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How do you know why a bolt is loose, and what do you do about it?

Original Post
Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450

This entry
mountainproject.com/v/dos-h…
regarding a route at Indian Creek has several mentions of loose anchor bolts. Apparently, in the case of these bolts, they just needed to be tightened with a wrench. Also apparently, most climbers don't know this, because whole years were going by with people noticing the loose bolts but not knowing what to do. I've run across loose anchor bolts myself before (also at Indian Creek), but didn't know what to do other than rap/lower VERY carefully. To be clear, I'm talking about the bolt spinning in the hole, not the nut or the hanger.

My questions:
-How do you know when a spinning bolt just needs to be tightened, versus needing to be replaced because something else (hole too big?) is wrong with the bolt?

-If the bolt needs to be tightened, how much do you tighten it? Bolts can be OVER-tightened, can't they?

-In terms of what wrench to carry, do folks just keep a little crescent wrench in their pack and tag it up if needed? Hard to picture adding the weight of a crescent wrench to my rack on an ongoing basis... Or is this thing good?
metoliusclimbing.com/torque…

Ken Noyce · · Layton, UT · Joined Aug 2010 · Points: 2,648
Optimistic wrote:This entry mountainproject.com/v/dos-h… regarding a route at Indian Creek has several mentions of loose anchor bolts. Apparently, in the case of these bolts, they just needed to be tightened with a wrench. Also apparently, most climbers don't know this, because whole years were going by with people noticing the loose bolts but not knowing what to do. I've run across loose anchor bolts myself before (also at Indian Creek), but didn't know what to do other than rap/lower VERY carefully. To be clear, I'm talking about the bolt spinning in the hole, not the nut or the hanger. My questions: -How do you know when a spinning bolt just needs to be tightened, versus needing to be replaced because something else (hole too big?) is wrong with the bolt? -If the bolt needs to be tightened, how much do you tighten it? Bolts can be OVER-tightened, can't they? -In terms of what wrench to carry, do folks just keep a little crescent wrench in their pack and tag it up if needed? Hard to picture adding the weight of a crescent wrench to my rack on an ongoing basis... Or is this thing good? metoliusclimbing.com/torque…
Unfortunately, this isn't really something you can learn or explain very well over the internet. If you are interested in learning, probably the best thing to do would be to make friends with a local developer who can give you some hands on demonstrations of how bolts work, and why tightening a bolt down would or would not work.

Just so you are aware, holes in the rock do become enlarged with use, especially in softer rock like sandstone. This enlargement of the hole generally only takes place at the outside edge of the hole and at the deepest location of the hole where the bolt is being held in place by friction. When this happens it can cause the bolt to become loose and spin in the hole. Depending on the type of bolt you may or may not be able to tighten the bolt to fix this issue.

To answer some of your other questions, yes a bolt can be overtightened, yes I do carry a small crescent wrench with me when climbing for tightening loose bolts. It would be a good idea to tighten some bolts with a torque wrench, and then see how much force is required on the small crescent wrench to get to that same torque so that you don't overtighten the bolts. This is also something that a local developer should be able to help you out with.
john strand · · southern colo · Joined May 2008 · Points: 1,640

Agreed ken..a lot depends on the bolt type.. a stud can handle more torqueing (usually) than a 5 pc.

BUT...it is very hard to judge torque with out a torque wrench or a lot of experience

some time I weight the bolt slightly and tighten it..some times this works and sometimes no..if not ,the bolt may be a goner

It's pretty easy to strip a 5 pc and get the cone spinning..real easy.

Sandstone make things more difficult as well

DrRockso RRG · · Red River Gorge, KY · Joined Sep 2013 · Points: 815

A small crescent wrench (6 inches) makes it difficult to over tighten the bolt, just don't crank on it super hard. It certainly depends on the bolt. For 5 piece bolts where it's a hex head instead of a nut on the outside of the hanger, just tighten the head if its starts to tighten up then cool, if it just keeps on spinning then it's going to require more attention and probably need replaced.

