Tuesday Tip: How To Avoid Rounding Your Nuts

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November 15 2005
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We always like picking the brains of guys who turn wrenches for a living, like Yamaha’s Steve Butler, to see what tips they can offer. The last time we saw Steve at one of our local tracks, he offered up this tip on how to make sure you can get things like your chain adjusters loose easily, and without rounding off the nuts with the wrench.

Steve told us, “It seems like it’s pretty common for people to try and maybe overtighten them, and then when they go to loosen them, the wrench slips on the nut, and rounds it off. Maybe it happens over the course of a few times¿it slips a little bit, then slips a little more. Then eventually it’s rounded off to where it’s very difficult to get loose and then you can’t tighten it up as tight and it’ll come loose even easier.”

“What I’m showing you here is a way that I’ve found that’s easier to either undo the locknuts that are really, really tight, or a way to get them tighter than you’d be able to get them without running the risk of rounding off the nut. By using two wrenches, it comes undone much easier. If it was that tight and you tried undoing it with one wrench, you’d be stressing the one nut. but by using both wrenches together, it’s very easy. Mainly I use it for undoing things, as I loosen the nut. For tightening, what I would do is get it to the point where it’s tight, and then double check that it is tight by using both wrenches, for that last little bit of torque.”