Gaining knowledged should be fun in itself. Many You tubers do add cats for the cat people clicks. Are you an American..."say like" Americans speak lol.@@jerseybarrier64
I am one of the few fastener engineers out there running and even rarer test lab that specializes in bolted joint dynamics. I came into this video expecting to have to write a long comment correcting a lot misinformation. I am relieved to say that everything in this video is spot on. It is especially important that you use the exact lubricant if a manufacturer specifies one. I have seen a wide range of K factors across many lubricants and anti-seizes, and it will definitely have an impact on the tension actually achieved when tightening. The old adage about lubricants saying "some is better than none" is not always true. Keep up the good work!
Although geeky stuff here, this was an extremely informative video and I learned a lot from it. Your latest videos have really stepped up your game by providing very useful information beyond simply chaining waxing topics. Well done!
My favorite assembly paste is Morgan Blue Aqua Proof Paste. It’s actually a marine paste. It’s used for press fit or threaded applications. It’s not a lubricant! It maintains viscosity in a wide range of temperatures and will not wash out with water. I use it on the bottom bracket and seat post of my titanium bike. I’ve pulled them apart at six months to check for corrosion. There was none and the paste was clean. Great stuff!
Thank you, Great video. This reflects all the best practice procedures that you find in high-pressure piping gasket joints. The only one i would add is to clean and inspect the threads visually and by feel when you assemble. If they are damaged or isn’t screwing in smoothly, then either replace bolts or repair threads on a part. i.e. maintain intended bolt tention.
That is superb Josh, thank you. It’s really helpful to understand the correct procedures of fasteners and torquing and I now know I can apply this knowledge with confidence as a home mechanic. I also love your video’s and pods on hot waxing. Recently moved over to this and it really is a game changer! Thank you.
It's worth mentioning that some stem faceplates are designed to be screwed in at the bottom first, before tightening. Maybe this is to adapt the screwhead to to the flat face of the faceplate. I've done it but always wondered why.
Great video as always. I used to have all sorts of issues with rounding bolts with my "blue" tools. I would go through my 4 and 5mm every 9-12 months. I've used my Silca tools for 6.5 years with no problems.
Was building up an old bike for a friend’s kid yesterday and experienced many of these issues. Plan to go back and re-tighten many bolts to make sure they are not over torqued. Thanks.
Excellent video - another commonly mis-used workshop item is the humble workstand. Watching 'Professional' mechanics clamping the mid point of a butted frame tube super tight, then proceeding to practically swing off it to undo a crank bolt or stubborn thru-axle gives me hives.
I have broken all of these rules at one time or another. One that got me in the most trouble was bad allen keys. I find it works with all tools, if it wiggles too much I ain't using it. Especially with phillips/jis screwdrivers, but allens can have the issue too. I try to replace blue loctite after it's been used a couple times for disk rotors or brake bolts.
Thanks Josh, Important info., and a lot of good advice. It’s always a good idea to see if any installation info. comes with the product. I just installed a new stem and if I hadn’t read the enclosed info. it would have been incorrect. This particular stem had a rounded groove on the top face/stem interface and that was meant to be fully tightened and then the 2 bottom bolts were torqued.
Josh, thanks for another great video! I've been waiting for such information for so long! Unfortunately, a lot of bike mechanics don't know about wet assembly..
Excellent video. Worthwhile discussing Magura brake lever clamp tightening procedure...I see that so many people have not read the instructions by people on You Tube.
Very well presented Josh. One thing you didn't mention, perhaps you have in another video, is that when using a torque wrench to achieve a setting it should be a dynamic movement of about half a turn to achieve the final torque setting. I am now about to check a few/all the bolts on my bike. Thanks for the info.
Josh, this is excellent. I agree with everything you say here. Most of it is just good practice but nobody has to do an apprenticeship to work on their bike. I would add that, in tools, cheap does not necessarily mean bad, but it is difficult to tell. I have several sets of cheap hex keys (I've never bought expensive keys) and a bit more pricy set of 3/8 sq drive hex drives (including long ones to reach down in brake hoods and such) which I use with the torque wrench. From time to time, I check a key for wear by placing it in a new bolt head and feeling for play. If it wiggles its worn. I like the idea of cutting the ball off, and I will look to get a spare set to do just that. Thanks.