The metollius nut tool makes it difficult to really tighten it down properly but is better than nothing and no worries about over tightening.

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
kennoyce wrote: Unfortunately, this isn't really something you can learn or explain very well over the internet. If you are interested in learning, probably the best thing to do would be to make friends with a local developer who can give you some hands on demonstrations of how bolts work, and why tightening a bolt down would or would not work. Just so you are aware, holes in the rock do become enlarged with use, especially in softer rock like sandstone. This enlargement of the hole generally only takes place at the outside edge of the hole and at the deepest location of the hole where the bolt is being held in place by friction. When this happens it can cause the bolt to become loose and spin in the hole. Depending on the type of bolt you may or may not be able to tighten the bolt to fix this issue. To answer some of your other questions, yes a bolt can be overtightened, yes I do carry a small crescent wrench with me when climbing for tightening loose bolts. It would be a good idea to tighten some bolts with a torque wrench, and then see how much force is required on the small crescent wrench to get to that same torque so that you don't overtighten the bolts. This is also something that a local developer should be able to help you out with.
Thanks Ken.

My home area is the Gunks (i.e., all trad, all the time!), so "local developers" are few and far between. Also I feel like this issue is fairly rare to encounter on the rock we have here. I do know some folks I can ask, so I'll talk to them, but because bolting is so tightly controlled here it'd be great to have other sources as well.

I'm just picturing finding myself again in the situation I was in on South Six Shooter this spring: the bolt is spinning, I'm about to rap, and (next time, not last time!) I have a wrench. I'd rather not trust my life to a spinning bolt (which is what I did last time), but I'd rather not call for a helicopter rescue either. Would it be reasonable to try tightening the bolt just enough to stop it from spinning? Also, if the bolt will NOT stop spinning despite tightening, does that mean that the hole is too big?
Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
DrRockso wrote:A small crescent wrench (6 inches) makes it difficult to over tighten the bolt, just don't crank on it super hard. It certainly depends on the bolt. For 5 piece bolts where it's a hex head instead of a nut on the outside just tighten the head if its starts top tighten up then cool if it just keeps on spinning then it's going to require more attention and probably need replaced. The metollius nut tool makes it difficult to really tighten it down properly but is better than nothing and no worries about over tightening.
Thanks. I was thinking that, looking at the Metolius tool: it looks like it would HURT if you really cranked on it, so that's a built in limiter. Maybe that's the safest approach so that I don't damage the bolts.
john strand · · southern colo · Joined May 2008 · Points: 1,640

IMO a 6" wrench can easilly be too much

I carry a small adjustable (4") that is good for a variety of bolts.

DrRockso RRG · · Red River Gorge, KY · Joined Sep 2013 · Points: 815

Many things could be happening if it won't tighten, it would be impossible to know without being there and even an experienced developer might not know for sure. This is why we use two bolts, it's rare to have bolt fail on a rappel, even a spinner, let alone two bolts, but honestly if they look or seem that sketchy leave a backup piece. I've come across plenty bolts that people had neglected to tighten and became so loose I could tighten them with my fingers a couple full rotations. If you come across this and don't have a wrench, certainly tighten them by hand or the bolt might come completely disengaged from the cone.

John, I guess it depends on the bolt, making it hard to make any sort of blanket statement, it would be difficult to reach 45 ft lbs or even 25 ft lbs with a 6 incher, but there are bolts out there with torque specs of 12 ft lbs, to be on the safe side if you don't know what your doing, just turn until you start to meet a little resistance and then give it just one more snug.

