The time I had to choose between a new torque wrench and a weekend fishing trip

Honestly, it was a dumb situation. My old torque wrench finally gave out on a Friday afternoon, right when I was finishing a head gasket job on a 6.7 Powerstroke. My buddy called and said his boat was ready, asking if I wanted to hit the lake for two days. So I had to pick: drop $250 on a new Snap-on digital torque wrench right then, or use my backup manual one, risk it being off, and go fishing. I chose the fishing trip. Ngl, it was a great weekend, but Monday came and that manual wrench was reading 15 foot-pounds light. Had to re-torque every single head bolt on that engine, which took me three extra hours. Has anyone else made a call like that and had it bite you later?

2 comments

2 Comments

max8086d ago

Feel your pain, man. Made a similar choice last month between fixing a leaky air compressor line and going to a concert. The line blew completely on a Sunday night, shut my whole shop down for a day. That "saved" money cost me way more in lost time. Sometimes the fun choice is the right one, but man does it ever come back to collect.

harris.brooke5d ago

That's a tough lesson to learn, max808. I see your point, but I'd say the fun choice wasn't the right one in that case, it was just the more fun one. The right choice is almost always fixing the known problem first. I put off replacing my own shop's frayed extension cord for a "quick" side job. The short it caused fried a motor controller. The fun money from the job went straight into a much more expensive part.