Cassette lock ring will not budge

[Yellow Saddle]

My understanding is that you _never_ put grease on a thread you are going to torque up to.

Surely no one tightens the ring that much with the sort of tool described above. It must somehow tighten with use.

You are correct. Exceptions are where the manufacturer specifies a wet torque with grease. For the rest, it goes on dry.

This ring does not tighten with use because the cassette movement is arrested by the splines. It is the Tarzan syndrome at play here. You'll find it a car tyre shops as well.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I used to teach professionals and amateurs how to repair bicycles. In the professional class I insisted on torque wrenches but I do understand why the amateur does not want to buy a 40N torque wrench - they are expensive and used in only two places - lockrings and BBs.

I used to teach them a cheat. It is difficult to put it in text because there is a touchy-feely aspect but I'll try.

1) Fit the cassette and lockring.
2) Finger tighten the lockring using the lockring remover tool. If you only have the socket, it is a nice firm twist. If you have the tool with the handle fitted, use only your index finger to turn it. Stop when you reach what we called "contact" point. This is slightly beyond contact of the lockring with the 11-sprocket but just so that the cassette has no more visible space between sprockets but not tighter than what you can push with one finger.
3) Now hold the wheel flat in front of you and rotate it so that the lockring spanner is at the quarter past position. If the spanner isn't there naturally, rotate the wheel a bit so that you have 12 o clock directly ahead and the spanner points sideways at the quarter past position.
4) Now grip the spanner and tighten it to the twenty five past position. This should be give off a nice grrrrrrr from the cassette/lockring but not a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. The difference is subtle.

That would give you approximately 40 Newton. The beauty of the cassette lockring is that an error in torque does not matter. It won't warp or strip. A 10% error either way is OK. However, wildly tightening it gives up to 300% error.

Campag is 50 NM so you move the spanner to half past.

 

[Dirk]

Never had a lock ring that I couldn't shift without a 1/2" socket drive and a quick smack with a plastic mallet.

 

[Venod]

A removal tool that takes a half inch drive & use a breaker bar, never failed me.

 

[Arrowfoot]

On seeing so many posts on tight lockring, i feel vindicated to some extent that it wasn't just me.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

A removal tool that takes a half inch drive & use a breaker bar, never failed me.

Ha!

You and Dirk above have just not met the right wrong customer yet. Mark my words, one day Tarzan will come along and you will sprain that puny sissy 1/2 inch breaker bar of yours.

 

[Goobs]

Picked up my wheel last night and for eight quid they fitted my new cassette too.

They showed me the two bent chain whip tools - Halfords own brand.

It took two blokes, two chain whips, a lock ring tool and a breaker bar to shift it. The lock ring was intact but had just been really tightly fitted on build.

The new one is torqued up to 40Nm so all should be good should I decide to change the cassette in the future.

I know Halfords gets slagged off by some but all I can say is the two blokes who fixed my problem were top notch and probably went above and beyond what you might expect a chain-store to do in this situation. They appeared to be seasoned bike mechanics rather than just puncture repair-sell you a BSO types.

 

[Dirk]

Ha!

You and Dirk above have just not met the right wrong customer yet. Mark my words, one day Tarzan will come along and you will sprain that puny sissy 1/2 inch breaker bar of yours.

You haven't seen the quality of my tool.....

 

[Venod]

Ha!

You and Dirk above have just not met the right wrong customer yet. Mark my words, one day Tarzan will come along and you will sprain that puny sissy 1/2 inch breaker bar of yours.

Doubt it, its being swung on with a scaffold tube extension on much tighter stuff, the chain whip might go but the breaker bar is top quality. cassette locknut's are mere toys to some of the stuff this has being used on.