It was time to do an oil change and I knew the studs on the oil filter cover break easily so I got a cheap torque wrench.
I set it to 4Nm and tightened them. The torque wrench is supposed to shift its head and click when it reaches the torque. When I tested it by pressing against the head with my fingers it does do that but when I actually tighten the nut I over overtightened them before realizing that, when I slowly apply froce to the wrench it just softly shifts its head and doesnt click at all.
Realizing my mistake I set it to 8Nm to check and they were tighter than that. I untightened them and set them to about 4Nm.
In this famous video it took about 14.5Nm to break them. I dont know how close to that I was.
The cover is on, the oil is in the bike and I took a short test ride and it didnt leak, its parked right now and I will check in about 8 hours if there is any oil under it.
Should I just ride it and act like nothing happened?
I'd say just be aware of it, and if there doesn't seem to be a problem you're probably fine. Check it every few hours to make sure its not leaking, maybe ride it around the block and then leave it parked for a few hours to see if it leaks then, but if not you're probably okay
As long as it's holding oil I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Next oil change there may be some things to check, though. If any studs come out with the nuts and they have aluminum on the threads you'll know there was some damage, or if any studs are loose you would probably want to remove them to inspect them before tightening them up. At any rate, I would install the studs gently and use some sort of thread locker.
But if the next oil change goes smoothly then I'd say you're in the clear.
Sigh...as I've said a number of times, a torque wrench has it's place, and most of the time that place is in the very bottom of the tool box.
If you hang out on on motorcycle forums long enough you'll realize that most posts about stripped threads contain the phrase "torque wrench". In the hands of most people they end up causing far more damage than they prevent.
You'll be far better served by understanding what's going on at the thread interface and developing a little feel to tell when the threads are approaching the yield point.
Quote from: RichDesmond on February 06, 2017, 07:46:31 PM
Sigh...as I've said a number of times, a torque wrench has it's place, and most of the time that place is in the very bottom of the tool box.
If you hang out on on motorcycle forums long enough you'll realize that most posts about stripped threads contain the phrase "torque wrench". In the hands of most people they end up causing far more damage than they prevent.
You'll be far better served by understanding what's going on at the thread interface and developing a little feel to tell when the threads are approaching the yield point.
Well one torque wrench isn't one fit all... you should have multiple torque wrenches when wrenching... for example I have one up to 80ft.lbs. but anything below 15 and it just doesn't work right, so I have a little one, that goes up to 240 INCH pounds. [20foot pounds] and a monster one that goes up to 250 foot pounds, that rarely gets used.
and of course always STORE the torque wrenches properly...
I'm still traumatized from the time I stripped one of mine. What a pain in the arse that was to fix.
Is there an easy way to check calibration on a torque wrench? I got a cheapish one of amazon and am planning on using it when I rebuild my engine starting like next weekend but wouldn't mind checking it will be accurate
Quote from: J_Walker on February 07, 2017, 01:21:51 AM
Quote from: RichDesmond on February 06, 2017, 07:46:31 PM
Sigh...as I've said a number of times, a torque wrench has it's place, and most of the time that place is in the very bottom of the tool box.
If you hang out on on motorcycle forums long enough you'll realize that most posts about stripped threads contain the phrase "torque wrench". In the hands of most people they end up causing far more damage than they prevent.
You'll be far better served by understanding what's going on at the thread interface and developing a little feel to tell when the threads are approaching the yield point.
Well one torque wrench isn't one fit all... you should have multiple torque wrenches when wrenching... for example I have one up to 80ft.lbs. but anything below 15 and it just doesn't work right, so I have a little one, that goes up to 240 INCH pounds. [20foot pounds] and a monster one that goes up to 250 foot pounds, that rarely gets used.
and of course always STORE the torque wrenches properly...
I agree, using the wrong torque wrench exacerbates the issue, but even a torque wrench that's the right size and accurate can still cause problems.
Quote from: RichDesmond on February 06, 2017, 07:46:31 PM
Sigh...as I've said a number of times, a torque wrench has it's place, and most of the time that place is in the very bottom of the tool box.
If you hang out on on motorcycle forums long enough you'll realize that most posts about stripped threads contain the phrase "torque wrench". In the hands of most people they end up causing far more damage than they prevent.
You'll be far better served by understanding what's going on at the thread interface and developing a little feel to tell when the threads are approaching the yield point.
I want to understand it and I as most people learn the most through mistakes but I cant mess around with my only means of transportation.
Quote from: Yianna on February 11, 2017, 07:57:23 AM
Quote from: RichDesmond on February 06, 2017, 07:46:31 PM
Sigh...as I've said a number of times, a torque wrench has it's place, and most of the time that place is in the very bottom of the tool box.
If you hang out on on motorcycle forums long enough you'll realize that most posts about stripped threads contain the phrase "torque wrench". In the hands of most people they end up causing far more damage than they prevent.
You'll be far better served by understanding what's going on at the thread interface and developing a little feel to tell when the threads are approaching the yield point.
I want to understand it and I as most people learn the most through mistakes but I cant mess around with my only means of transportation.
All the more reason to leave the torque wrench in the tool box. :)
My basic point is that the torque wrench is doing more harm than good. You're
more likely to strip bolts using it than if you just did it by feel.
One other great trap is the fact a lot of cheaper torque wrenches out of the box need to be used a few times at a high torque setting to actually work reliably at low settings.
I got a 4-40Nm wrench not too long ago and in the really fine print it says you need to do this. I tried it out on a sacrificial bolt in the vice and sure enough when set at 10Nm it didn't click anywhere close. Took it up to 40Nm, and it clicked, dropped it back down to 10Nm and it suddenly behaved itself.