Wow! That didn't suck. Two wishes: 1) I wish you'd have done a call out about the inherent accuracy of beam style wrenches and how it is a good idea to quickly validate your clicky torque wrench before using. Also it will demonstrate the hammer effect so you can practice using them correctly. 2) Give some credit to aviation from which all this screw engineering was derived.
Great vid, thanks. Another mistake that people can make is not doing regular bolt checks. In addition, when doing a bolt check, do not tighten further if not using a torque wrench. Ideally use a torque wrench, loosen the bolt off 20 degrees or so and then tighten to torque. If I don't use a torque wrench (because I'm inherently lazy) then I simply test if the bolt is tight but don't turn it at all, unless its loose of course.
In the same way that you step your torque tightening, it is also good practice (and sometimes imperative) to step loosen. If you fully remove one bolt at a time from a multi bolted interface, often the last bolt removed will have enough of an increased residual load that it will seize. This is because prior to loosening any of the bolts, they were all sharing the total load. If you remove them one at a time, the last bolt will now carry its own load plus a partial load that the removed bolts are no longer helping it with. This mostly happens with fully mated interfaces like those found on engine parts, but it can also occur on non-mated parts. How many times have you taken some old part off of something and had gotten down to the last bolt and it won't budge? You think "what are the odds? everything went fine and then the very last bolt stripped." That is why; It wasn't random bad luck or Murphy.
Great point and we'll make sure to mention that in a future video.. you're right that with hard face boltings like a cylinder head, you can really cause yourself some headache and maybe even cause some warping in parts if you fail to step loosen.. in something like a faceplate, you can get some damage in the handlebar from the impingement of the faceplate corner of the tight bolt if you don't do it properly... thanks for pointing this out!
Sound advice. I learnt at a young age not to over tighten stuff (dad used to make helicopter rotor assemblies at Westland). I had to learn myself not to go in dry though.....
Awesome job in laying all this out. There is a whole lot of this that is just basic mechanics. Having spent 20 years through the 80's and 90's as a shop/race team wrench, I have seen it all. Some of the absolute worst violators were "European race mechanics". I remember that when stem bolt torque was a thing, they all but refused to use a torque wrench. Rather they would just give a bolt a 1/8-1/4 turn more every time they looked at the bolt until either the bolt or the part failed. It really took the Euro mechanics a long time to learn from their failures. There is so much of what you discussed that needs to be taught but I have found that people do not like to listen. My 20 plus years as a bike wrench helped me in getting a job in the semi-conductor industry as a maintenance technician there as well...trust me, when I say that we have the same issues. It is now rare for people to learn those fundamentals. The other interesting part is that torque of a fastener came about in the water industry as the maintenance workers there were destroying fasteners in making stuff "tight enough."
It happen so often that I actually stop the torque with static friction rather than sliding friction using ratchet style torquewrench. Like, I set torque wrench to 5 N.m. Then I turn the tool and ratchet back repeatedly a few times. It hasn't click yet. Then it click right away before the bolt even start to turn on the next move. People would think, that's it. 5 N.m. Which is true. But it's 5 N.m of static friction because the torque wrench click while the bolt isn't turning. If I undo the screw a tiny bit so that static friction is below 5 N.m then tighten it again until torque wrench click while it is moving, It end up tighten the screw further in, stopping at 5 N.m of sliding friction rather than 5 N.m of static friction.
Great point and a topic I debated adding here but didn't as it just seems like maybe it needs a separate video.. but yes, torque is only valid when you hit it during the sliding friction stage of tightening, thank you for pointing this out and if people are interested, maybe we'll make a separate video just on this topic!!
This is very cool information. I would have thought that we were seeking static friction torque. I would also want to know: must we reach these *max* torque settings? I usually aim to reach 80-85% of these, since they feel tight enough in my modest experience, and have never had a problem... then again, I am not very heavy or strong.
