Originally Posted by
bikepro
50 Foot Pounds is a lot for pedals -- no wonder the bolt snapped. Unfortunately, the lesson here is if you have no knowledge of mechanics, you're better off leaving things to a bike shop. You would have been better off using a standard allen wrench. The hazard of using the wrong tool is you can do some serious damage.
Oh so because I haven't used a torque wrench before and didn't know a 1/4" wrench and a 3/8" wrench would give different measurements and went with 3/8" since all my sockets were already that size, and since the "in" part was in the crease of the instructions and I didn't see it, I therefore should just leave things to a bike shop. Never mind the 15+ bikes I've built up just fine in the last 3 years. Never mind the only time I took my bike to a shop to have them cut my Alpha Q carbon fork they didn't know there was an aluminum sleeve inside the steerer and cut it too short so a star nut couldn't be used, and their solution was to pound the sleeve into the steerer telling me a $10 compression plug would work, only to have the sleeve not pound far enough in and then sell me a $20 compression plug that was never able to give me enough preload and compromised the steerer column since there was no longer a sleeve at the top for support.
I really hope the countless oil changes I've done, and replacing of both disc and drum brakes haven't caused all those friends and parents cars to explode or crash. I should have left that all up to a shop too. Now that I think about it nobody who doesn't charge an arm and a leg for basic labor should work on anything. I'll make sure to call a plumber out for $200 next time the toilet clogs. Thank you for the incite bikepro. Lives have been saved >.> [/end pointless rant]
Originally Posted by
milkbaby
I don't get it... The compression plug only needs to be tight enough that it doesn't slide up when you set the headset preload, and the top cap bolt should be torqued to whatever amount gives you good headset adjustment. I'm not an expert, but I don't think any of these are best adjusted to a set torque number... Would anybody concur/correct me?
Using a regular 3" long 5mm allen wrench with just about most of the strength 3 fingers gives and carbon paste, the compression plug was still slipping, so I figured a torque wrench would give me better results. With steel or aluminum I'm not worried, I'll just tighten the sh*t out of things, but with carbon I still don't have enough experience to be comfortable going by feel. Don't worry, everything is significantly over tightened until Friday when they get more 1/4" wrenches in stock, so nothing is slipping.