jesse_fisher•17d agoMost Upvoted

Took me 6 months to trust a torque wrench on carbon, now I wont touch a bike without one

Started at the shop in Austin and always did the hand tighten thing. Felt fine, never snapped anything. But after two warranty claims on seatposts that were under torqued and slipped, I finally broke down and got a used Park TW-2 for 60 bucks. Ran through every bolt on my personal bike and found the stem bolts were only at 3nm when they should be 5. Would have never known. Has anyone else fought this? How do you get customers to actually use them instead of just grunting it tight?

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1 Comment

ben_nguyen17d ago

Skip the used ones and get a new one with a click you can feel and hear. Your customers will still ignore it half the time, but the used ones lose their calibration after a few hard knocks in a toolbox. I've seen guys strip threads with a beam style because they treat it like a crowbar, not a tool. The real trick is to put a tiny bit of blue loctite on the bolt before you show them the torque setting. Forces them to back it off and redo it right when they think they're done. Also, write the torque value on the frame with a paint pen near the bolt. They can't claim they didn't know what it was supposed to be.