One point worth noting RE perpendicularity would be that some stem brands specifically request that the top of the faceplate touches the stem, with no gap. Bontrager Elite, Merida house-brand and (I think) some FSA stems would spring to mind. Presumably the contact surfaces are angles specifically to do so
I've done a lot of car repair, restoration and maintenance work on our cars over the past few years and this all makes a lot of sense. We all know that when you tighten lug nuts you do it in a star pattern, with a torque wrench, not radially with an impact wrench like lots of grease monkeys do (which is why it's often so hard to loosen them manually). And anti-seize, grease and threadlock are NOT interchangeable. Like DO NOT use anti-seize on caliper pins! Use brake caliper grease and save the anti-seize for manifold studs and nuts and such. On a bike it's for reactive metal combinations like Ti on Ti.
Very interesting: it would be good to sell individual hex keys rather than just sets if possible as not all keys wear out at the same rate. Off topic, some feedback on your bags. I use the Mattone, Mattone Grande, Premio and the seat roll. All have boa systems. The Premio and seat roll have a fantastic system with a strap that makes taking the bag on an off incredibly easy. Sadly, this is not true of the Mattone variants. The loose strap makes removal and replacement very fiddly and time consuming , especially at stops when you need to do it quickly. Please consider a version of the Mattone Grande with the strap from the Premio. Separately, I’ve had two zips on the Mattone Grande fail now. They stick after getting wet or dirty and jam. The shape of the bag makes it then impossible to open or close the zip which kind of renders the bag useless. This is not the case with the zip on the Premio which always works - I wonder whether this is to do with bag shape. In any event, please consider making a grande sized bag that has a waterproof zip. It might be worth thinking about changing the shape to prevent “corner sticking” and, if you are making a new bag, please consider a loop to allow the hanging of a tail light. Finally, the best bag you do is the seat roll. Could you please consider making a larger version or an ability to piggy back a second seat roll. Hope you don’t might the off topic interjection. I am an avid user of Silca and it’s a shame when things are not absolutely perfect.
Yes - I suspected I’m not alone and that it’s a design flaw. Really hope they read this and sort it out. The one on the Premio bag works much better but I think that’s more to do with the shape of the bag.
#3 - actually quite some stems on the market are designed to have no gap on one side of the face plate. If you leave even gaps on these, then you have misaligned contact surfaces.
That is 100% true, but those stems will have that printed on the parts as well as noted in the instructions.. this is a unique application, so we didn't want to confuse people with that outlier scenario.. but you are correct, if you have one of these, then follow the rules listed!
@@SILCAVelo I remember I've seen some stems where the no-gap instruction was never mentioned on neither the stem nor user manual for stems that need it, so I always look at the faceplate itself to see if there's any asymmetry. Zero-gap stem faceplates usually have some sort of asymmetry when viewed from the side.
I have one from Merida and it says "no gap" on that side. I love that design because it's easier to install and in Merida's case it has a clean looking flat top surface of a stem 👌
Josh, while there is preapplied Loctite product that works as you describe, i believe most of the bright color patches you see on bolt threads in the bike industry is more like Vibra-Tite VC3. It doesn't involve micro capsules that burst when assembling. It's just an elastomer that takes up vibrations, reducing the chance of loosening. Unlike the Loctite product, it IS compatible with grease.
We really debated how to address this in a short form video and might hit it in a longer one in the future.. the problem for most people is that they don't know which type of blue patch they have.. so if you are unsure, it's better to treat it as if it's the loctite patch as doing so to the vibratite patch will still work, but treating a loctite patch as if it were the vibratite one will prevent it from working as designed.
@@SILCAVelo the Loctite product is so rarely used that every time I've seen it, it's been listed in the product manual with specific instructions. Which circles back to the main instruction - always read the manual! 😊
@@seanmccuen6970 that’s why I asked. Auto torques are specced dry and bolts are bolts so yes I was surprised. Also a wet torque is higher than a dry torque
Now I have another reason to be a fan of drive beam torque wrenches… also cheap, simple and “calibration” consists of bending the pointer back to zero occasionally
There is a lot of talk about the necessity of using torque wrenches and maybe right so but don't discredit hand torquing. A good mechanic /technician with feel for mechanical components can do quite well, although I've also met people that considered themselves as good mechanics that felt that a connection should always be very tight. When I got my first wrench, I tightened by hand and then doublechecked and I was almost continually 1 Nm lower. And that is how I prefer it, also when using a wrench.
