My trusty calibrated wrist and elbow haven't let me down yet!When in doubt use locktight!!!!

 

Forget the torque wrench - take it up the brink by hand.

Right when you can feel the bolt ready to snap - if you gave her one more tug, it would be history.

Blue loctite also from now on on this scoot. Never seen a machine where bolts loosenup so readily.

Came back from a 500 mile trip last weekend and the 2 tour pak bolts connected to the fender area were gone.

The other bolts holding the tour pak were all extremely loose - UFB.

If you don't locktite 'em, they gonna dissapear eventually.

Dave H.

 

engine parts need to be torqued, as do things like axles where you are dealing with bearings... you don't want to "brinell" your wheel or steering head bearings. Everything else I use "grunt" as the torque spec.

If you twist wrenches long enough, you develop a feel for proper "grunt" on different size fasteners. 1/4-20 hardware will snap if you look at it the wrong way. Using the proper tools helps.. 1/4 inch drive is enough for small fasteners... using 3/8 drive just increases your chances of snapping off some blind bolt in an area you can never get it out of. You also have to know what you are working with. Aluminum will strip out easier than iron or steel. Knowing the quality of the fastener helps too. Grade 2? Grade 5? Grade 8? Stainless? The thread size might be the same, but the amount of torque they require are much different.

 

be very, very, gentle with the drain plugs..pan is aluminum and bolt is hard metal..you will strip the pan!
then you will have to go to napa with your drain plug and buy a 1x oversized magnetic self tap drain plug at napa for about $7..
don't ask how i know.

 

Always torque engine components, rotors, wheels, axles, everything else pretty much by feel, but been wrenching a long time, and pretty much know from experience (yep, snapped it off) when I am where I should say tight enough. Always go over your scoot at service time to verify something isnt starting to work loose.

 

Tighten it up til it breaks then back it off one quarter turn.

 

On critical things I will torque to spec otherwise just by feel.

 

I Tighten all safety relatedand engineparts to torque specs. The rest I just tighten with loctite . Never lost a part yet..Mark...

 

If you are following the torque specs listed in the HD maintenance manual, you will not be over torquing. If you are using one of those clicker torque wrenches, when it clicks, stop, don't go just a bit more cause you think the click couldn't be correct. Good items to torque besides engine parts are anything has several bolts/Torx etc. Like the 5 on the cover plate for the clutch. Like the rotors etc.

 

I use a click torque wrench all the time, screwed too much up over the years with the grunt method.