job everytime it comes outta the box....
I have a 1,1/2inch tap that cost over a 100squids, that gets charged out at a tenner a time.....prob just got my money back after 10 years...
where I lived in Manchester at the time I could rent said tap for 30 pounds a time plus vat and any chips on inspection when returned, u faced a penalty....
thats why I bought my own...

 

[zzr1200]

as for special expensive limited use tools I add a charge over and above to the job everytime it comes outta the box....
I have a 1,1/2inch tap that cost over a 100squids, that gets charged out at a tenner a time.....prob just got my money back after 10 years...
where I lived in Manchester at the time I could rent said tap for 30 pounds a time plus vat and any chips on inspection when returned, u faced a penalty....
thats why I bought my own...

So true, you hire it, you damage it, and you pay for it...that's another reason to have your own.

I used to make some of my own special tools to do my job as a service engineer if it saved me time/pain, against the procedure the other engineers had to follow to do the same job,
"That time was mine" I still charged it to the job, but went home earlier than the other engineers, because I'd found a way of time saving for ME not the company.

 

[Morrisman]

As mentioned above, they are a niche tool, and they tend to be used in the heavy plant, industrial and haulage industries - and everything in those sectors is expensive.

The cheapy chinese ones work kinda. But not really if you want one that is accurate (i.e. you can trust the torque value ratio it will provide) rather than just something to give you a random amount of mechanical advantage.
The best bet is to try and pick up a second hand bargain, again because they are niche, s/h prices seem to either go very high or very low. Finding one at the right price is part luck and part patience.

If you are in no hurry, just keep searching for a good quality used one, that would be my advice.

We had a pretty high quality one on the ship I worked on for years, for tightening up 2” threads on compressor piston rods.

First time we used it we just counted rotations, input versus output, to get the ratio. 3:1 if I remember right. But afterwards we looked into it a bit more and read the paperwork, and it turned out we were putting twice the torque we calculated into the thing. No idea how it worked, but the ratio was more like 5:1 to calculate input from.