So how tight do I need to put these in then sorry no torque wrench yet!

3 fingers tight for me

this tight

50nm – think a 5 kg weight on the end of a m long lever. for a rough guide measure your spanner – divide into a m IE a 20 cm long spanner goes into 1 m 5 x. thus you need 5×5 =25 kg weight on a 20 cm spammer. or 1/3 / 1/4 your body weight?

Or somewhere about real damn tight on the sheldon Brown scale

1)Till you snap your spanner and tw4t your hand on the frame or floor or both.

2) Repeat 1) on the other side with a new spanner and use the same broken hand as it would be more re-assuring for ME. 😳

3) Next question is “Int milk brilliant” 😳

b**********d tight, your not going to strip your BB threads!

I am not responsible if you soemhow manage that!

If it’s for the pinch bolts that hold on the non-drive side arm, then be careful as the bolts are very short, the forging is quite soft…. and the first one I ever fitted I stripped the thread under, what my highly calibrated hand, thought was a very low torque indeed.

Replaced the standard shimano items with longer stainless steel bolts so they use all of the available thread in the arms and can now do them up as tight as I like/am able. Simples.

Well I used to do square taper BBs up “Well B@strd tight” and then wondered 18months later why I had trouble getting them out, I now do BBs up “pretty tight” (both internal BBs and external cups) and don’t shred my knuckles trying to get them out later.

A bit tighter that ‘yorkshireman’ but not as tight as ‘scotchman’
😉

if HTII BB PINCH BOLTS rather than BB CUPS then I think you’ll find it’s 5nm not 50nm….

NOT having a torque wrench has probably just saved your chainset!

thanks chap yes its the actual bb I’m putting in to the frame mugsys!!

cups – go to town on them, unless you’ve got some very lightweight alloy frame with the worlds shallowest threads.

Preload – untill it stops moving with 2 fingers and thumb,

pinch bolts – small end of an allen key finger tight, then the other, then the first one again untill theyr both tight. Then another 1/6th turn.

Thanks Thisisnotaspoon its going in a five so I reckon I’ll be ok!! thanks for the help chaps!

Like everything else on the bike and every other bolt in existance it needs to be nipped up, no more, no less.

if HTII BB PINCH BOLTS rather than BB CUPS then I think you’ll find it’s 5nm not 50nm….

XTR pinch bolts should be 10-15nM,(tighter than you would think). I would expect others to be similar.

cups – go to town on them

Ah, I’d been warned not to do this to avoid side-loading the bearings which may cause premature wear. The worn-out factory fitted ones I took off were just nipped-up so I just copied that.

Sorry