With the new garage I started to stock up on making it more car work friendly.

I picked up last December a Craftsman air compressor...not the best but it was cheap and they had zero percent for a year, after the discounts and all that I ended up with the 33 gallon upright for $248 with the free tool set.

Well the free tool set is not the greatest. The air ratchet is fine since I hand torque everything and its just a time saving tool.

The impact gun is useless. It wouldn't take the wheels off of our Jeep torque at 100ft lbs.

So I went looking for a real impact gun since I'm pulling the tranny and the rear suspension apart again to replace a few more bushings.

I went the HF route and bought this one here:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=2623

I went to the store to check it out and talked to a guy there about the different units they had. I only want to remove, never put back together with the impact so he highly recommended this one.

Still haven't used it so I can return it but I was wondering what everone thought.

If you have actual experience with them, how do they compare to units priced upwards of say $110?

I tried finding reviews of impact guns but no real luck.

Thanks

 

Looks decent enough. Personally, Ingersoll-Rand is probably the best I've seen, although I use a Snap-On(had a voucher). One of my instructors who used to be a Snap On rep recomended using Harbor Freight or other suppliers for pneumatic tools. His basic arguement was that the longest warranty you're gonna get on a impact tool is 1 year, because with use, they will all break. Might as well not blow money on something 5x the price with similar features. I don't have any specific info about that particular Gun in the link however. and yes, the tools that come in the starter kits are junk. I saw more of them come back after one use of trying to take off tires than I saw stay in the field. :-)

 

Another vote for ingersoll-rand! Best guns out there, About 3 years ago I shut down a buddy of mine that said his snap-on shock-wave was better, his gun didn't even come close.But I do have a snap-on air hammer and I could not live with-out it.

 

Love my I/r ti composites have a 1/2 and a 3/8 there was one for sale in the tool fourm somewhere. And I can promise it will out last and be stronger then a hf, cp or tiwainase.

 

They had the I/R's there too, same price, less torque.

I had some work to do on the car today and put it to use. Did a great job but then again I'm working on an Arizona Car that has never seen Winter or road salt. The underbody is pristine for the most part and my cheap Craftsman air ratchet took the exhaust flange bolts apart by itself with no real prodding.

I used it for one thing, the slip fitting for the Y pipe was really in there, the air ratchet wouldn't budge it. I put the impact upto 200 ft lbs and it popped them both real easy.

I guess I should consider that also, since this is a summer car most things come apart pretty easy. I took the entire suspension apart with nothing more than a 12 inch 3/8 drive and not too much effort.

The trigger felt pretty flimsy when I pulled it out of the box and I never thought I would be able to control it but once it had air to it the feel got alot better.

We'll see how it holds up.

 

JUST an fyi, the craftsman professional series IS an ingersol rand impact...no, not because they look identical, but because they are identical. you can call IR and ask them yourself. you just dont get the IR backed warranty. i love all the tools i bought. i find myself doing odd jobs for friends and family now and i dont mind doing em because i have all these bad *** tools and i love a good excuse to use em haha.

also, ive gotten a crank bolt out 2 times with my craftsman professional (aka IR) 3/8ths impact with the very compressor and tank you have. it wasnt easy, had to let the tank fill, impact the hell out of it, repeat, etc. the 1/2 professional impact i have did it no prob in 1 or 2 fillings of the tank, you gotta have 150 psi to even attempt that. point is, you dont need 'THE EARTH QUAKE' 1/2 if you are just doing trans bolts and suspension bolts, hell i bet you my 3/8th air ratchet will take thoes bolts out. spend the money once. air tools are not all created equally.


the fact that a 1/2 impact is 80 means youre getting crap on a stick. trust me. you will be lucky if that pos takes your lug nuts off your tires. i dont care that it says 625 ftlbs, it wont do squat. and if it does, it wont last. my 3/8th craftsman impact (IR) is so freakin small and powerfull. again, trust me, buy the nice stuff and only buy it once...

lastly. i have a water catcher and an oiler on my tank, obviously the water catcher first, self explanitory, then the oiler which feeds oil constiantly to your tools while youre using them, as it would at a shop. water catcher is 20 and oiler is 10, both sold at craftsman in the impact glass case by the oil. The oiler is small and holds enough oil for an entire day of using the air tools, which is perfect, its not large and obnoixious. water catcher really does its job great too. thats how you make you $180 impacts last a life time. that and of course oil them manually in addition to the oiler on the line.

hope all that jibberish helped!


edit:
1/2
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/produ...id=00919905000

3/8
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/produ...id=00919916000

IR's 1/2
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...4&storeId=6970

notice a difference? (besides the sticker) hahaha