Hello friends,
Thanks to everyone for helping me with my caliper bolt. I got it out and the fresh pads are in.
Curious what the 4 bolts that hold the 2 halves of the caliper should be torqued to. I have read 35 ft lbs all the way up to 100 ft lbs. I prefer to do things per the manufacturer’s suggestion so I’m curious what you guys torque these to.
Please help!
35FT LBS is way more reasonable than 100, that’s for sure too much. Torque spec on a M14 Audi wheel bolt is 97 if that says anything. I would need to go look at my kart in the AM, M8 bolts? If so I would try 20/25, if they are m10 30/35. You can always start low and creep up. A little 242 (blue loctite) never hurt anyone if you want a little insurance.
They are M8 and about 1.5" long (~38mm). Not sure if that changes anything.
M8 into soft material you are talking 120-150 INCH-POUNDS!
If you really want to use a torque wrench then 10 ft-lb or so. IMO you should know when it’s snug and torqued down by hand with forces that low.
Thank you Clayton. I believe the calipers from OTK are aluminum. They were VERY tough to remove requiring a breaker bar and a lot of force. Definitely feels like they were torqued to more than 10 / 20 ft lbs.
So it would be completely acceptable to tighten these good and snug by hand?
Suppose after my first session I could just check them by hand after to make sure they’re ok. I apologize if these seem like stupid questions. I am a very “by the book” builder. Haven’t had to figure a lot of things out by myself before.
Probably some corrosion in there due to dissimilar metals.
Forgot about that! Yeah that is what seized up the pad retaining bolt as well. Never took any of this apart so that makes sense. I will tighten these by hand so they are very snug and call it good.
Yes hand tight is plenty. A bit of thread locker will go a lot further than higher torque. Just use so medium strength stuff. That way the next guy (which always seems to be me 
) can get it apart again if needed.
Haha yeah somehow I always get people’s over torqued crap too. I don’t like to over tighten things personally but the way the kart vibrates has made me paranoid over the years that it’s all gonna come falling apart.
Learning engineering and how things are stressed helps which is why I bother some of you guys so much about this stuff. Love learning about this sport and love driving fast. Can’t wait for this thing to be running again.
