I finally got a torque wrench for myself. Now I can make sure that I’m putting the crank bolt on to the right tightness. No more guessing.
I became paranoid with my new Coker wheel. It’s an expensive wheel and I didn’t want to mess it up by either stripping the threads putting a crank on too tight or damaging the tapers by putting a crank on too loose. Time to bite the bullet and buy a torque wrench. A torque wrench is cheaper than a new wheel.
I had thought torque wrenches were expensive which is why I didn’t have one. The lower cost beam style torque wrenches I’d seen were about $40 and the fancy micrometer style torque wrenches were over $70. Too much for me as just a casual home mechanic.
Torque wrenches don’t have to be that expensive. I found a Craftsman beam style torque wrench at Sears for under $20. It happened to be on sale for 20% off at the time I bought it so it was even less. Cool deal. Under $20 puts it in the affordable for the casual home mechanic range. The clicking style micrometer torque wrenches are nice, but overkill for casual home use. The beam style works just fine and there are fewer moving parts to worry about.
If you have a small fleet of unicycles and you worry at all about how tight to get that crank nut, get a torque wrench. They aren’t that expensive and you can get a good inexpensive one at your local Sears store.
I’ll be sleeping a lot better now that I’m not having nightmares about ruining the hub on my custom Coker wheel.
So now you know how many ft/lbs of torque you’re putting on your Coker. But the question still remains: How do you know how many ft/lbs of torque you’re suppose to put on a Coker?
Sofa did an interesting experiment to find the maximum torque the Suzue threads could take: Max torque on Suzue threads
The recommended torque for the Suzue style hubs is about 40 foot/pounds. Crank Torque Settings
Some general torque specifications for bicycle parts are on the Park Tools web page: Torque Specifications
I had been living in ignorance of inexpensive torque wrenches. The ones I had seen were like the Park Tools torque wrench for about $40 and other expensive things. Finding one for under $20 at a local store made my day.
I have the same torque wrench as you john, and it works good. I just went out and adjusted it to the right torque, except with that wrench I had trouble finding 40, and anything under the 50 mark, the crank was still loose.
Did you have any Loctite on the threads to lubricate? If the threads were dry you could get inconsistent torque measurements. The serrations on the underside of the nut don’t help either.
> We used to use the beam kind on the MGB’s, then we found a clicker for
> $20 at Harbor Freight, it’s pretty cool.
>
> ‘Looks like it’s only $10 right now.’ (http://tinyurl.com/2rx2z) Of
> course, it’s not a Craftsman, but it seems to be getting the job done
> thus far.
I’ve been using that torque wrench for my cars wheels. Actually make
that a couple of those torque wrenches. The first one broke and
wouldn’t click any more. Harbor freight replaced it. Then the second
one broke: it still clicks, but won’t ratchet. The problem seems to
be that the lug nut/bolt torques are right at the limit of the wrench
and there’s little margin of stress built into the tools.