Building a wheel-my 1st attempt

rhyko7
rhyko7 Posts: 781
edited October 2009 in MTB workshop & tech
What a nightmare

I broke the free body of the hub, so decided to get a 2nd hand hub, I thought how hard can building a wheel be-turns out quite hard!

1st thing that went wrong was that I lost one of the spacers for the cassette so had to make do with another tyre of spacer I had lying around that was for headset or cranks. Luckily it was pretty much the right size.

2nd problem was I lost my spoke key and had to use a spanner

I set my wheel truer with the wheel on the old hub so it would dish right. I took some pics of the wheel in case it went boobs up. So I put in the 4 key spokes (leading and trailing either side of hub) then just followed the every 4 pattern on 32 spoke rims.
Before I knew it I had built a wheel-then to true it up-oh god where do I start ?

I decided to try and dish it whilst getting rid of the egg like shape it had become. This worked well and I then started to true the side to side motion, this involved moving out the truing markers I had set for dishing the wheel continually moving them in and out.

So I got the wheel pretty true and put it on the bike-it looked quite good, so I though right lets bung a tyre on, whilst I was in a super human fix it mode I thought I would fix up and old tyre, so I located a needle and thread along with glue and some tape and fixed the sidewall of a wtb wolverine tyre. I also decided to make rim tape from an old BMX inner tube which worked out really well.

Took a while but got the tyre on and pumped up, tightened up the cassette and attached the wheel to bike to find that the tyre repair was throwing the rim slightly and I had dished the wheel 5mm too much to one side.

So the lesson I learned is keep track of how much you move the truing screws in and out or you will end up with a decentralised wheel-doh!

That bad for a 1st go-but annoyed that I will have to take tyre back off and re-dish it to the side tomorrow
Dont look at it-ride it! they are tools not f*cking ornaments

my riding:
http://www.youtube.com/user/rhyspect

Some of my Rides Data/maps:
http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/Users/527337

Comments

  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    why did you not just replace the body?
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • rhyko7
    rhyko7 Posts: 781
    nicklouse wrote:
    why did you not just replace the body?

    was cheaper and thought it would be easier to change hub-i couldnt find a free body for the broken one-its a formula hub-any idea where i would find new free body for that? the mechanism broke and it has no drive-ive never take one apart either.

    the hub i got is a shimano xt and i swapped it for something i didnt want-thats what i mean by cheaper :wink:
    i think i can re-dish the wheel 5mm within an hour, its just a bit frustrating because i need to be doing other things.
    Dont look at it-ride it! they are tools not f*cking ornaments

    my riding:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/rhyspect

    Some of my Rides Data/maps:
    http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/Users/527337
  • It can be a pain. I always tension all the spokes to the same (semi-tight) then tighten up the cassette side which then tightens the other side up as well. Then just work your way through trueing. Its hard but once you've done a few you can whip a wheel up in a short space of time. Plus its a skill you can use over and over again.
    "Pain is temporary, success is permanent"
  • rhyko7
    rhyko7 Posts: 781
    im happy to report that my little project is finally finished-re-dishing the wheel took about an hour including truing it back up, and my randomn spacer in cassette seems to work ok :lol:
    i bought a new frame and built it up using bits i had lying around and some other cheap 2nd parts

    check it out!

    pbpic4180889.jpg
    Dont look at it-ride it! they are tools not f*cking ornaments

    my riding:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/rhyspect

    Some of my Rides Data/maps:
    http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/Users/527337
  • I got 1 of them!
    Unlike my credit card im currently carrying a low level of interest- Peter Griffin


    Saracen Trace 1
  • richg1979
    richg1979 Posts: 1,087
    i was dreading my 1st wheel relace and true but found it quite easy took about a hour and a half to relace with new hub and get it within a 1mm tolerance using a home made wheel jig.

    6 months on and loads of abuse and still goin strong