Home air compressor & impact wrench

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fozt

fozt

Active Member
Posts
316
Location
Kent
Hi,

I've been considering an air compressor for my garage, and an impact wrench to help with some of those hard to undo bolts, and to just make general life easier working on the Land Rover.

My knowledge on air compressors isn't great, neither my knowledge on impact wrenchs - so I'm hoping someone on here can lend me some advice.

If I wanted the above powerful enough for what I want, what kind of spec should I be looking at?

With a compressor, what's more important, the HP or the CFM? What else should I be considering? What spec?

With the wrench, what kind of ft-lb of torque should I be looking at, what air consumption, anything else?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Foz
 
3hp is as much as you can run with std plug,the bigger the reciever the better though you can plumb in the larger empty gas bottles to a small tank compressor 14 cfm is as little as you want to go though any compressor has uses, with guns receiver size can make up for less cfm you just wait between uses, with something like sander cfm is vital,personally id buy a small compressor and a battery gun
 
jamesmartin said:
3hp is as much as you can run with std plug,the bigger the reciever the better though you can plumb in the larger empty gas bottles to a small tank compressor 14 cfm is as little as you want to go though any compressor has uses, with guns receiver size can make up for less cfm you just wait between uses, with something like sander cfm is vital,personally id buy a small compressor and a battery gun
Click to expand...

Hi - thanks for that.

Why would you not recommend a 3HP, 14CFM compressor with air gun, over smaller compressor and battery gun?

I did look at battery guns before, but from a lot of reviews they didn't seem overly powerful - do you have any recommendations for a battery gun?

Foz
 
fozt said:
Hi,

I've been considering an air compressor for my garage, and an impact wrench to help with some of those hard to undo bolts, and to just make general life easier working on the Land Rover.

My knowledge on air compressors isn't great, neither my knowledge on impact wrenchs - so I'm hoping someone on here can lend me some advice.

If I wanted the above powerful enough for what I want, what kind of spec should I be looking at?

With a compressor, what's more important, the HP or the CFM? What else should I be considering? What spec?

With the wrench, what kind of ft-lb of torque should I be looking at, what air consumption, anything else?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Foz
Click to expand...

Simply you will not get a compressor of much more than a 3 HP 14.5 Cu Ft to runoff mains, even then you will have to run it from a 16 AMP supply through a starter. Biggest you will get to run off 13 AMPs is around 9 Cu Ft. You need the biggest tank you can get. HP and Cu Ft are linked the more Cu Ft the larger the motor needed. Using a torque gun can cause more problems than they solve at times you can do a lot of damage if not very careful. The larger and more powerful the torque gun the more Cu Ft per minute it will use. A large torque gun will run down a small air tank PDQ and reduce the pressure to unusable.
 
wammers said:
Simply you will not get a compressor of much more than a 3 HP 14.5 Cu Ft to runoff mains, even then you will have to run it from a 16 AMP supply through a starter. Biggest you will get to run off 13 AMPs is around 9 Cu Ft. You need the biggest tank you can get. HP and Cu Ft are linked the more CU Ft the larger the motor needed. Using a torque gun can cause more problems than they solve at times you can do a lot of damage if not very careful. The larger and more powerful the torque gun the more Cu Ft per minute it will use. A large torque gun will run down a small air tank PDQ and reduce the pressure to unusable.
Click to expand...

Brilliant, thanks for the explanation :)
 
battery guns i find easier to use and usually have a larger hammer effect size for size , ive got a couple of 1/2 snap on guns plus a couple of 3/8s guns ive tried cheaper ones and power difference is great , i tried a milwauke 18 v today it was as good as snap on if not better, but same applies with air a decent make is better than machine mart etc,admittedly a compressor does give you a wide tool range and for that you do need a decent size ,my air saw is very handy
 