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
john strand wrote:IMO a 6" wrench can easilly be too much I carry a small adjustable (4") that is good for a variety of bolts.
In some other thread I ran across about this (SuperTopo?) someone mentioned tightening "from the wrist" by which I took to mean that if you're driving the wrench from the shoulder or the elbow, you're overdoing it...just a twist of the wrist...
Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
DrRockso wrote: to be on the safe side if you don't know what your doing, just turn until you start to meet a little resistance and then give it just one more snug.
That's easy to picture, I can work with that, thanks!
Ken Noyce · · Layton, UT · Joined Aug 2010 · Points: 2,648
Optimistic wrote: In some other thread I ran across about this (SuperTopo?) someone mentioned tightening "from the wrist" by which I took to mean that if you're driving the wrench from the shoulder or the elbow, you're overdoing it...just a twist of the wrist...
Totally depends on both the bolt and the wrench. A big beefy 1/2" wedge bolt with a 4 or 6 inch wrench will certainly take a lot more force than just "tightening from the wrist" to get it to spec, but a 3/8" stainless powerbolt you may be overtightening even with just tightening it from the wrist. Again this is all so dependent on so many different parameters that an internet discussion is almost useless.

The biggest thing that you should take away from this is that by design, most bolts are perfectly safe even if they are spinners. A good check for bolt security on a vertical wall (Indian creek like you're talking about) would be to clip a draw to the bolt (while unweighted obviously) and yank straight out from the bolt. As long as the bolt doesn't come ripping out of the hole it's going to be perfectly fine for rapping on unless there is some problem with the bolt itself.
DrRockso RRG · · Red River Gorge, KY · Joined Sep 2013 · Points: 815

It's also worth posting to badbolts.com and on the route here on mp.

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
kennoyce wrote: The biggest thing that you should take away from this is that by design, most bolts are perfectly safe even if they are spinners. A good check for bolt security on a vertical wall (Indian creek like you're talking about) would be to clip a draw to the bolt (while unweighted obviously) and yank straight out from the bolt. As long as the bolt doesn't come ripping out of the hole it's going to be perfectly fine for rapping on unless there is some problem with the bolt itself.
That's good to know too, thanks. In the case of the South Six Shooter experience I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure that I was able to lift it out a bit, at which point I dropped it back in place, muttered "Why do I keep doing this stuff with my vacation time?" and took great care to keep my center of gravity below the bolt. Seems like it would be fair to say that the minimum amount of force needed to stop the bolt from spinning would be a safe amount to apply, correct?

Also, I totally get what you're saying about trying to teach complex skills to strangers over the internet with no sense of where their skills are, but I guess the counter to that can be seen in the Dos Hermanos thread I pasted in my initial post: whole years were going by with no one doing anything about this anchor, which I'm assuming resulted in increased wear on the holes, and as Dr Rockso mentioned " If you come across this and don't have a wrench, certainly tighten them by hand or the bolt might come completely disengaged from the cone." So it seems like finding some way to spread this knowledge a little more widely could be worthwhile.
Gunkiemike · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2009 · Points: 3,492

If in fact years went by and the bolt was still spinning, I'd guess that many folks had put a wrench on it to no avail. A loose nut on a wedge bolt can be fixed with the small adjustable wrench, but a bolt that spins in the hole is another story. As demonstrated on the Fixehardware site, sometimes you can tug it outwards a bit to reseat a loose cone, but if the sleeve/collar has worn the inner bore of the hole, then this isn't going to help.

Torque specs are a funny thing, as noted upthread, from as low as 12 ft-lbs (be careful!) to 45 ft-lbs for a plated steel 1/2" stud. That equates to over 100 lb of force on a short wrench.

Ken Noyce · · Layton, UT · Joined Aug 2010 · Points: 2,648
Optimistic wrote: That's good to know too, thanks. In the case of the South Six Shooter experience I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure that I was able to lift it out a bit, at which point I dropped it back in place, muttered "Why do I keep doing this stuff with my vacation time?" and took great care to keep my center of gravity below the bolt. Seems like it would be fair to say that the minimum amount of force needed to stop the bolt from spinning would be a safe amount to apply, correct? Also, I totally get what you're saying about trying to teach complex skills to strangers over the internet with no sense of where their skills are, but I guess the counter to that can be seen in the Dos Hermanos thread I pasted in my initial post: whole years were going by with no one doing anything about this anchor, which I'm assuming resulted in increased wear on the holes, and as Dr Rockso mentioned " If you come across this and don't have a wrench, certainly tighten them by hand or the bolt might come completely disengaged from the cone." So it seems like finding some way to spread this knowledge a little more widely could be worthwhile.
Yes, I agree, and think that your idea of tightening it down at least enough to stop it from spinning would be a good rule of thumb (though it may not always be possible depending on what is causing the bolt to spin). I'm also really not saying that it is too complex of a subject to be taught over the internet, the main issue is just that there are so many different variables including rock type, bolt type, and different causes for a spinning bolt that you almost need to be able to show examples in the real world to really be able to convey what is going on.
Anonymous · · Unknown Hometown · Joined unknown · Points: 0

