Who actually needs an angle gauge?

[Fried Chicken]

I'm talking about one of these:
https://www.hazet.de/en/products/torque-tools/torque-tester/product/ean-4000896029266

You set this on top of your bolt, hold it with the magnet, and it lets you set the angle of the bolt exactly. Used on stretch bolts and whatnot.

Here's the thing... unlike torque... angle is very easy to do by eye, right? I mean, even on something as critical as head bolts "torque to XX torque, and turn 180°"... Even if I have limited space... I can do 2 x 90° very easily. If I'm paranoid I can use a breaker bar in lieu of a ratchet, and I can literally watch where the socket falls? I've also never seen a precise angle, i.e. "turn 84° no more no less"... because nobody machines to that precision... So this tool just seems stupid to me, or am I missing something here?

 

[cptbarkey]

That looks awesome. There are many cylinder head bolt instructions that ask you to "rotate 45 degrees" and so on.

Germans demand precision, hence Hazet made one. What you think was 45 or 90 degrees by hand or eye absolutely never is.

 

[zfasts03]

That’s what I do. I visualize my target/angle, never had a problem.

 

[NYEngineer]

I've been doing torque turn for years on diesel engines. I have the Snap On torque angle gauge but always found it faster to mark a corner of the nut with a paint pen and make a mark on the head or whatever the parent part is and line up the two marks. Couldn't be easier. Every point on a six point nut is 60 degrees and every point on a 12 point is 30 degrees. Never had a single issue.

 

[grasscutter]

In areas where space is very limited like a cylinder head up against an engine compartment firewall, a digital angle torque wrench might be the only option. An example would be 37 pound feet + 120 degrees.

 

[AZjeff]

Is close enough good enough? Probably. Is right on the spec better? Sure. It would be fun to pull that tool out and use it in front of your pals on your Jeep.

 

[JHZR2]

I’d rather have that (I have the Lisle version) than a digital torque wrench that will go in the junk bin of electronics at some point that I forget to pull a battery and lit leaks.

Until the time comes that I need something obscure enough to require a digital torque wrench (no doubt they have their place, albeit not necessarily for me), I’ll buy one. Until then, and as long as what I’m doing is open and accessible enough, I’ll use a gauge like this.

Even though it was easy enough to eyeball, I stacked up and down adapters and used a gauge like this on the aluminum bolts on the 722.9 pan on my ML320! They were something like 4nm and 90 degrees.

 

[Fried Chicken]

I’d rather have that (I have the Lisle version) than a digital torque wrench that will go in the junk bin of electronics at some point that I forget to pull a battery and lit leaks.

Use Energizer, not Duracell

Until the time comes that I need something obscure enough to require a digital torque wrench (no doubt they have their place, albeit not necessarily for me), I’ll buy one. Until then, and as long as what I’m doing is open and accessible enough, I’ll use a gauge like this.

There's no "need" for a digital torque wrench, only convenience. Digital torque wrenches, like so many things digital, are not better/more accurate than their mechanical/analog counterparts.

Even though it was easy enough to eyeball, I stacked up and down adapters and used a gauge like this on the aluminum bolts on the 722.9 pan on my ML320! They were something like 4nm and 90 degrees.

Waste of time. You can do those entirely by feel/eye: snug by a right angle: 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock.

Seriously I really don't get the point of these angle-o-meters.

 

[JHZR2]

Use Energizer, not Duracell

There's no "need" for a digital torque wrench, only convenience. Digital torque wrenches, like so many things digital, are not better/more accurate than their mechanical/analog counterparts.

Waste of time. You can do those entirely by feel/eye: snug by a right angle: 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock.

Seriously I really don't get the point of these angle-o-meters.

Agree, there’s no need…

In my case, I had the thing, so I wanted to use it. Obviously a right angle is super easy to eyeball, but using a tool was just for fun.

Had it been something besides 90/180/etc I can see more benefit to the meter. But I’m not sure how often some oddball angle is prescribed.