Thank you Alan.
Like you I usually tighten things up by feel aswell, but I have never had a hub motor before and everything I read always just said "put them on really tight."
I even seem to remember a MP installation how to someone made that even had a poem in it, something about put them on with all your might, or it wont be a pretty sight etc etc... and it even had a picture of the guy pulling on the wrench, looking like he really was using " all his might."
I know if I used " all my might " my axle would have been stripped before I could even do the first test drive so I opted for the torque wrench but from now on if I use the torque, 36lbs max.
Anyways, I have another update on my axle. Turns out my axle and nuts are fine, after I put it back together I flipped it up on it's wheels and tried to roll it across the room but the back tire was locked up. Hmmm, I thought maybe the brake was stuck or something but it was disconnected.
I looked at the freewheel and it was tight against the dropout, so tight I couldn't even spin the wheel. I guess when I thought it was stripped, or stripping it was actually just crushing the aluminum spacer between the dropout and motor just giving the illusion of being stripped lol.
Ok I thought this sucks but no big deal I can cut a new spacer out of steel from one of my old ( on it's way to the dump ) mountain bikes. The rear of one of them had the perfect diameter metal so I pulled out my pipe cutter and cut a piece. Installed it and it crushed almost instantly.
So I searched my house and garage for anything stronger and I managed to find ( ironically enough ) an old broken torque wrench and tore into that. These new spacers are bullet proof, the steel on them is about an 8th of an inch thick so I don't think I will have that problem again. Although my pipe cutter is now going to the dump along with my old mountain bike.
I added some pics,
- My original spacer ( One bent spacer pic )
- My new steel spacer that buckled and new torque wrench spacer ( 2 spacers in pic )
Also in my search I found something that could be useful to someone and everyone should have one at home. Check out the big washer looking thing I found, it's used to hold on the blade on a skill saw and the hole fits over the axle almost perfectly and the steel is really thick and heavy. plus it has 2 holes already in it.
Maybe these could be used as torque arms or washers? Just thought I'd share. I'm a carpenter so I go through a few saws a year so I have a few of these kicking around.
