How tight should skewers be?

[Stantheman]

How tight should skewers be done up? I think I have mine tight but when braking there is play in the front dropouts, to stop this I have to tighten the skewer so much it's then very hard to release. Hope I have explained this ok.

 

[Tim Hall]

Tight enough that it leaves an impression in your palm when you close it.

 

[Hip Priest]

There certainly shouldn't be any play in the drop-outs. You sure it's not something else?

 

[Kajjal]

If you have disc brakes then do them up tight enough to stop movement from the drop outs, for a road bike with rim brakes alot less pressure is needed.

 

[slowmotion]

I do them up so that a little gentle cursing is required to undo them, but no tools.

 

[screenman]

I have seen them snap, so not too tight.

Copied and pasted,

It is a mistake to try to obtain massive clamping force from the skewer. The lever should start to bite turned just past 90degrees so that closing the action does not require great force at the lever. Start the bite too early and not only will the lever require excessive force but the wheel bearings may undergo unwanted side loadings as the spindle is compressed.

 

[Stantheman]

Yes disk brakes, I have checked and nothing else is loose. Maybe I'm a weakling and not as much force as I think is being used to secure the skewer.

 

[mjr]

Tight enough that the food doesn't fall off during cooking!

Why's everyone discussing wheels? They attach with nuts!

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Pay attention.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

there is play in the front dropouts

I had this, or actually it was the "feeling" of this.
Took it to LBS thinking it was the disk brake, it was the hub, dry, rusty bearings.
Worth investigating.

 

[lpretro1]

Over tight qr skewers will effectively crush the hub bearings or cause premature wear in them

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Over tight qr skewers will effectively crush the hub bearings or cause premature wear in them

I dare you to crush a bearing that way and show us a photo. In fact, I'll even allow you to use a hammer and anvil and let you see if you can crush a bearing ball.

 

[mjr]

I dare you to crush a bearing that way and show us a photo. In fact, I'll even allow you to use a hammer and anvil and let you see if you can crush a bearing ball.

Surely you can effectively crush a bearing enough to cause premature wear without crushing the individual balls? Just squeeze it so tight that there's excessive friction. The bearing is the whole assembly, not only the balls.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Surely you can effectively crush a bearing enough to cause premature wear without crushing the individual balls? Just squeeze it so tight that there's excessive friction. The bearing is the whole assembly, not only the balls.

You are tuning the semantics to make your statement true.

You said "Over tight qr skewers will effectively crush the hub bearings" .
I said "I dare you."

I didn't challenge the premature wear part, just the ball-crushing part. Try it one day but do wear goggles and lock up the dogs.

Further, I suggest you read the Shimano brochure I posted here. Over-tightening QRs don't damage bearings but poorly adjusted bearings damage bearings. QRs are meant to be tightened far tighter than most people even imagine. So tight, that if you were to line the lever up with the fork, you won't be able to open it without prying a tyre lever between fork and lever.

Failure to tighten QRs properly have given us ambulance chasers and ultimately, lawyer's lips. Even that's failing and now the trend is towards through-axles on front and rear wheels.

 

[mjr]

You said "Over tight qr skewers will effectively crush the hub bearings" .

No, I really didn't. I just thought it was obvious what @lpretro1 meant and the reply was both pedantic and deliberately misreading "bearings" as "balls" to make its claim true. Nothing was written about crushing the balls.

Either be a pedant or don't, it's all the same to me, but pedantry means you should be called out on misreading other posts.