Hanger+perma fell off?

Any input and/or advice for this situation:

9 months ago I installed 3 bolts and perma draws on a wall for a linkup of two routes. This new section traverses up and right across a slightly overhung panel. 

The bolts are 12mm SS wedge bolts with Raumer hangers.

I installed with a torque wrench to spec, textbook install, nothing funky. 

Today a friend sent a photo of the permadraw+hanger in hand with this description:

"Nut just fully unthreaded. I hung on the bolt for a bit, shook out, got on, pulled up about 4 feet and pop! The whole draw fell off the wall"

This is the 7th bolt on the route, 2nd on the traverse.

My theory is the nut has been loose for a while and no one noticed it since it is a permadraw. After a few too many traversing falls it fully came off? 

A few questions: 

1. Any thoughts on why this happened and if it was a an install issue on my part? Terrifying to think. I plan to go up and check out the torque of all the bolts on the whole wall. A low hanger popping off would be catastrophic. 

2. Should I be adding loctite? I've never had to use it before and have avoided for ease of maintenance. Maybe some interaction with the permandraw side to side movement caused the nut to come off?

3. Advice? Thoughts? Not super excited about hardware I installed failing. Glad no one got hurt, just an exciting fall.

Thanks for any input.

Sadly many climbers don't pay much attention to the bolts they are clipping.  The loose SS wedge bolt isn't unique to you.  You will get a few different opinions on how to mitigate the problem. 

The 3 most likely answers are:

1.  Go re torque your bolts after they've sat for a couple weeks.  This adds more labor so not always ideal.

2. Use loctite.  The stuff below permanent. Some people say the added lubrication of the liquid changes the torque and you can over torque.

3. Use a jamb nut. This is the mechanical solution but it is another small nut to deal with.  It looks different than the normal one nut so some may wonder what is going on.  (though clearly most climbers aren't paying attention.

Had this happen to a route last month. I have a few questions:

• Does loctite last, or will 10 years in the elements break it down so that you're just delaying the loose nuts?
• Can someone explain why re-torquing doesn't suffer from the same issue of the stainless relaxing further?
• This issue seems really sporadic.  Sometimes whole routes will loosen up, sometimes half the bolts will.  Sometimes none.  Anyone know why?
• Wouldn't jam nuts result in spinny hangers when the stainless relaxes?  Also I'm worried about spinning studs with jam nuts, is that worry justified?
• I swear, but it seems sleeve bolts don't seem to have this problem, but maybe I just don't install enough of them to see it?

I swear every time I try to be proactive and re-torque I find all the bolts fully tensioned still, but the one route I don't check... half the bolts are loose.

Sometimes loose bolts could be caused by a hanger that isn't sitting flat.  Maybe some surface prep on the area where the hanger rests?  Even a small crystal crumbling under repeated loads will loosen the hanger.

I've seen where folks peen the end of the stud to damage the last few threads.  Keeps the nut from spinning off.  Likely done mostly to prevent hanger theft but pretty effective.

Maybe dab a little JB weld on the end of the stud threads?  

Good luck!

This sounds like Staunton State Park in CO?

I doubt that you did anything wrong with the installation.  My guess is that it'd been getting looser and looser with each and every ascent. Many climbers nowadays are completely obvious to the inner workings of the shiny clippy things they'retrusting their lives to... until they fall off the wall. 

Any route that traverses rightward on mechanical bolts can be subject to this issue. The bolt hangers get torqued counter clockwise, loosening the nuts or bolt head (lefty loosy). The best solution in these cases is to just use a glue-in, but it can be mitigated in other ways as well. Sometimes undulations in the rock surface can work to your advantage. Or you can surface it yourself so that the hanger sits in a recessed spot. Below is an example of type of natural undulations that can be helpful.  

Also, I use blue loctite on the nuts in these situations. It adds just enough resistance so the nuts are less likely to unscrew (or fall off) over time.

If you smash the last thread with a small chisel or pliers it won't come off, old CT trick from the past before glue ins became the norm

M Mwrote:

If you smash the last thread with a small chisel or pliers it won't come off, old CT trick from the past before glue ins became the norm

Won't this make the eventual replacement harder?  I haven't kept up on wedge bolt replacement methods but isn't the spinning method the preferred method?  And isn't the ability to thread a coupler important for that?  

bmdhackswrote:

Had this happen to a route last month. I have a few questions:

• Does loctite last, or will 10 years in the elements break it down so that you're just delaying the loose nuts?
• Can someone explain why re-torquing doesn't suffer from the same issue of the stainless relaxing further?
• This issue seems really sporadic.  Sometimes whole routes will loosen up, sometimes half the bolts will.  Sometimes none.  Anyone know why?
• Wouldn't jam nuts result in spinny hangers when the stainless relaxes?  Also I'm worried about spinning studs with jam nuts, is that worry justified?
• I swear, but it seems sleeve bolts don't seem to have this problem, but maybe I just don't install enough of them to see it?

I swear every time I try to be proactive and re-torque I find all the bolts fully tensioned still, but the one route I don't check... half the bolts are loose.

I never heard the lifespan of loctitie but I've got some routes that I used it on almost 20 years ago.  I be curious how those are holding up.

And are you possibly confusing jam nuts with lock nuts?  I don't imagine that a jam nut would be that hard to get to off.  An old luck nut could be problematic though.

Sleeve bolts definitely have a similar problem which is actually hard to see making it arguably a worse problem.  I climbed sport route up on Tahoe a few years back after a group of three had been sessioning it for hours.  I climbed up to bolt 3 and notice the sleeve bolt was a little loose.  I pulled straight out on the draw and the bolt came right out.  The kids got lucky that day.  I gave them a bit of a talking to about checking bolts that are keeping them from hitting the ground.  They literally said "it isn't our job to check the bolts".  I replied " it isn't anyone else's job to keep you alive but your own."  They looked at me dumbfounded. 

