Torx...why?

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simon.r

Person
Location
Nottingham
I’ve just got my little used MTB out. A quick ride down the road and I decided I needed to adjust the bars and flip the stem. A 4mm allen key looked about right, but oh no, they’re torx bolts. After nearly knackering one of the heads I realised and got a T25 bit out. Why?

Anyway, suitable allen headed bolts ordered from eBay (for the princely sum of £1.29) to replace them.
 

screenman

Legendary Member
They provide more contact for the tool.
 

Jody

Stubborn git
Surely an allen bolt provides *enough* contact, especially with a decent quality tool and in low torque applications?

Poor allen keys and weak metal cause them to round where as torq allow more torque to go through them without rounding.

220px-Torx-hex-contact-angles-forces.svg.png
 

Profpointy

Legendary Member
Another tool to carry?

Not really. It's only "another" too if you have a mix of screw heads in a given size. Just replace all your screws with torx. I replaced all the spanner-headed screws on my bike with allen screws. If doing it again I'd probably go torx instead. Or I've heard of people re-assembling a pair of multi tools into one bespoke tool to have just the items you need.
 
If you can't bear having two different sets of screw types, simply replace all the odd ones. I'd rather bikes came with all Torx type. Admittedly, it's a bit annoying to have to have two standards on one product. Presumably this is due to bike builders having limited choice of which components they are fitting, even if they wanted a frame which was fitted out with only Torx, shimano components would still come with Hex.
 
OP
OP
simon.r

simon.r

Person
Location
Nottingham
One more thing to complain about. I'm still ranting about how inferior allen keys fittings are to good ole nuts cos there's no such thing as an adjustable allen key, and you can't undo them with a pair of manky old pliers. And cross head screws, what's the point of a screw that you can't do up with an old butter knife?

Torque shmorque.

Double like if I could.
 
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