Video on that here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WI9XlNOsJf4.html In general, if it moves, use grease, if it needs to stay put use anti-seize.. if it has pre-applied loctite or calls for loctite, then use that, though fasteners with blue loctite patches can still benefit from a little anti-seize under the head to allow for more even tension at a given torque and for reduced risk of corrosion over time.
Centerlock disc rotor - why is the recommendation to assemble that dry, both the rotor itself and the lockring? Sure standard grease can melt and contaminate the rotors but don't we have something somewhere that can withstand the high temperature? Won't the lockring threads seize? Do they come factory coated somehow?
I've put the question out to both Shimano and SRAM to see what they say.. I know that the lockrings use a sacrificial crush washer, but my assumption is that they just don't want to risk contamination during install or from melting grease where migrating oils could run down onto the disk. Seems like a great spot to use a metal anti-seize just on the lockring threads.
12:44 I recall my father teaching me, that when you're imparting force through a torque wrench, it is imperative that you cease your effort upon the first audible "click". Otherwise, any subsequent click thereafter will mean you have imparted more torque as the click DOES NOT mean the torque wrench ceased to function as the user has to be able to HEAR the click.
Thanks for a great video. What's the reason behind using grease on the fasteners instead of fastening dry? I can understand that grease makes it possible to tighten the fastener more - but on the other hand I would expect the grease would make the fastener come loose more easily?
That's exactly the reason and to prevent seizing. I've encountered many dry bolts before and they're definitely not fun to work with when I have to get them out. Some are so stuck I have to destroy the bolt head to use another tool to crack it loose once the original tool interface is too far gone.
As a bike is exposed to weather and the elements corrosion is a huge issue. So a big reason to use grease [or anti-sieze on high-torque bolts] is to make it possible to undo the bolt in the future.
"but on the other hand I would expect the grease would make the fastener come loose more easily?" NO. Friction is NOT what holds a properly torqued fastener. Threadlockers are for those fasteners that can not be torqued to the point of stretch - which is what keeps them from unscrewing.
Ugh… improper use of the ball end of wrench. Yup I did that one. Also, it’s time to recycle all of my IKEA hex wrenches 😂. Those tools are not designed for continuous use.
Great video. Lots of subtleties of fastener care that is typically ignored. Question, is there a card or other centralized source of torque settings for bike fasteners?
Sadly, NO.. unfortunately pretty much all cycling parts are designed within their own ecosystem of fitments and such, so each manufacturer does the testing and setting of torque requirements. Good news is that most parts have the torque laser marked on the part somewhere, or have it listed in the instructions.
Now I know the specific name for the tightening of the bolts since I use ahead stems; I did step torqueing as I felt it cannot be good to first tighten one bolt completely. As I still have bikes with 1"-steerer forks, I want to hind to a problem that occurs with many 1" to 1 1/8" spacers: they are often to thin, the stem often slips easily on the steerer of the fork, and when the bolts for clamping on the steerer are tightened, I often saw that the gap between the bolts was not even, only with the adding of a piece of tin (empty Cola Light for example, the tins of "normal" Coke ist made from steel tin, keep that in mind when you have alloy steerers) the stems don't slip easily on the steerer, and the gap at the clamping bolts is even then. As I recently bought a spacer from Thomson, it was the first that was not to thin, and I could use it without adding a layer of tin. Due to its straight gap (not slightly diagonal), it cannot be used for carbon steerers, but I have a alloy-steerer fork for it. Pro mechanics are often more "generous" concerning tolerances of different parts, in the magazine "tour" was about 20 a picture where a mechanic has "clamped" a 1 1/8 stem on a 1" steerer - without spacer🙃.
Josh! Please settle the debate once and for all, grease on the spindles of a square taper bottom bracket? Asking for all the fixie and old-school community.
