Do I just need more force to loosen the thru axle or am I doing something wrong here? I’ve literally used all my force and it won’t budge anymore

by Extreme_Pack6737

8 Comments

  1. you should not use torque tools for undoing screws

    and regarding the look of the screw you are turing in the wrong direction i think

  2. 1st. Don’t use a torque wrench for anything else than torquing up bolts. This is an excellent way for ensuring the calibration is way off and making the thing basically useless.

    2nd, youre on the wrong side of the bike (you should undo from the Non-drive-side/where the brakedisc is), so you just made it insanely tight.

    3rd, related to the 2nd: of something doesn’t work as it should, check first if you’re doing it right before you brute force it. You lucky didn’t strip the thing (yet).

  3. Blacklotus3993 on

    Might be the wrong side you are trying. All my bikes have the screw on non-drivetrain side/side with the brake discs

  4. Some thru axles have the hex head in the same end as the threads, meaning that to loosen them you have to turn them clockwise (i.e. the direction you typically turn to tighten), and the axle will actually come out the other side of the bike.

    Whatever you do, don’t keep pushing harder or you might end up replacing your fork.

  5. Thru-axles are almost always (with the exception of Rockshox forks for some reason) righty-tighty lefty-loosey **when viewed from the non-driveside.** This is because bearing precession from a forward-rolling wheel exerts a backwards torque on the thru-axle, so bike manufacturers design their thru axle to self-tighten with that backwards torque, which is righty-tighty from the non-driveside.

    You are trying to go righty-tighty from the driveside. That is tightening the thru-axle. If you don’t have the ability to loosen from the non-driveside anymore due to a stripped tool interface or whatever, you should be torquing clockwise to loosen it from the driveside.

  6. Looks like this needs a “wheel lock key” lever looking tool that usually comes with the bike.

    However, it looks like the key is just regular torx or hex but hard to tell from dark photo

Leave A Reply