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I've own a click type torque wrench of decent quality for about 20 years. It's gotten a lot of use as I perform all my own work. I oftened wondered about it's accuracy.

When installing the pressure plate, the service manual specifies a torque rating of 11 to 15 ft lbs. That's a little amount of torque! If I set my wrench to 10 ft lbs it clicks quite easily. If I set it to 20 ft lbs it doesn't click even with seemingly a great deal of pressure. So now I have a pressure plate with an unknown amount of torque and probably way too much.

What's the downside of too much torque on a pressure plate? Should I back off the bolts a bit, retorque by hand using the auto-torque setting built-in to my arm?

Should I remove the said bolts, use blue locktite and retorque using the fore mentioned method?

Should I inevest in a Craftsman digital where people that own them generally like them even though there's about a 50% failure rate and they're not returnable?

Or does one bite the big bullet and buy a snap-on?

I need to get this trannie installed this weekend. I don't wish to remove this trannie again for a looonnng time as it's a PIA.

I've probably performed 50 clutch jobs in my lifetime and never had a problem. I'm just being very "picky" about this car I know.

If they are all tight and the pressure plate is seated flat the only problem that I can think of is the threads may be stretched (if its an aluminum flywheel). I always used locktite on pressure plate bolts just to ease my mind too.

A suggestion to do is to buy a torque wrench for inch pounds. They are awesome to have when doing the bottom range stuff and they only require you to convert inch pounds to foot pounds The bigger torque wrenches are not accurate at the bottom end, I believe its because the spring tension inside is not consistent.

I was definitely looking for a lower range torque wrench.

Maybe I'll do as you said and use the locktite as I don't want to be thinking about it after it's in. It is an aluminum flywheel - a Fidanza.

I stripped out my aluminum flywheel once, before I bought the inch pound wrench. Thankfully a Heli-Coil fixed it all up, then had it balanced to bring it back to normal . Got to be careful with the aluminum stuff, it doesnt take much to screw it up.

Are you guys torquing to the specified amount which is 11 to 15 ft lbs?

I've noticed (going through 5 of the cheapie torque wrenches, cheap enough that I just buy a new one for every engine/project) that if you use it for the bigger amounts first and then the smaller amounts, it won't be accurate at all in the low end or click. My suggestion would be to head to walmart and grab the $19.95 one they have an use it just for small torque amounts (don't forget to label it so it doesn't get used for other things). Alwaysalwaysalways use loctite on the flywheel bolts, some say red but then it's never coming off. I completely coated the threads on mine with BLUE loctite and then torqued them down in a star pattern, first as tight as I could by hand, then with the torque wrench.

I know in the military we have to calibrate our torque wrenches every 2 years. Your wrench might not be bad it might just be out of alignment.

I borrowed a Proto from work that did inch pounds to 2000. Nice. As it was, all the bolts were overtorqued. I used blue locktite as mechnacode had suggested just to be on the safe side.

Thanks guys