Astro Pneumatic Tool ADN14 Rivet Nut Drill Adapter Kit

Out of the box this is a very good tool. With a few DIY tweaks it can be a great tool. The tool as it comes works well but is not very smooth in operation. I decided to crack it open and check out the guts. Disassembly requires the removal of 1 Circlip (Outside) and 1 E-Clip (Inside). The internal components appear to be well made but the grease is horrible. It's the typical yellow chinesium fare that is marginal when new and gets waxy over time. I cleaned out all the stock grease and used liberal amounts of Lucas X-TRA Heavy Duty Grease: http://a.co/8wmRJvs Reassembled everything and it’s a night and day difference. Operation thru the entire range of movement is smooth as can be. The other tweak is to the driveshaft. The tool worked good using a Ryobi 18v cordless drill. I wanted to see how it would it work with a Ryobi 18v cordless impact driver. I was impressed with the difference. The impact drive having a shorter snout makes things less awkward. It also requires less hand strength and cinches the rivnuts down better. There is one issue with using the impact driver. The drive shaft will not lock into place as the machined groove is bit too far down the shaft. I used a Dremel with a cut-off wheel to short the end of shaft (See pics). Now with the tool locked into place it totally rocks and makes installing rivnuts a cinch. If you're installing a couple rivnuts here and there either drive tool works fine. If you're installing dozens of rivnuts the impact drive is the way to go. It’s faster, installs the rivnuts tighter and is much easier on your hand.

Awesome tool. I would never buy a hand rivnut tool compared to this. Gets in tighter spots and works faster. I use it at work frequently. Do NOT use with impact drivers. I modified mine to fit a US impact driver and thought it was great for a while. The impact driver broke the refrained clip three times and then sheared the guide pin though and I never hammered it hard. Still a great tool. Not for impact drivers thoughs.

I had a project that needed ~320 rivet nuts installed. I've had Astro's trusty manual rivet nut tool for years now and it's done the job for onesies and twosies but I was up to 20 rivet nuts on this project before my puny arms gave out. I bought the pneumatic version of their tool and after I figured out how to use it, I ended up rivet nutting the rest of the 300 pieces within 3-4 hours. This is 3-4 hours with plenty of beer breaks. I used a Milwaukee 12v impact drill with the torque setting set to "2", using M6x1mm nuts. At that setting, I only over-torqued maybe 6-8 rivet nuts out of the 300 and had to start over with the piece. My only complaint is that the input shank is a wee bit too long so it doesn't click into the impact drill. I learned to maneuver around the issue but it would occasionally slip off the gun from time to time. Also, the only manual part about this tool is screwing the rivet on. At first, I wasn't able to reverse out of the nut after I had riveted it on but with a little practice, I was about to reverse it out in one shot. Good tool, I'm glad I picked it up!

Very very useful if you're setting multiple rivet nuts. Be prepared to lose some rivet nuts while you figure out the correct settings for the drill you're using with the type of rivet nut. Once you figure it out though it makes setting rivet nuts fast and reliable. The rest of the guys in the shop borrow it everytime they need to set some!

Liked that it was easy to use. Got it to fit in a tight space... As instructions say, try on a piece of scrap. Did that, and it worked perfectly... throttle control from +20 years of experience using a drill... seemed like a great tool, went to set the first 8-32 in the toolbox I am having to rebuild. Dang thing snapped on the first one! The metal the mandrels are made from must be weaker, or more brittle than the metal 8-32 screws you get at home depot! Because my cordless drill is set to the lowest tork setting.... won't snap a 8-32 screw, it just stops at that setting! But it will snap the metal these mandrels are made from.... I shoulda listened to all the negitive reviews saying the same. I figured they would have fixed it by now.... I was only trying to get some 8-32 blue zinc coated carbon steel nuts into a piece of 20g plate steel! Needed 4, total and project done! But no... they're in the piece of scrap,... tool broke on the first one in the project! .... I guess I will just have to use the screw and a couple nuts, washers. And wrenches to get the dang job done!

If you have to set more than a handful of rivnuts in a single year this thing is a life saver. It takes longer to drill the hole than to set the rivnut. Sets them so well it looks like a factory job. The only caveat is that it is possible to break the mandrel or strip the threads out of the ruvnut if you don’t set the torque on your drill. After a year I broke the 1/4 20 mandrel trying to set a rivnut in a piece of metal that was too thick. My fault I knew better. Anyway,I shopped around for a replacement. Astro doesn’t list them on their site but when I contacted them I found that they sell them at a fraction of the price I could find them online. I bought extras just in case.