Manual says "not too tight" often, what does this mean?

[johncclayton]

Hi

I was browsing the manual, prepping for an upcoming build.  There's lots of mention of "not too tight", can someone enlighten me as to what level of force is enough vs not enough in these cases? 

Thanks

[flyalan]

Are you referring to "do not over tighten" ? If so then tighten without stripping anything is your goal.  This may seem obvious but you would be surprised at the number of heavy handed mechanics out there. Snugging things down with moderate torque. Don't treat like lug nuts :-)
Also depends on which item you are referring to. Jesus bolts only need to be tightened to remove play in the bolt.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Alan

[Rob Cherry]

Some screws like the pitch arms to the main grips... There's 2 screws, one is very shallow and secondary, opposed to the primary screw that's very deep. I turn the shorter screw lightly until it stops, then give it another 5 degrees. The primary screw, I'll give it a good level of force.

Or for a high level of consistency, FBL rotors sells torque drivers in 2mm and 2.5mm sizes, with appropriate predetermined torque settings. As for the pitch arms I'll replace the outer screw (shorter one)  with a same length 2mm button head and use the 2mm torque driver, which torques to a lesser value, preventing stripped grips.  The torque drivers are awesome, you can quickly torque every screw quickly and cover the entire model without over tightening.

[Mike Dipalo]

+1 on torque drivers if you really wanted to be fancy. Screws sensitive to over tightening get a few extra degrees after seating. Screws into a solid thread base get about 5~6* once seated.

[johncclayton]

I've gone with the approach of tightening the bolts using the allen key plus two fingers pinching the shaft of the driver - and then a little more to ensure its not held in place only by "hope and good wishes".  By "seated" you mean that the head of the screw/bolt is now in contact with the carbon fibre / metal right?

Thanks for the info about the torque drivers - tools like this would be awesome, I'll have a look around here (Switzerland).  Postage from FBL into Switzerland is "amazing" :-)