Torque 7nm or 60 inch lbs

anyone know what this means?

should I be swinging my 14 stone from the allen key, gently tightening the bolt or somewhere inbetween?

any suggestions much appreciated

7nm means that u apply 7 newton of force from a meter away
for eg, if u have a 10cm long allen key, u'll need to apply 70newton (around 7kg) of force

7nm is fairly light stuff, you would, for example, put 7nm into stem face plate bolts.

So with a 8cm long alan key 7nm = tight, but no need to strain yourself, just make sure it is nice and snug.

Or buy yourself a cheap torque wrench on ebay to remove the guess work.

most helpful, many thanks

One good thing about buying a torque wrench is that after having used it for a while - you learn a sense of what 7Nm is or what 30Nm is - and can torque by feel with a standard alan key fairly accurately.

i have an inbuilt torque wrench...i click when its tight enough.

I once recommended (blatantly as a joke) the following rule.

For carbon, tighten until you hear cracking then back off a couple of turns until the part is loose.

The humour didn't translate to Switzerland and some weight weenie fellow basically ruined his seat post.

I shouldn't laugh, but c'mon !

jokes based on newtons law are always the best...
that guy shouldn't have a torque wrench...with great (control of) power comes great responsibility.

jokes based on newtons law are always the best...

Always.

that guy shouldn't have a torque wrench...with great (control of) power comes great responsibility.

That's why he was asking, he didn't have a torque wrench.

i'm sorry...my attempt to be silly prevented me from actually reading your post.i hope you can except my apology.

i'm sorry...my attempt to be silly prevented me from actually reading your post.i hope you can except my apology.

I think I can find it in myself to move on from what has happened here.

I wish you all the best in the future with whatever path you decide to take in life.

So you've prompted me to think about getting a torque wrench tynan. I know I always over tighten everything, not caused me any problems yet but i'm sure it will one day. I'm sat at work so can't check any manuals, what range of Nm do bike parts fit into? A cursary glance on the web suggests a wrench doing tight to broken bike is quite cheap but loose to tight is more expensive. Help me narrow my search.

So you've prompted me to think about getting a torque wrench tynan. I know I always over tighten everything, not caused me any problems yet but i'm sure it will one day. I'm sat at work so can't check any manuals, what range of Nm do bike parts fit into? A cursary glance on the web suggests a wrench doing tight to broken bike is quite cheap but loose to tight is more expensive. Help me narrow my search.

For most bike stuff (stem bars and steerer clamp/seatpost clamp/seat rails/chainring bolts/caliper mounting bolt etc) - a 1-20Nm should be fine.

For your crank bolts and pedals you would need something that goes up to at least 40Nm.

You can't really get a wrench that covers the whole range, so I have two a 1-20Nm and a 20-110Nm.

There are two sorts of torque wrench, the click sort and the 'beam' sort.

Click = very accurate, expensive, very very easy to set up and use.

Beam = less accurate (but a million times better than guessing), much cheaper, can be calibrated by hand.

Typical bike torques:

http://www.duke.edu/web/intramural/sportclubs/cycling/resources/torquespecs.htm

http://www.bike-manual.com/brands/bontrager/om/BT/torque_specifications.htm

cheers. Also seems <4Nm is tricker to come by.

cheers. Also seems <4Nm is tricker to come by.

Very true, in fact truer than you think ! In my post above I make the mistake of calling my lighter torque wrench 0-20Nm - it is in fact a 5-20Nm.

4Nm is pretty light stuff, once you have torqued a few bolts to 5Nm-10Nm you can get a feel as to what 4Nm and less should be.

4Nm is hand tight, just tighten up with a small alan key without any real force, just snug it up so it is tight.

Very true, in fact truer than you think ! In my post above I make the mistake of calling my lighter torque wrench 0-20Nm - it is in fact a 5-20Nm.

Cool. That makes things easier :)

One of the links above says a fixed gear lockring should be 28.2 - 33.9 Nm. How do I get one of these operating on a lock ring? Also how does an allen key combine with a torque wrench?

Edit: I need *special *allen keys - I see...

forget the torque wrench, just force the fncker on as far as you possibly can.