How much to tighten stem cap?

lava said:

How much should I tighten the stem cap on my Easton EC90 SL fork w/compression plug? I undid it to put a new stem on, and there is no torque listed on the instruction sheet for the fork. Any help is appreciated.

Once you get the headset properly adjusted, just enough so it doesn't rattle. It is only used for adjustment and does not do anything (except hold the cap on) once the stem bolts are properly torqued.

(see: http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=65#adjust)

lava said:

How much should I tighten the stem cap on my Easton EC90 SL fork w/compression plug? I undid it to put a new stem on, and there is no torque listed on the instruction sheet for the fork. Any help is appreciated.

Dude, the compression cap is used basically to seat the stem on the steer tube and apply adequate enough pressure against the headset stack in order to ensure that all plains for the bearings remain parrallel. Place load on the stem cap and do a bounce test until the 'rattle' goes away. Once it goes away, then tighten the stem down. The cap will continue to simply apply pressure but will not really be structural as the amount of pressure it holds really serves to load the stem.

just tight enough that there is no play in the bearings and loose enough so that when you lift te front wheel up it can 'flop' from side to side without influence. There is a range of compression where this is perfectly fine. Unlike hub cones which have to be spot on.

Great, thanks guys!

I once saw a compression cap on an Ahead set that stated 2 foot pounds of torque.

tighten 'til it JUST starts to bind fork movement, back off 1/2 turn, re-tighten 1/4 turn, and fine-tune any looseness in the fork/headset.