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was doing a bit of work on neighbours quite nice Tricross and the stem plate bolts were massively tight, I'd guess torqued to around 8 rather than 4Nm. Its a Thomson stem and alloy bars, both of which 'appear' to be fine. Bike is only 6 months or so old, and probably came like that from shop.
So I've put it together, with grease on the bolts and reset at 4Nm. Will the threads on the stem or bolts have stretched in any way such that this is now not tight enough ? Probably a silly question, I know.
they will be fine.
also you know that you need more torque than that which was applied to tighten it to release it - so chances are it wasnt all that massively tight to begin with.
What sort of Thomson stem is it? If it's the X2 road stem then the chances are it's been over torqued cos it's shite and the bars will slip otherwise.
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Don't do it.
tr - good point, thanks
david - its a MTB stem, x4 Elite 100mm
Threads won't have stretched, assuming no weak point in the metal any stretch will occur at the narrowest point of the least supported part - so the first thread root after the head/shoulder (or any of the following threads not engaged in the stem threads). If it did stretch its most likely to be elastic, and as one of those bolts is probably enough to take all the transmitted loads and there are 4 you are quite safe. Probably.
Sounds good, thanks. I guess if anything would stretch it would be the bolts rather than the female threads too...
My different opinion: On Thomson Elite stems that I have the threads on the gold bolts and the black bolts did stretch if I cranked them up too tight. Eventually they snapped, not whilst riding along but whilst tightening. This stretch is visible and isn't elastic so you will see it when you remove the bolts if it has happened, they go into an hourglass shape. I invested in new bolts and a torque key from Ritchey. IMO Thomson spec'd a hard cheese for bolt material, they rounded out easily too so I am happier having replaced them with silver bolts from a fastenings counter.
they only round out if you over torque them. its a clever self preservation technique from thomson to stop monkey paws snapping things