Torque wrench, how critical
- Thread starter Soltydog
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Zakalwe
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Barnsbury, London
I used to do a bit of wiring work and I know all about stripping insulation from a bit of wire with cutters. The difference is, prepping a bit of wire is dunce work on a low value bit of wire, and you do it repeatedly. If you're terminating a Camlock on the end of a length of 60mm2 cable you'll probably want to tighten the bolts up with a torque wrench, lest some poor roadie pulls it straight out and exposes a bare end with a few thousand volts ready to kill him.
If I was tightening the same screws all day and I had a clear idea of what, say, 10Nm felt like, I could probably hit it with decent accuracy thanks to the repetition. But I don't. I tighten a single bolt here and there to various pressures with no warm up to what I need. And anyway, why bother being macho about it? Not many people are born with an innate sense of how many Nm they're pushing, the only way to learn is by using a tool that tells you what you've already done.
If I was tightening the same screws all day and I had a clear idea of what, say, 10Nm felt like, I could probably hit it with decent accuracy thanks to the repetition. But I don't. I tighten a single bolt here and there to various pressures with no warm up to what I need. And anyway, why bother being macho about it? Not many people are born with an innate sense of how many Nm they're pushing, the only way to learn is by using a tool that tells you what you've already done.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Giant-Too..._Cycling_Tools_RepairKits&hash=item19d7a95beb
Nice bit of kit used often in bike shops.
40 years plus of mechanical experience behind me and I can say that most of the people I know cannot guess a torque by hand me included. Fact a lot of mechanics, tyre fitters only check that the nut/bolt is tight enough to click the wrench, which has nothing to do with the correct torque.
Nice bit of kit used often in bike shops.
40 years plus of mechanical experience behind me and I can say that most of the people I know cannot guess a torque by hand me included. Fact a lot of mechanics, tyre fitters only check that the nut/bolt is tight enough to click the wrench, which has nothing to do with the correct torque.
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
The right torque could be well be needed for safety critical items such as the wheels and saddle.
Except they are held on by quick release fixings which cannot be torqued.
Think I'll stick to nipping up.
Except they are held on by quick release fixings which cannot be torqued.
Think I'll stick to nipping up.
Zakalwe
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Barnsbury, London
Yeah, those stems and bars aren't critical in any way.
Zakalwe
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Barnsbury, London
I've seen an alloy bar fold in the middle mid ride thanks to the faceplate being over tightened, on a bike set up and ridden by an experienced cyclist. Luckily they were slowing down at the time, but was quite funny watching their stance getting rapidly lower as it bent like Uri Gellar's cutlery.
mr messy
Veteran
- Location
- Sunny? Glasgow, the friendly city...
I blame the europeans.......everyone knew how to do/fix stuff before we went metric 
black'n'yellow
Guest
Or me - but you don't need to 'guess' any number. You just need to know when something is tight enough, in relation to the materials concerned and the likely stresses on them.
Being an 'experienced cyclist' does not preclude being a 'gorilla with a spanner' - you can still be both. Highly unlikely that a faceplate could ever be tight enough in itself to cause a tubular bar to collapse and you would probably have stripped the threads out of the stem long before you could have tightened it to a load where the bar itself could have been damaged. The faceplate could have been mis-tightened (ie not 4X), which is more likely to have placed undue stress on the bar - which is a completely different issue.
Zakalwe
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Barnsbury, London
Which...... Is my point. Which you seem to have missed. The claim getting bandied about is that you should just rely on feel and experience. And you just highlighted a flaw in this apparently foolproof system
black'n'yellow
Guest
incorrectly fitting a faceplate to a stem has nothing to do with torque values though - which.......was my point.
Zakalwe
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Barnsbury, London
No, you had no point. You just gave an alternate, imaginary scenario and decided it was fact.
Rob3rt
Man or Moose!
- Location
- Manchester
By the time you gain this experience, you have potentially cost yourself well in excess of the price of a torque wrench in parts you have compromised!
I would learn to do without, if the consequences didn't cost me anything, however, when I am working with hundreds of pounds, maybe even thousands of pounds worth of my own cash, I would much prefer to just use a tool designed for the task.
subaqua
What’s the point
- Location
- Leytonstone
you can even be a gorilla with a spanner and not be an experienced cyclist.
one fitter i worked with had two levels of tight- nipped up nicely and w*nked up hard . never had any failures, never used a torque wrench in his life. its one of them things you get. although it looks like some people won't from posts here.
one fitter i worked with had two levels of tight- nipped up nicely and w*nked up hard . never had any failures, never used a torque wrench in his life. its one of them things you get. although it looks like some people won't from posts here.
