Slightly OT - Need 3/4" drive impact wrench

Looking for a 3/4" drive pneumatic impact wrench for the farm shop. Won't get daily use, but will need to be tough enough to stand up to regular use/abuse in shop and field. Any recommendations?

I bought a used Soux off e-bay.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I have an Ingersoll Rand 261. It's never let me down. It's hard to describe, but you can tell the quality by the sound when you use it compared to lesser brands. It's smoother. The IR's can always be rebuilt, parts are available and the company's been around a long time. You can't go wrong with IR. There are better and more expensive IR 3/4's available than mine. The 261 is rated at 1100ft-lbs.

I 2nd the IR. Very tough.

To me, it is more important is to get good quality impact sockets. I had a socket shatter a year ago and still haven't one of the pieces but I know it bounced off the inside of the shop's metal roof!

Was it chrome?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Hey, the chrome makes them stronger and more wear resistant.

Another vote for the IR unit
I have the 2141 and its a good heavy duty gun.
To get the most out of it, you must run 1/2"
air hose and fittings.

Randy

Anyone know where the IR 2141 or 261 are made? The IR website seems to be intentionally vague about where any of their products are made.

My 3/4 IR is 15 years old and has never let me down. A bit more to pay than the cheap brands but a lot more power and much longer life.

The new I R guns are not at all like the old ones the new 3/4 and 1 inch that I bought to replace the old ones realy let me down
Greg

GMBM said:

The new I R guns are not at all like the old ones the new 3/4 and 1 inch that I bought to replace the old ones realy let me down
Greg

Click to expand...

What problems did you have with them?

The 1 inch did not have the power of the old one but was rated higher
the 3/4 broke within the first few months I had to take parts from the old one to fix it but it always leeks air through the gun.
Greg

Outsourced to China?

How is Chicago Pneumatic these days?

Does IR have a cheap line and a premium line? does CP?

I've had good luck in the past buying air tools through Landmesser tools - http://landmessertools.com/

Aro

Was CP ever a US tool?


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FWIW

ARO is AFAIK the hand/power tool arm of IR. They are/were located in Bryan, Ohio. Jist 10 miles from here.

ARO was a fair sized outfit during the war. My G-Pa worked at ARO before and after the war. (Prolly some during. I don't recall what yr he shipped out?)

He retired in prox 1980. ARO was sold to Todd Shipyard in ??? the late 80's???

They only had it a few yrs I think - and milked it dry and sold to IR. (Not 100% sure that there wasn't one more owner in there - but I don't think so.)


***I found this link***

With its labor costs too high to recapture abandoned commercial work, Todd Shipyards was forced to scale down the range of its operations as the financial pressures bearing down on the company increased. A cost-reduction program was effected, part of which included the relocation of the company's corporate headquarters from New York to Jersey City, and the abandonment of its shipyards in New Orleans and Houston in 1985. As a hedge against its declining ship building business, the company purchased Aro Corp., an air-powered tool company, the same year it closed its New Orleans and Houston shipyards, but there was little the company could do to wrest free from mounting financial burdens. Repeatedly, the company was being underbid on major contracts with the U.S. Navy, while attempts to revive its floundering commercial business continued to meet with failure. At the end of March 1987, the company reported its financial figures for the previous year: sales were down to $417 million and, for the first time since William H. Todd took control of the company, it lost money, posting a $58 million loss for the year. Less than five months later, on August 17, 1987, Todd Shipyards filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Todd Shipyards remained in bankruptcy for more than three years, during which time a drastic downsizing program was implemented, as the company struggled to reorganize and pare away the remaining components of its once-illustrious ship building empire. The Los Angeles shipyard was closed in July 1989, its Aro Corp. pneumatic tools subsidiary was sold to Ingersoll-Rand Co. for $132 million in February 1990, and the closure of the company's Galveston shipyard was announced in May 1990, leaving, by the end of that year, a one-shipyard operation in Seattle: Todd Pacific Shipyard Corp. Although severe, the changes made between 1987 and the end of 1990 enabled Todd Shipyards to emerge from Chapter 11 in January 1991, ending the most dismal chapter in the company's history.

Click to expand...

They had been downsizing even before IR bought them I think. I know that through the '80's and even into the '90's there were many guys in there running Acmes, and that stuff has all been gone for some time.

In the early '90's I bought many "air logic" type stuff from them as well as air cyls and valving.

IR slowly moved the production back to ??? The Carolinas? or wherever their from. ???

IR had planned to shut it down maybe a half dozen yrs ago, but some of the employees (IIRC) talked them into selling (what little was left) to them with a 5 yr or ??? contract to keep making some of the stuff there. (diaphram pumps I am pretty sure, not sure what beyond that?) I know that they have (had?) a cpl Cinci Maxim 600 (or close on the size) and not sure what else in there?

The idea was that they would have a few yrs to be able to locate and land some other customers.

I just got word yesterday that they have announced that they are closing in the late spring (?) and maybe a few hands could stay on a cpl more months after that at $9/hr to help tear down and clean up. I guess they didn't find any or enough new customers. Or if they had, maybe they are non-existant during this here deppression? Either way....

I ass_u_me that IR had made some hand-held power toys themselves before this?

Where they are getting their air tools made these last several yrs is anybodys guess, but at least their diaphram pumps were (are) made HERE for a little while yet.


http://www.hydraulic-supply.com/html/productline/mfgprod/aro.htm

http://www.aropumpsonline.com/



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Think Snow Eh!
Ox