I bought my unicycle pre built, but I am looking into buying a new uni, and was wondering, how do you tighten the bearing caps to 45 inch pounds? I think you need a torque wrench, but on the instructions to my old uni, there is not one mentioned on the list of materials.
Any ideas?
just make them a little more than snug, and don’t worry about it, it doesn’t have to be exact
im guessing you got a torker DX?
Torker CX, do you know if a Nimbus 20 inch tirals needs inch pounds?
Also, by a little more than snug, what do you mean.
Just tighten it to the point where it isn’t and won’t become loose. You don’t need to get a torque wrench, just tighten it as much as you can without having to force it to go tighter.
Or if you’re worried about it go to a bike shop they’d proably let you use one without charging you anything.
Inch pounds
45 inch pounds is about the same torque it would take to hold a little over a pound at the end of a yard stick. Not much, as the proud owner of a Torker DX I am familiar with 45 inch pound instruction. I believe the “snug up” + a quarter turn or so is perfect. You just do not want them to rattle loose.
Yikes I just put together and ignored the 45 inch pound thing. Will someone explain exactly what part it is that I needed to tighten because the 4 screws I tightened the hell out of and I hope that wasnt it.
If you use a regular L shaped allen wrench, put the long end in the bolt and use the short end to turn it with your bare hands. With the short lever, when it gets hard to turn, that’s about right.
After you get it put together, spin the wheel… if it doesn’t spin freely, then you have them too tight.
Note: If you tear coins in half with your bare hands for fun, then this method isn’t going to work for you 
It’s the 4 screws that hold the bearing caps/wheel on. If you tighten them too much, the bearings will die a horrible death in short order.
Even if you have a torque wrench, most are deisgned for automotive and won’t go anywhere near this low, that’s only 3.75 ft lbs, most start at 20ft lbs. 45 inch pounds is only very little, one hand on a normal sized allen key will do the trick no problems. As long as the bearing holdings won’t move if you bounce the uni on the ground or grab the wheel and frame and tug them around, and the wheel still spins freely then you’re in the right zone. Tight bearings will indeed die pretty quickly.
torque
45 inch pounds is about the same as a static 7 lb weight on the end of a 6 inch wrench. Most ratchet wrenches are about 9 inches long…so a static 5 lbs on the end of one.
In backyard terms…that’s about 2 finger tight on your ratchet handle…or firmly, but not tightly, tightened with a short allen wrench. If you cinch those caps down you will distort the bearing race and cause them to fail as mentioned above. Snug is all it takes–just so they stay there.
Carey