Ingersoll Rand MAX Review

 

There are a lot of different manufacturers of air tools on the market.  Some very good and some, well we will leave it at not so good.  Ingersoll Rand (IR) is not new to this game.  They are a company that has a long history of quality products and we are hoping the 1105MAX-D2 is no different.
The 1105MAX-D2 is a ¼” ratchet wrench that is obviously powered by compressed air.  This ratchet harnesses 30 ft-lb of torque and a no load speed of 300 rpm.  The MAX tool offers a variable speed power regulator which is perfect for small jobs like plastic fasteners.  The tool utilizes a feather touch lever for greater control.  According to IR this wrench has a unique head construction for improved durability and more consistent performance over the life of the tool. 

Air wrenches are fun tools to use because of the power and let’s face it, they sound cool almost like your in the NASCAR pits.  We use power tools everyday, but air ratchet wrenches are a little different, so we wanted to get some expert advice so we took it down to Bob’s Auto repair shop.  We use Bob to do all of our maintenance on our trucks, so we have a great relationship with him.  We told Bob what we were doing with the website and after he gave us that blank stare as if we were talking in a foreign langue regarding the internet, he agreed to put this to the test.  Now Bob may not know what the internet is, but he does know his cars and he certainly knows his air tools. 

When we gave him the ratchet, he wasn’t surprised to see it was made by Ingersoll Rand.  In fact the first thing he informed us was that he always had pretty good luck with IR.  He also noted that these were IR’s new line of air tools and was pretty excited about testing them.  Looking around his shop we did see some other IR tools along with a variety of other manufactures he has collected over the years.  As we noticed with the ratchet, Bob also noticed that the balance of this tool was great.  The bulk of the weight was evenly distributed over the tool without much on the front or back of the tool.  The second item was the low profile forward/reverse.  He was pretty excited about this since sometimes when he gets in tight spots, he ends up hitting the forward/reverse only to have to pull the tool back out and reset the direction.  He showed us how the low profile option on the 1105MAX was a great design to stop his frustration, and he does get ticked pretty easily.  

One option he really liked was the variable speed power regulator, which after he showed us made a lot of sense.  The one car he had on the lift, he grabbed two sockets and told us “watch and learn boys.”  He was replacing a bad wire harness located somewhere by the firewall on the outside of the car.  He put the first socket on and set the power regulator on high and started taking off a couple of bolts.  He then changed the socket, set the regulator to low and started taking off some plastic fasteners that held on part of the firewall.  He told us to try and do that with some of the other makes and manufacturers on the market today.  He did all this with one ratchet.  He didn’t have to stop and use an air ratchet for the steel bolts, then set the tool down, grab an open ended wrench from his back pocket so he could be careful and loosen the plastic nuts.  He did this all with one tool.  Now we didn’t think of this before Bob showed us, but after seeing it in action and how it was strong enough and precise enough for the steel bolts, but gentle enough for the plastic nuts, we thought this was pretty cool.  Yes, it sounds like the Secret slogan for that deodorant.  But in all seriousness, this was a great way to show that the tool has multiple functions and lets the user have complete control of the tool and not the tool controlling the user. 

After leaving Bob’s place, we took it on our site the next day to play around.  We used it on some rusted old bolt, not because we needed to remove them, but to just play around and see what damage we could do or not do.  Overall, this took off anything we wanted.  We used a 5 gallon compressor and had a lot of fun with the wrench.