Are you talking about the kind you hit with a hammer? If so, I used to have a MAC brand, and it worked just fine. I was helping my son remove a stuck brake rotor, and we picked up one at NAPA. It worked just as well for a lot less.
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Posts: 2494 | Location: Kentucky | Registered: July 09, 2007
You can use most any type found at Lowe’s, Auto Zone, etc. The bits are most important. A cheaper driver like Kobalt and good MAC or Snap-On bits would work great.
RB
Cancer fighter (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) since 2009, now fighting Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma.
Posts: 7133 | Location: Michiana | Registered: March 01, 2005
My biggest use for an impact driver is the screws - usually Phillips-head, but sometimes hex ("Allen") and Torx - that hold car brake rotors to the hub. The Phillips bit will be the most used. Many of them have steel that is hard but too brittle. Such a bit won't last very long under simultaneous hammer blows and twisting.
Posts: 27927 | Location: Johnson City, TN | Registered: April 28, 2012
I bought this $29.99 Capri Tools Premium Impact Driver Set, Manual Reversible 1/2-inch Drive. Last year after my old one walked off or something. Works real well.
Tool quality is funny. I bought a Chinese pneumatic air hammer (not what you are looking for) 10 years ago for $12.95 and cut a 2 foot by 2 foot hole in a 4" concrete basement floor to install a sump pump. When I completed the job I couldn't tell any change in the condition of the chisel. My other alternative at the time was to rent a jack hammer for $40 for 1/2 day.
Typically the import impact drivers use softer steel, and do not work nearly as well as Snap-On. However the import ones may have improved lately, based upon other comments above.
In the past, back when I worked as a mechanic, import drivers would work for one screw, then performance went to hell after that.
-c1steve
Posts: 4052 | Location: West coast | Registered: March 31, 2012
I can tell you from experience using them for many years at Florida Power and Light Company, we bought and used portable battery Hitachi Impact Drivers. They purchased and we used a ton of them based on our recommendations to purchasing. We used them on every kind of projects to include a lot of heavy duty use required in building steel towers in Power Delivery Substations. They were almost virtually indestructible and battery life was very good. Especially when doing work in the air on a tower for building transmission tower high voltage switches. Often if you were going to be in the air for hours many would just take a spare battery with them to save time, but on the one battery you could get hours of heavy duty use. Every Power Delivery Substation truck throughout the State of Florida had one on their trucks. Excellent portable impact driver and we used them for many years. I retired and I'll bet they still use them in the Plants and Substations.
Regards, Will G.
Posts: 9660 | Location: 140 mi to Margaritaville, FL | Registered: January 02, 2008
Power impact drivers aren't the same. Particularly with Phillips, the hammer blow drives the bit deeper into the screw so it doesn't twist or "cam" itself out. The shock also breaks loose the initial torque and rust. Even a partially stripped (because your screwdriver cammed itself out) Phillips head can often be broken loose. Sometimes they just can't, and you have to drill the head off.
If you work on old Japanese motorcycles, whose crankcases are put together with Phillips, you really need an impact driver.
Posts: 27927 | Location: Johnson City, TN | Registered: April 28, 2012
I second Snap-On. Had mine for over 40 years and still works like new.
Regards, Kent j
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Originally posted by egregore: If you work on old Japanese motorcycles, whose crankcases are put together with Phillips, you really need an impact driver.
This is very true. My old blue Cornwell works great for that job.
Posts: 921 | Location: Midwest | Registered: April 13, 2013