wammers said:
Simply you will not get a compressor of much more than a 3 HP 14.5 Cu Ft to runoff mains, even then you will have to run it from a 16 AMP supply through a starter. Biggest you will get to run off 13 AMPs is around 9 Cu Ft. You need the biggest tank you can get. HP and Cu Ft are linked the more Cu Ft the larger the motor needed. Using a torque gun can cause more problems than they solve at times you can do a lot of damage if not very careful. The larger and more powerful the torque gun the more Cu Ft per minute it will use. A large torque gun will run down a small air tank PDQ and reduce the pressure to unusable.
Click to expand...
you can run using a 13amp plug adding an extension lead helps , it might not be recommended, but its what i use
 
the large M18 milwaukee fuel battery impacts seem to be the closest to their stated output and according to most mechanics i have talked to second only to snap on so should be good. Also get the friction ring/hog ring version as they produce a bit more torque than the pin securing versions.
 
Farmer next door to me has an 18v Milwaukee fuel and I think I could be converted. Not sure which one though, there seems to be loads and as above available with different socket attachments. Have a pin securing sidewinder and waste plenty of time removing sockets. Friction ring is much easier.
Most air impact wrenches use around 25cfm.
 
i have that clarke 240v plug in impact wrench and it works fine, havent found much call to use it to be honest, only time was the bottom crank pulley nut.

When i did my engine dismantle/rebuild/swap i used a mates milwaukee 18v and was quite impressed, i would went for electric over air due to space and realistically not going to use the air for anything else
 
My Milwaukee impact wrench is still going after three years https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/impact-wrench-porn.217776/page-4 The batteries still seem as lively as they were when I bought it. Obviously it doesn't get used as much as if I were doing things like this for a living, but it looks after two (and occasionally three) Land Rovers, so I think it's more useful than an equivalent air tool, especially as I can take it anywhere.

My 3 hp compressor seems happy enough on a 13 amp plug. Again, as it is just me, it doesn't have to run continuously to keep up with me working, so it's not overheating the wiring. It only has a 50 litre tank, but that has some advantages as it means that one person can lift it and put it in the back of a Land Rover. For everyday grinding, sanding, spraying and needle scaling it seems to keep up with me, because you don't have your finger on the trigger the whole time.
 
I bought one today (air) to use with my ancient, possibly 3hp, compressor. It does have a fair size tank though.

I had one bolt on my engine that wouldn't shift with a manual impact driver, and being an alloy water housing I knew that corrosion was most likely to be the problem and so thought the 'shocking' of an impact wrench may be worth a shot. It took a while, but it worked.

I'm so glad I bought it - I stripped an R380 gearbox this afternoon, and it seems like it was assembled by a 'thread lock trainee', all the bolts are completely coated in the stuff and were child's play with the air gun. The compressor certainly cut in a couple of times, but I never felt the gun running slowly.

I'm not doing this for a living and couldn't justify the cost of a decent battery-powered job, but £40 for a SIP twin hammer c/w a set of impact sockets seems almost cheap by comparison.
 
Being a right cheapskate my impact wrench was 20 quid from aldi :D to be fair it does undo most bolts on my defender but I've also got a 240v clarke jobber but I find it to heavy if I need to use it one handed. I know if I bought a battery one it would always be flat when I wanted it :oops:
 
Marmaduke said:
Being a right cheapskate my impact wrench was 20 quid from aldi :D to be fair it does undo most bolts on my defender but I've also got a 240v clarke jobber but I find it to heavy if I need to use it one handed. I know if I bought a battery one it would always be flat when I wanted it :oops:
Click to expand...

Yeah the 240v Clarke is beastly heavy.
 
Marmaduke said:
Especially one handed trying to hold a spanner in the other hand :eek:. Ingersoll rand do a proper decent looking air impact gun when I finally get some spare cash :(
Click to expand...
Don't buy the plastic fantastic versions 2131 etc, they don't last. If lightweight matters you need to spend a bit more on a cp7749.
 
cooltide said:
Don't buy the plastic fantastic versions 2131 etc, they don't last. If lightweight matters you need to spend a bit more on a cp7749.
Click to expand...
The one I'd seen was two hundred and fifty odd quid and had more torque than my clarke electric one but currently I've got a discovery to do up and sell, a series 2a to do up and sell and two holes in the bulkhead of my defender so my aldi special will have to last :(
 
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