• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

Axle Wrench?

Cosmokenney

Husqvarna
Pro Class
I'm trying to lighten up my tool pack a little and was thinking of buying one of those nifty billet aluminum axle wrench. I was told that they go up to about 90 ft/lb of torque. But the TE axle nut is spec'd at 105. Can the aluminum ones hold up to that much torque?
 
I use one for all my bikes. I don't torque to a particular spec, so I can't say for sure that it will go to 105 ft-lb, but it certainly goes tight enough.

Be careful in the garage. If you crank on the rear axle with a steel socket and a big breaker bar, you might have a heck of a time getting it off trailside. Just torque it with the aluminum wrench or use a shorter ratchet.
 
As Kyle said. Loosen and re-tighten with the tool you will carry on the trail. In the old days when bike came with tools, my Honda and Kaw each had a closed end 5 inch wrench with a sleeve/sliding handle extension. The light aluminom Motion Pro axle wrench/spoon is what I use now and it's get's about 1/3 turn shy of full torque spec.
 
The rear axle nut does not have to be anywhere near that tight, a motion pro wrench/tire spoon is what I use. For the front wheel, I use the Zipty nut 3/8 socket or you can use Kelly's aluminum hex nut.
 
The rear axle nut does not have to be anywhere near that tight, a motion pro wrench/tire spoon is what I use. For the front wheel, I use the Zipty nut 3/8 socket or you can use Kelly's aluminum hex nut.
So I keep everything torqued to spec. I'm anal about that. Now Tinken, since it doesn't need to be 105 lbs of torque, what would be a safe setting to torque it to? I do put anti-seize on the threads by the way.
 
The rear axle nut does not have to be anywhere near that tight, a motion pro wrench/tire spoon is what I use. For the front wheel, I use the Zipty nut 3/8 socket or you can use Kelly's aluminum hex nut.
That Zipty bolt is a pretty cool idea. I've never noticed them
on the site before.

Kelly, what size wrench does your bolts take? Will they work with the cafe husky wrench?
 
Motosportz Mike sells Kelly's 15mm wrench model found here: http://www.motosportzhusqvarna.com/Husqvarna TE, TXC, TC, SM, 449, 511.htm
Ours: http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/billet-front-axle-nut.31275/
Uptite's is found here: http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/up-tite-axle-nuts-are-also-available.6492/

frontaxlewrench.jpg
 
So I keep everything torqued to spec. I'm anal about that. Now Tinken, since it doesn't need to be 105 lbs of torque, what would be a safe setting to torque it to? I do put anti-seize on the threads by the way.


60 ft-lb.

(Nobody can give you some sort of exact number for this, it's just a judgement call.)
 

Thanks for the links. I went poking around last night and saw all three of those.

Now I'm confused, though, is Kelly not Motosportz from this forum? Who's Mike?


At this point, between feed back from here and on thumpertalk, I'm leaning towards going tu-bliss. So maybe I can get away with carrying just a tubless plug kit instead of a tube, axle wrench and tire irons. Those three make up the bulk of the weight. I've run tubless rims or converted to tubless on all of my last five mountain bikes. I'm definitely liking the idea of running lower pressures on the MC. The problem, though becomes tire choice. I've noticed that with the few tires I've tried on my motorcycles, they really start to wallow around with lower pressure. I'm probably going to put a trials tire on the rear. Haven't decided on a front tire yet though.
 
It takes big balls to run tubliss and not carry a spare tube, in my opinion. If I was to run tubliss, I'd still carry a tube and the means to change it.

I do not see tubliss as a way to reduce spare parts load. I see it as a way to run lower tire pressures for improved performance without constantly getting pinch flats. However, if something does go wrong, without a spare tube, you're pretty hosed.

Even if you don't carry a tube, surely you want to carry tire irons...

For wrenches, I use the Motion Pro spoon/wrench for the rear, and I made my own front axle nut (patent pending! :lol:). Most of the aftermarket nuts require a 15mm wrench, which is a size that zero other fasteners on my bike(s) use, so that doesn't make any sense. I run a 12mm front axle nut so I can get it off with common tools. ZipTy's nut uses a 3/8 square drive, which isn't a bad idea, but I carry a 1/4 inch drive on my bike. A 1/4 to 3/8 adapter packs pretty small...

IMG_20130621_171604_759.jpg
 
It would be nice if there was a lightweight (maybe latex) tube for temporary use. I've done a few searches and didn't come up with anything but Heavy Duty motorcycle tubes. Heavy duty tubes are very heavy.
 
Now I'm confused, though, is Kelly not Motosportz from this forum? Who's Mike?

yes motosportz is mine, I started it and run it. Mike used to do the non CNC parts with me, brakes, filters etc. I wanted to re concentrate on the CNC parts and Mike split off and took the other parts biz. I am out of axle nuts right now, Mike might have some.

I also use the Motion Pro tire spoon / axle wrench. I like it as it is very versatile and light and one less spoon to carry. I have stood on it many times to do axle nuts. They also make a cool socket drive insert for it which I have and like. Motion pro is like snap-on, expensive but very good tools.
 
I carry a T-handle that has both 1/4 and 3/8 drive with sockets like 8 and 10. Theres no way to fix some things without one. My oil fill cap is 1/4 socket drive etc.

I'm not too keen on the Tubliss, I run ultra HD bridgestone in the rear and HD front with slime. I have never had a flat, but still carry a front tube. I wouldn't be concerned about weight vs protection unless I was riding motocross. II'm sure first time you get a flat in the middle of Egypt, you won't either.
 
The Motion Pro wrench/spoon plus the Motion Pro Socket attachment is just so damn versatile. I only use 3/8 drive for most stuff but have 3/8-1/4 adapters for small sockets. What comes in super handy is that the MP Socket is a convertible 3/8-1/4 adapter, so if you need to go from say a 1/4 socket to a 3/8 short extension and then a 1/4 torque wrench (such as for back of the case fasteners) the MP works as an adapter as well multipying it's versatility (the back of the 3/8 drive is hollowed out and a female 1/4 socket). The MP wrench and adapter allow you to just carry a short 3/8-1/4 adapter and a short extension. On the trail I am not carrying a ratchet so saves some weight.

08-0288.jpg


08-0327.jpg
 
I carry a T-handle that has both 1/4 and 3/8 drive with sockets like 8 and 10. Theres no way to fix some things without one. My oil fill cap is 1/4 socket drive etc.

I'm not too keen on the Tubliss, I run ultra HD bridgestone in the rear and HD front with slime. I have never had a flat, but still carry a front tube. I wouldn't be concerned about weight vs protection unless I was riding motocross. II'm sure first time you get a flat in the middle of Egypt, you won't either.


I can't comment on motorcycle tubeless conversions. I have no experience there. I can tell you that tubeless on mountain bikes has been a revolution. I'll never run tubes again. But in that arena, I do always carry a backup tube to use in the event of a puncture or sidewall slice since they are just a few ounces, and easy to install into a tubeless specific or converted rim. It's a five minute deal.

I did come across this, though, and it seems encouraging: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=831867
 
I raced for 5 years and the last 3 on Stans tubeless. It worked great but I would never ride without a spare light weight tube. I have had tires with sidewall cuts that in no way could be sealed. I always carry a tube and a few dollars or a large cut section of old inner tube. The inner tube or dollar bills can be used to patch the sidewall cut so the tube doesn't bubble out and you can limp out of the outback.
 
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