Thread: Torque Wrenches
View Single Post
Old 02-01-11 | 05:44 PM
  #25  
Brian Ratliff's Avatar
Brian Ratliff
Senior Member
20 Anniversary
 
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 10,123
Likes: 4
From: Near Portland, OR

Bikes: Three road bikes. Two track bikes.

This is what happens when you blindly use a torque wrench:



Notice how the bottom bolt is tightened further than the top? Whoever assembled this tightened the bottom bolt first, nearly to spec, then tightened the top. The top bolt hit spec much faster than the bottom bolt because the threads weren't aligned due to the lower bolt being over tightened.

The integrity of a bolted joint relies on all the bolts being evenly tensioned at all times so the circumferential pressure on the clamped part is evenly applied. Learn how to tighten bolted assemblies properly if you are going to work on your own bike. If you feel like you aren't able to tighten bolts by feel, or you merely don't want to learn, take it to a shop. If you can't do it by feel, you can't do it by torque wrench either.
__________________
Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --the tiniest sprinter

Last edited by Brian Ratliff; 02-01-11 at 05:49 PM.
Brian Ratliff is offline  
Reply