I have had this question also. For my 36" I tighten up the bearings with mild hand pressure. I hold up the unicycle by the seat and spin the wheel briskly. I like to see about 8-10 rotations of the wheel before it comes to a stop. If the bearings are really too tight the wheel stops in 2-4 rotations, for example, and I then back off on the bearing cap pressure.
The KH machined bearings are a bit tricky because they must be firm to seat well, but over-tightening is a problem.
Scott
This gives me the impression your bearing holders are not too tight. It’s what I like to see when I tighten mine. The fact that the clicking has gone tells me you’ve found the sweet spot.
Bearings can take a lot of abuse, wet is not your freind, neither is too much bearing cap presure. More than likely, what happened when you compressed the bearing further by tightening the cap is you stopped some minor bearing movement.
You probably could have solved the problem by putting a thin layer of grease between the bearing and caps, this prevents sticking which was probably the noice you heard.
Of course it could also be your seat creaking, or the seat post, or the hub, or the cranks, or the spokes, or the pedals. Did I miss anything? 
^Bones.
^gears or rocks (in the head) 
I feel a slight click when I move my frame. I got off the unicycle and investigated by rolling the wheel forward, back and side to side. It seems to be coming from one of the bearing holders. When I looked closer at the bearing holders I found that there is much more space between one screw than the other (it’s this way on both sides). I can see the screw through the gap on one side but not the other. Shouldn’t they be more or less level?
Yep.
Check if your bearings sit tight on the axle. I had similair sounds (changing with tightening the bearing caps) that came from a loose bearing. A spacer solved the problem.
Ok I’ll have to adjust and tighten them. I haven’t touched them since I first took the uni out of the box last week. The frame was already on the wheel and I figured UDC would have put it on correctly but I guess they didn’t.
Hello Vertigo, I would suggest tightening the bearing cap bolts fully. Then loosen them off equally until your wheel turns 8 revolutions approx following a hand spin.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, I’ll try that. Just got back from the bike shop with a new crank puller. I’m going to change my cranks and work on the bearing holder.
Here are photos of the holders. Maybe they did it this way because of the D’brake. There is no space on the right side bolt of the bracket but tons on the left side.
Thats the way it has to be. Don’t change this! Allways tighten the right side first, really tight. And then tighten the left side, handtight. It’s because of the d’brake.
Aha, I didn’t know you had the d’brake bracket on your uni. Yes, you’re meant to leave a gap of 3mm on one side. Your set up looks fine.
I have the d’brake instructions here and it says that on the disc side you should fully tighten the bearing cap on the side where the caliper is mounted and leave a 3mm gap on the other side.
On the non disc side tighten the bearing cap bolts screws to normal tolerance.
Oh, didn’t know we were talking D-brakes. Leave it be.
I have however, found that occasionally I still get a loose bolt primarily on the open side of the D-brake. It’s still good practice IMO to check the bolts regularly and make sure they haven’t loosened on you.
I have gotten clicking noises before from loos bearing caps. That’s why I started this thread back in the day.
Hello Killian. Yes it’s a good idea to check the cap bolts before each ride although mine rarely need adjusting even on the gap side.
Just check that the cap bolt on the gap side is long enough. I only adjust the cap bolts if they have become loose. I think that adjusting them too often might erode the blue thread grip coating which might lead to the bolts loosening more frequently.
Sorry to pull this up again, but…
Is it still state of the art to tighten those bearing caps until they’re just about to “brake” the turning of the wheel? (Sometimes recommendations change, so just making sure.) If so: Several threads have people saying they only hand-tighten the caps. I guess they have stronger hands than I do because I’ll need a key to tighten them enough to “brake” the wheel - ?!
And what happens if you don’t tighten the caps enough–I guess that’d result in more torque when doing hopping, esp. side hopping, so that really woudn’t be good for the bearings?? Just wondering if it’d be safe to err on the side of not-tightening-very-much…
(Yes, I’m not yet at the level of side hops and they’ll never be very big… but then again beginner level riding is probably quite hard on the material as well due to uncoordinated stresses… and I want my uni to last forEVER… :))
Um, I’m still wondering: a) Tigthening the bearing caps until they “brake” the wheel and then loosen them until they don’t do it anymore?
b) hand-tighten them (as I wrote - at least for me that’s before “a)”)?
c) yet something else?
What happens if I don’t tightem them enough?
(I have not found the answers in the forum, just a lot about a and b combined. I’m sure the answers exist somewhere though, so feel free to yell at me and tell me which key words to search for… ;))
I am not a bearings specialist but based on my experience with a couple of muni without brakes: if they are not tight enough, you hear a loud creaking when torquing uphill or downhill.
I always use a L shaped hex wrench to tighten evenly the cap holding it by the short side. Then when I cannot tighten more I am done. Works well on my KH frame.
On my Flansberrium, I add a tiny-tiny extra by turning the wrench around and turning 20 degrees only on one bolt by pushing with my thumb right after the wrench elbow.
Under tightening will torture the bearings with lateral stress and over tightening will prevent it from rolling properly (maybe aging the balls inside prematurely).
Thanks! So I’ll make sure it’s tighter than hand-tight.
I don’t have a fitting L hex wrench, but I guess I’ll have about the same amount of lever with my dogbone wrench / dumbbell spanner or an equivalent multi-function flat b*ke tool.
visualize what is happening
The outer part of the bearing is made to be round. If you tighten the caps enough, it will warp round to oval. This will be shown by how an oval (over tightened) bearing will not allow the wheel to spin as many reps.
Bearings are both cheap and tough, so yes, you are being anal. Getting this wrong will take a long time to cause an inexpensive FUBAR.
But I am anal to, so while we are on the subject, if you want to be perfect, use blue loctite (yes it has to be blue). Flip your uni (while you are not on it) , then, with the caps full loose (so the bearings are full round), spin the wheel with a standard thrust of 17 newton pecks /kiloparsal squared, as we all do. Then count the reps.
With the blue loctite on the cap clamp threads , slowly tighten the clamps until the standard spin slows down. This means you have warped the bearing, in a temporary, harmless way. Then loosen 1/4 turn. Perhaps less or more than me, but I am so anal I actually care about this stuff. 1/4 turn that leaves the wheel spinning so free that it achieves full free spin is the gold standard. The blue loctite, once dried, will prevent the caps from loosening.