I haven't studied this in modern times, but I did do the original carbon Campagnolo Record crank over 20 years ago and the engineers at Campagnolo were adamant that you should not grease the square taper as it would result in the crank moving too far inboard over time. I have to think that there would be some modern solution here in the family of anti-seize or the like where you could get something in there that would make the forces at a given torque much more consistent, and then provide holding power to prevent it from loosening over time, but as the industry has moved on, not sure it will ever be in anybody's interest to really spend the time or money to figure this out!! So having said all that, grease or anti-seize the heck out of the fastener and under head, but leave the taper dry!!
Josh, You have the technology and the right mindset to take a deep dive into this. I’m currently restoring two vintage bikes and this is important information to me and many others.
Question regarding the Non-Perpindicularity. I've got a Thru axle bike, that has gone through 2 rear axles at this point, always torqued to spec(Wet!), but does not have a conical washer(just a flat surface). Both times the axle has failed, it has been the head breaking off the axle and I always thought it was odd that if wasn't failing at the threads(where the axle would be thinner). Is this likely due to the axle not being perfectly perpendicular to the frame? any way to confirm this? I assume there wouldn't really be any way to fix it in this scenario? Thanks!
I'd look at the face that the thru-axle head contacts and seeing if you can see any differential wear.. certainly sounds like non-perpendicularity somewhere on that ND side of the bike.. could either be that the ND dropout faces are non parallel or that they are parallel to each other but not parallel to the axle face which would then make for a very uneven load in the bolt head when tight.. could be as simple as uneven paint honestly, but without more info, so hard to really know. I'd talk to a shop and maybe the frame manufacturer to see if they have some guidance for you, but the fix could be as simple as facing the paint down on the dropout.
So, Josh you have worked at ZIPP, perfect. My question is about their seat post speed SL. The clamp says 12Nm, the Selle Italia carbon says max 8Nm..What do you recommend on the cylindric interfaces to prevent rotation of the saddle (front comes up while seated over bumps)? Used carbon paste, now considering loctide... 8Nm appears to be insufficient.. So extra friction needed... Thanks, great video's!
Selle Italia has no idea what type of saddle rail clamp you are using. Therefore, they have no idea what the relationship between bolt torque and rail clamp force will be. Their stated max is a CYA instruction (Cover Your Ass). One could theoretically design a saddle clamp in which 5Nm bolt torque would demolish the rails. In your specific case, 12Nm is what I recommend. I tighten all side clamp seatposts to their stated recommended torque regardless of rail material, unless stated otherwise by the seatpost manual.
@@n0ch91c3s understood and reasonable. Especially considering the bolt clamps two different items. Where the rails is one of. So could be that the forces at the rails is (way) less than the tightening torque at the clamping bolt (12Nm) right? I Just don't want to break the rails....
So I didn't have anything to do with that seatpost and am unfamiliar with it.. what I can tell you is that larger bolts with coarser threads will need more torque to achieve the same tension (we will cover this in a future video..) I've always had issues with those saddle torque limits as they have no idea what post or fastener is being used.. so seems like total BS to me to just list some random torque on a saddle without having any other information. I would contact Selle Italia and ask if they have experience with this post.. if it's slipping, it clearly needs to be tighter and maybe they have more information as both of those products have been in market for years. I might also consider loctite, but that mechanism will have a lot of surface area inside and loctiting that might make it pretty impossible to get apart or adjust in the future without adding heat.. and carbon parts don't like heat!
Every torque spec should include fastener state (dry, loctite (with loctite spec), or lube/antiseize type). Anything else is like giving a speed when you really need a velocity. Some manuals give this info but not all in the same place or even on the same page.
We totally agree.. I think that this is the next frontier in bicycle engineering.. we have really hit the aerospace/auto-racing frontier in terms of our tech, but have nothing even close in terms of inspection or maintenance information.
We are working on a way to get shirts in Europe.. our shirts are US made and importing them into the EU is a nightmare! Posters are all limited to 100 copies and tend to sell really fast. We generally release more around October. Be sure to sign up for our email list and we'll let you know as soon as either of them is in stock in the EU.
