Hi,

I'll give a little backstory before I get to the issue. In the hope of losing weight I have come back to my former hobby, cycling, and since I'm pretty broke I invested some money into a used MTB and decided it would be alright for some basic commuting and some longer trips. I'm not into any serious mountain biking or anything like that, I just figured it was a decent price.

Straight away I started having issues with the crank arms and after buying new crank arms and trying to fix it up, having to deal with incompetent dealers that had no clue I then decided to buy a whole new bottom bracket + crankset. I went for a BB-ES 300 BB and Shimano Alivio Octalink crankset, figuring it would be better since it had steel integrated crank arms and was built sturdier. I put it all together, carefully greasing the right parts and following a thorough guide. It's been running fine but after some trips out on the bike I felt the non-drive side crank arm give, it isn't much but it was enough to make me worried. I think I might not have tightened it enough, and as I don't own a torque wrench I have to admit I'm unsure how much is too much, I don't want to overtighten. I know a lot of people would probably just say "Buy a torque wrench" but I don't have the money right now, and I'm honestly fed up of how complicated things have become. I find myself more worried about the cranks than anything else, it's ruining my cycling experience - which I normally enjoy immensely.

I have seen some videos of people measuring torque using fish scales and suitcase scales - could that work? I have been thinking of doing that. I'll take the crank arms off tomorrow and inspect, I hope it won't be ruined after such a short time. I just bought the whole thing.

Thanks in advance from a tired bike newbie.