Originally Posted by
ryanwood
That's some pretty terrible advice. The manufacturers provide those torque settings for a reason. Just because you didn't twist the head off a bolt doesn't mean that you didn't damage the bolt or the threads. Add the stress of being over-torqued to the stress of normal riding, and you are asking that bolt to bear a load that it was not designed to do.
Get the torque wrench and use it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't develop a feel for the correct torque settings for roadside service, but whenever I have to tighten a bolt on the road I always make sure it is torqued to the correct settings when I am back in my garage.
I did not suggest that people tighten bolts to twice the rated torque as a regular practice, so my advice is not bad. I'm a mechanical engineer who's been wrenching for over 40 years, so I'm not stupid. I suggested getting a torque wrench and using it to learn what those small torques feel like, so your not chained to the thing. There will come a time when you need to fix something out on the road and that's no the time to be clueless when it comes to tightening bolts.
I suggested a test to prove that both bolts and threads require many times the rated torque to damage them. I get tired of reading all the exaggerations about how easy it is to break bolts or carbon parts. Most cracked carbon parts can be traced back to either a poorly made carbon part or a poor fit between the two parts being clamped together.
It does not take all that much practice to be able to safely tighten M5 bolts without the risk of damage or failure.