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Hi all. Last Christmas my dad bought me this Craftsmen tire care kit that included a 1/2″ impact. I had been saying how I want a bigger air compressor and air tools. Last summer, I did use the impact once with my 3 gallon compressor. It was just enough to remove a nut from a pulley on the lawn mower. I also used it to put it back on. About 2 months ago, I bought a nice big 21 gallon compressor and 50′ 3/8″ hose from Harbor Freight. I know it’s not the best brand, but I’m not running a shop, just my hobby stuff. Last weekend, I sat down to do my brakes and busted out the impact. I found that at 120 PSI, the impact would not even come close to loosening the lug nuts. I broke them loose with a 4-way wrench with little effort. Without any load the impact spun fast and free. But I could hold it in my hand with little effort and that would stop it from spinning. The socket did jerk back and forth with the hammer inside, but it had not inclination to rotate.
After reading my little manual that came with the impact gun, I found three possible causes:
1) The hose is too long. 25′ is the recommended length.
2) Not enough oil in the air inlet. I put in two drops to start, but added a few more for good measure. It didn’t help.
3) Not enough oil in the hammer. I added maybe a 1/4 ounce of oil in it, still no help.The only thing I can’t try is the hose. I only have the one large hose. I did swap back to the 1/4 hose that I used last summer on my 3 gallon compressor. That compressor and hose was enough to loosen a bolt before, but that hose with the new 21 gallon compressor didn’t make a difference. The only thing I didn’t try was busting out the old 3 gallon. I didn’t do that because I’d wasted a lot of time already and needed to get to my break job.
So what I’m looking for is some suggestions of what to look for. I can’t verify that my new compressor is good as this is the only air tool I have. I can buy another hose, to test with, but it seems odd that it worked last summer with a little 1/4 plastic hose. Any ideas?
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Oh cool. I always thought it was more like a right angle impact. I use to have access to air tools, but an air ratchet wasn’t one of them.
No, unfortunately air ratchets don’t have any impact action. IR just came out with a new right angle impact though!
Now that Christmas has come and gone, I got to play with my 3/8 air ratchet. Very nice, works like a charm with more torque than my impact puts out. Not as fast as I would have hoped though, but it will save me from some sore and raw fingers.
I can’t find any proof of purchase for my Craftsmen impact, so I’m just SOL. I’ll probably pick up a HF impact. Sometimes Sears has good sales, so if I see one soon, I might get another Craftsmen. Well, I might as well take the old apart if it’s out of warranty first. You never know, I might learn something.
I also want to find some sort of swivel air coupler. With the hose, it adds almost 7 inches to the total length. I’m thinking something like this:
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/DYNABRADE-Air-Line-Connector-13F690?cm_sp=IO-_-IDP-_-RR_VTV70300505&cm_vc=IDPRRZ1
Is there one that’s a little closer to 180 degrees of movement in each direction?EDIT: I think I answered my own question. I did find one 3-way on Amazon. Looks like what I’m looking for.
http://www.amazon.com/Astro-Pneumatic-APN3SB10-Swivel-Coupler/dp/B000LQJDFG/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1356837422&sr=1-2&keywords=swivel+air+couplerI would just take it back and tell them you just got it for christmas. They should exchange it. Sucks that the impact doesn’t work though. Honestly, You might be able to get something nice used rather than buying new shit. I have an old Mac (IR ThunderGun Look-Alike) that kicks my friends impacts ass, and his is rated at 1250ft/lbs. It was given to me for free and its about as old as I am.
Get the temperature up in the garage and see if that makes a difference. At that temp you’ll start icing up condensation in the lines. Put a tee into your impact’s inlet. In the upper part of the tee screw in a pressure gauge and your air fitting goes in the other. Run the gun and see what it reads. I bet you’ve got 120 when not gunning the thing and dropping below 90 when you run it. No brand of impact will have any power without its needed pressure. Its like running speaker wires that are too small to a big speaker. When you can’t push enough power through the wires the speaker distorts. Run bigger wires and it sounds good.
I use a diesel powered torpedo heater with an adjustable thermostat to heat my garage. I have an uninsulated 3 car and that thing can make it t-shirt weather when its only 10 degrees outside. New it was about $170 and worth every penny. Air tools and air compressors for that matter don’t like cold because their use produces a refrigerant effect which will actually make ice form above 32 degrees. I’ve seen a pneumatic pump that was used steadily get ice on its exhaust port at 60 degrees outside.
The Craftsmen impact really wasn’t that much. I know this black Friday, they same kit was on sale for… $36 I think. But I might swing by to see what they’ll do. I know it’s only a year old.
I’m not worried about ice or pressure with that impact. Like I mentioned, I put the gun directly into the coupler on the air compressor, removing the hose as a factor at all. It didn’t perform any better. And the ratchet works great with the 50 feet of line. I mentioned the temp because I was worried that it was a factor. But since then, other people I know have mentioned having their compressors in an unheated shed, far away.
Yea, I run all of my air tools in an un-heated garage. I have never had an ice problem, although the air coming out of stuff like the die grinder is flippin’ cold! Granted I do have a water separator, so that probably helps alot.
Well, Sears exchanged the tool without any questions. That was nice. Then it was so bitterly cold out that I didn’t try to use it. Now I got that chance over the weekend. … and it’s still a dud. I don’t really know what my problem is. I put lug nuts on with it, and barely got 20-30 ft/lbs of torque. My air ratchet works great. And again, with the impact in the air compressor directly, I don’t see a change. I want to blame the tank, but my ratchet works. I want to blame the tool, but it’s the second one with this problem. At best, I can say my father-in-law has the same compressor, so I could try my impact over there. Otherwise I’m just in limbo, thinking about buying a harbor freight cheapy gun and seeing how that does.
On another note, I found these nice swivel connectors at HF that take the strain off the line and let it lay where it needs to. Much more comfortable to use, but it’s a bit harder to oil the tool.
I would try the impact on a different compressor. Do you have any friends with a shop? Im sure someone would try it out for you. I have used some pretty cheep shit impact guns before, and they usually have enough power to take lug nuts off.
Yeah, my father-in-law has the same one, only a few years older. I think my dad is the next closest at 13 gallons. Otherwise, I’d pondered stopping in at the old home-town shop and seeing if they’d at least let me plug the impact in. If it works elsewhere, I get the joy of trying to exchange the compressor.
Yea, make a stop at the shop. Im sure they wouldnt mind. I would buy a better quality compressor. Did you get an oilless one? The oiled ones are much quieter and work way better, but cost more. I personally run a little contractor 4 gallon compressor with a 20 gal reserve tank, but the compressor has a high output so I can get away with it. I am really not a fan of the smaller HF compressors.
It’s an oiled unit. It’s not too small either.
http://www.harborfreight.com/air-compressor-cast-iron-vertical-25-horsepower-21-gallon-125-psi-67847.htmlGiven the chance, I’d return it and trade up to the 29 gallon with better output.
The problem with the one you have is it has a really small compressor unit on it. It probably doesn’t put out 4.7CFM at 90PSI either.
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