+1 for loctite, i'm also a big fan of glue-ins

old man rant re: ^^^^^ "it isn't our job to check the bolts" - the current generation of climbers is raised in a gym, where pretty much everything is done for them.  they transfer that 'skill set' to the outdoors...

This is probably mostly kind of irrelevant but maybe kind of sort of interesting. One on a roof came apart like that up here.  There’s a video somewhere. Columns of the Giants. At another very steep local crag chains are not used due to increased rope drag. 

use blue loctite anytime you’re placing a perma on a wedge bolt, this is a common issue.

Mikey Schaeferwrote:

Won't this make the eventual replacement harder?  I haven't kept up on wedge bolt replacement methods but isn't the spinning method the preferred method?  And isn't the ability to thread a coupler important for that?  

When you live in a place where the old guard strips hardware and/or bashes hardware with a sledgehammer you don't often think too far ahead. 

Wind action on chain, cold shut or perma works to slowly move a nut. Contraction/expansion cycles maybe also. Loctite has got to help. Smashing threads would make replacement harder.

Permadraws and project draws make it harder for climbers to notice loose nuts since they can clip without directly interacting with the hanger.

I've been hit in the face twice when hangers let go on a sport route. Lucky I didn't lose an eye.

bmdhackswrote:

Had this happen to a route last month. I have a few questions:

• Does loctite last, or will 10 years in the elements break it down so that you're just delaying the loose nuts?
• Can someone explain why re-torquing doesn't suffer from the same issue of the stainless relaxing further?
• This issue seems really sporadic.  Sometimes whole routes will loosen up, sometimes half the bolts will.  Sometimes none.  Anyone know why?
• Wouldn't jam nuts result in spinny hangers when the stainless relaxes?  Also I'm worried about spinning studs with jam nuts, is that worry justified?
• I swear, but it seems sleeve bolts don't seem to have this problem, but maybe I just don't install enough of them to see it?

I swear every time I try to be proactive and re-torque I find all the bolts fully tensioned still, but the one route I don't check... half the bolts are loose.

Some good info provided above by Mikey, I will add a couple things.

- Loctite can work to prevent hangers loosening on wedge bolts but I generally discourage it. The problem that shows up here is if a bit of rock crumbles behind the hanger or against the clip in the hole you can get an entire bolt that spins but the nut is still bound up on the stud, this makes it very hard to retorque the bolt or remove it. This is much more common in softer, pocketed rock like dolomite, but I have seen it happen in granite also. Mechanical fasteners rely on what referred to as preload - when torqued they sort of act like springs, creating a clamping force - you want them to keep this torque without adhesive assistance. This is why you don't see adhesive used in most critical mechanical fasteners like automotive parts, etc. 

- Retorquing can help because after initial tightening, materials compress and settle, particularly in 5 piece bolts (threads/sleeve/blue plastic vibration dampener thing) leading to a loss of that preload in the bolt. Second time around will see less of that. Stainless steel has pretty low torque specs compared to carbon steel - part of this is because you will encounter galling (fasteners cold welding together) pretty quickly after exceeding torque with SS. This is why you will find SS bolts loosen up much more commonly.

- Sporadic due to variability in loading, torque, and surface the hanger sits on. Common sites are 1st bolt and bolts with big direction changes afterwards - traverses, linkups, etc.

- Double nutting is the best option imo for wedge bolts that are in spots prone to this if you don't want to replace them with a gluein. If the bolt loses torque and the entire thing spins at least you can put 2 wrenches on the nuts to break them free and then retorque the bolt.

- Same problem with sleeve style bolts, particularly SS vs carbon steel as torque values are so much lower. Also harder to notice as Mikey mentioned above. 

This is a particularly dangerous issue in permadrawed zones as mentioned above. Folks are much less likely to notice a loose hanger, will climb past it, and then have it fall off behind them or pop during a fall. That and checking for sharp carabiners is essential when you first try a route with fixed draws of any kind, and in subsequent tries if much time has passed.  

When doing rebolting work in steep areas that typically have draws always fixed, glueins are a really good choice and will lead to less accidents from this. 

Also, Nylock nuts are discouraged for the same reason as loctite I mentioned above.

There are a lot of ways sneaky force manipulation could cause a loose nut. This is another reason, hangers with the 3 nubbins thats stick out are prefered by myself, compared to raumers which are
flat. They are just more succeptable to rotation without that little detail.

Loc-tite is a fine solution, but a sweet mechanical solution is nord lock washers. Theyre amazing. Can be found for 1.5-2 bucks a pop. So kinda expensive in stainless, but incredible for the intended purpose.

If a wedge bolt spins in the hole, some slim-jawed vise grips can be used to clamp the bolt and then you can turn the nut. I've done it even on RED loctite.

All the relevant solutions have been mentioned for mitigating the risks. I think the real issue is people need to take more responsibility for themselves. Whose job is it to make sure fixed gear is safe? Everyones.

The amount of times I’ve seen or heard of someone having the only option of tightening a nut with their fingers and then complaining about it online is staggering. Probably get one or two comments in California every week. And that’s just the ones who say something here. I think it should be standard practice to carry a small adjustable wrench with you if you clip a lot of bolts. My mountain bike comes with a small fold out tool kit attached to the frame under the bottle holder. Why don’t harnesses come with a flat adjustable wrench sewn into a pocket on the harness? 

Cuz it will skewer you in a fall. 

 No it wont. 

Where’d you get that?