Does 50 ft lbs mean really tight? I’m tightening a base nut on some fox forks and not sure , in the abscence of said torque wrench, how much pressure to apply on the spanner.

3.5 white knuckles

It’s pretty bloody tight, think old square taper crank bolts. The footnut in question, I tend to tighten as much as I dare and it’s still not as tight as the spec suggests.

Square taper crank torque would snap the base of the damper/spring clean off – and I would know!

Are you sure it isn’t inch pounds?

50ft lbs is not that tight. Most humans can apply this without to much effort

Real easy to snap the aluminium damper rod on a Fox fork by overtightening – be careful

hhmmm I was thinking 50Nm. 3.5 white knuckles is still correct though

go and press on your bathroom scales at 22kg. this is how much you need to press if the ratchet is 300mm long

The torque is 51IN/lbs not 51ft and it’s not as tight as you’d think!
( assuming of course your tightening up the nuts on the bottom of the fork legs)

Just between hhhhhrgh and heeeeeargh.

That’s 5.76nm, or, “barely tight at all”

http://sheldonbrown.com/tork-grip.html

Not that tight really,hand/finger tight with a 3 inch lever ie the usual size allan key.Just enough to squash the plastic washer a bit.
I broke a Fox footnut easily 😳 Expensive lesson,prompting purchase of a torque wrench.

The old skool method (sounds like some here have tried it) it to tighten it until it snaps, then back it off half a turn.

51N/lbs!?

51Nm is about 5 kilos at 1m or 16kg at your 300mm

FFS 51nm you’ll trash the fork it’s 5.6nm as above enough to start to crush the crush washer and no more.

set your bathroom scales to lbs and push on them to gauge how much force 50lbs feels like. Now use a 1 ft long spanner on your nut and apply the same force as you did the scales on the end of it, and hey presto 50ft/lbs. Its really that simple 😀

you can guess how 50Inch/lbs works now cant you!

guessing i dont need to explain newton meters? 😆

Nnnnngh

5.6 is about the same as a lot of stems. But then most over tighten those too
Thick doing somthing up tight with a screw driver

I don’t mean to condescend, but you know that 50 ft lbs is a weight of 50lbs on the end of a foot-long bar? Or a 1 lb at 50 feet. You get the idea. Obviously inch lbs is a more realistic unit for most bike applications – or preferably Nm*.

You can usually work out, therefore, approximately how much force you need to use.

* Likewise, 1 Nm is a force of one Newton at 1 metre. Ten Newtons ~ 1kg, so 1Nm is a 1 kg mass (E.g. a bag of sugar) at 10cm.

surely it’s about as tight as you feel when you suddenly realise you agree with something Hora said????

Imagine lifting a cocker spaniel above your head and holding for 4 seconds , and you’re about right.

5’n’ s

as in

nnnnn

that tight.