Great video. A question - I would like to replace my stem faceplate bolts as they are slightly corroded. These bolts have captive washers on them. Possibly to help with the non-perpendicularity problem you mention. I was going to replace them with stainless bolts without washers as there is no room for washers on these standard bolts. Bad idea? Are washers essential here? Stem is alloy. Thanks.
In general those washers are there to help ensure consistent bolt tension at a given torque on fasteners with pre-applied loctite or vibra-tite patches that are assembled dry. When dry tightening a fastener, you have much higher tension variability for a given torque due to both the friction in the threads and the friction under the head. Adding a washer under head guarantees a known and more consistent amount of friction under head which in theory should yield more consistent tension.. You also see washers used when the bolt head is contacting carbon which in most cases is painted, so the washer helps reduce damage to the paint. If you look around, you can find companies selling bicycle stem bolt washers, but if your faceplate is aluminum, you should be fine to use washerless bolts but just be sure to use a good anti-seize both on the threads and under the bolt heads. Here's a stainless stem bolt kit form ENVE that has captive washers: enve.com/products/alloy-stem-replacement-bolt-kit
We make an anti-seize that is optimized for Titanium-Aluminum and Stainless-Aluminum interfaces, which will be ~80-90% of the fasteners on your bike. The rest will most likely be Aluminum-Aluminum, and our stuff works great there too, but something like EP grease or Marine Grease will work in those applications and is much cheaper.
We are a unique industry in that there are many interfaces that combine parts from various manufacturers who have never directly collaborated.. so something like a stem/faceplate/handlebar interface might have a stem manufacturer (who might make their own bars) assuming a certain diameter and roundness tolerance as well as surface coefficient of friction of the handlebar, while the bar manufacturer (who might make their own stem..) might be assuming something completely different.. As a result, you can have interfaces in the real world that were never designed or tested for, but in general, both sides of the interface will tell you some torque spec based on what works when those parts are matched with their own products.. my rule of thumb is to carefully step torque all parts and work to the low end of the spec.. test or ride gently to see if there might be issue, and then tighten as needed. This is one of the factors that led us to develop the T-Ratchet/Ti-Torque product years ago as my experience had been that so many parts were broken at the roadside where the bike was built and seemed OK, and then on the first few rides it needed adjustment, or something slipped and somebody put in an additional 180 degrees of tighten or whatever and suddenly, something was broken.. it can be a fine line!!
Realistically, you probably get one loosen and re-tighten from the pre-applied patch. The technology there is essentially little microspheres of hardener mixed in with the blue resin.. when you tighten, the microspheres are crushed and the 2 parts mix and then harden. The challenge with re-using it is two fold.. one, the bursting of the microspheres and the mixing during the first tightening acts like a lube helping to provide more consistent tension for a given torque.. on the second use, you have almost no mixing so you will have less bolt tension for the same torque value. Secondly, the break-free torque value will be much lower on the second tighten as there is less mixing and hardening the second time around. Anyway, I'd recommend using a small drop of blue Loctite on it the second time around, and beyond that, I'd strip it off completely and use a proper loctite coating for any further installations.
I have to say after 1 Ride I am totally sold on the secret hot chain wax and found it vastly superior to Squirt drip which was building up on my jockey wheels and in general very noisy
Wera hex tools are excellent with a tradeoff. Their HexPlus geometry is very good, but to get that they use softer tool steel than PBSwiss or SILCA, but really can't go wrong with any of those 3 brands.
@@SILCAVeloThanks Josh. I saw your video of the Silca hex tools and planning to get it once I figure out how to avoid the import tax. Last time I ordered 7 latest tubes, I had to pay $130 USD for import tax and shipping :).
New video idea, what to do when you F'ed up. For example, I twisted a Titanium bolt in half while mounting the Silca Chisela computer to my stem. How? - Well, the cheap tork wrench I was using was all wrong, testing it with another known good wrench, showed that 5nm was really more like 9-10 nm, even more, if you let it click twice (very easy to do). I now have a good digital unit I really like.