I'd reccomend the German torque wrench setting......gutentight.

Ken Noyce · · Layton, UT · Joined Aug 2010 · Points: 2,648
Optimistic wrote: That's good to know too, thanks. In the case of the South Six Shooter experience I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure that I was able to lift it out a bit, at which point I dropped it back in place, muttered "Why do I keep doing this stuff with my vacation time?"
Another thing worth mentioning is that if you are able to lift or pull the bolt out of the hole by pulling on the hanger, then there is no way that you will be able to tighten the bolt because the hole is too big for the sleeve to engage the cone (unless of course the bolt is a fixe triplex that has been installed incorrectly as Fixe USA recommends).
Timmy Foulkes · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2011 · Points: 20

Optimistic, I am sorry you and many others had to deal with that terrible anchor situation on South Six Shooter. I am happy to report that we finally got both anchors fully rebuilt in late November with equipment from the American Safe Climbing Association (ASCA). The summit anchor is much better now that we have a couple new bolts in better rock.
There has been a strong push at Indian Creek by a few crews to keep on replacing anchors so I hope we can start making major headway soon.
I only have drilled/bolted in sandstone with anchor replacement at Indian Creek and when we encounter loose bolts we have been noticing a couple of things that most likely are contributing to them loosening. The issue we see the most is that the holes were drilled at enough of a downward angle that the hanger was prying on the rock once tightened down and those forces along with anchor use works to loosen the bolt then expand the hole. Most of those situations we needed to re-drill/replace that bolt completely as the hole had become very ovalized.
The other thing we have seen that may be causing bolts to loosen is the anchor set up with the high bolt with chain/quick link and a lower bolt. We have noticed if that lower bolt only has one quick link (as opposed to 2 links or a link and a ring) it can pull at a more extreme angle as it equalizes with the chain that it can have a similar prying effect eventually ovalizing the hole.
There is a forum here on MP to report bad bolts/anchors at Indian Creek. Please let us know there if you see them and we will try hard to get em fixed ASAP.
There is a ton of great bolting info on the ASCA site. Check it out.
Great post, good discussion.

Bill Czajkowski · · Albuquerque, NM · Joined Oct 2008 · Points: 20

Timmy, thanks for your efforts.

Luke Mehall · · Durango, Colorado · Joined May 2009 · Points: 2,508

Yes, Timmy you are a gentlemen and a scholar.

Here's that link for the Creek anchors list. A bunch of folks have been fixing anchors up there and I think in five years or so, most of the well travelled routes will all be super bomber.

Oh, and for the record when we replaced the South Sixshooter anchors one of the bolts on the intermediate rap station pulled out by hand. Sketch.

mountainproject.com/v/old-a…

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450

Hi Timmy and Luke thanks so much for your hard work! The South Six descent was indeed pretty engaging...we weren't so much worried for ourselves, we were pretty confident that the bolts would hold if we loaded them carefully without pulling up. But just that morning on the route were several parties with some incredibly inexperienced people who definitely weren't broadcasting the healthy skepticism you like to see in the mountains, and I was concerned that some of them weren't going to be as careful.

Regarding Ken's comment just above (I've never placed a bolt) about pulling them out being a sign of an oversized hole: does a bolt need to be hammered into a hole when newly placed? It's not a "place by hand and then tighten" kind of thing?

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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