Ruining my rear wheel

straas

The other day I noticed my bike felt a little snakey at the back, when I got home I saw it was a little out of true.

Tonight attempting to get it back into true I fear I've ruined my wheel. It's gone from slightly out of true to almost a pringle!

I've trued a wheel before and thought I was ok at it, I havn't tightened or loosened any spokes more than 1/2 a turn at a time - what am I doing wrong and can I rectify this?

Some of the nipples are quite difficult to move in either direction and need a bit of tension.

Argh really can't face taking public transport! :-(

wgwarburton

Hi,
Start by lubing the nipples. That should make it easier.

They key (in my limited experience) is stress-relieving. After each adjustment go round the wheel a few times squeezing each parallel pair of spokes together (hard), so that the rim settles into shape according to the tension in the spokes.
Check for roundness, then make a small adjustment to correct it. Then stress relieve again to see the effect. Take your time and repeat until the wheel is rideable.

Make sure you don't overtighten the spokes- you don't want to break or strip them, so match the tighten/slacken actions.

Wear strong gloves or the stress relieving will give you blisters way before you are done.

As a final check, you ought to be able to put the wheel on its side and push the rim against the ground firmly, one hand either side rotating 30 degrees or so between pushes- flip it and do the same the other way.
If it's right , it should stay true when you do this... If not it may "pringle" and be unuseable: Your call!

Good luck. Be patient, Don't panic.

Cheers,
W.

straas

I think I might have already panicked, the wheel went seriously out of true - the rim is hitting the frame!

I'm loosening the spokes on the non driveside because it's pulling that way and tightening them on the driveside - it seems like I can't tighten the driveside any more and it's still rubbing the frame!

How has it gone from a minor issue to a ridiculously out of shape wheel

wgwarburton

Hi,
A wheel's a carefully balanced set of tensions. They don't have to get far out of whack to pull the rim off centre.

If the drive-side seems too tight, it may be that the tension in the whole wheel is too high.

Start from the basis that it is almost certainly retrievable and that it is unuseable now, so you have little to lose. Worst case is a new wheel, more likely a little loss of face when you take it to the LBS and fess up to screwing it up.

OK, so you can't make the situation worse. You now have nothing to worry about.
Chill out, take a deep breath and make it better.

Slacken the spokes a few turns. Try to get them even. Ping them and see if they have the same tone (on each side- driveside will obviously need to be tighter).

Then tighten them up slowly, working the rim into shape as you go. Don't forget to stress-relieve, even at this stage, so that the rim settles into the shape the spokes are telling it to. As the tension increases, focus on getting it round. You can increase tension around the whole wheel later if you need to. Similarly, you can correct the dishing in a round wheel more easily than a pringle.

Don't rush it. You are now rebuilding the wheel and it takes time. Relax and enjoy the experience.

Cheers,
W.

straas

Thanks so much for the advice, have calmed me down somewhat.

I've loosened all of the spokes now so that they are relatively easy to bend, and the rim is still bent.

Should I try to straighten it by tensioning or should I physically bend the wheel first?

If so how do I go about bending the wheel without ruining it?

Cheers,

Matt

wgwarburton

Hi,
You probably can't do much straightening without taking the rim right off the spokes. If you can get it rounder by judicious use of thumbs to flex it that might help but TBH you're probably as well getting the spokes to do the work.

Work up light tension, get it as even as you can, then start to tighten and true it. Small adjustments, work the spokes to settle everything into place.

What you want to avoid is getting the wheel the right shape but with the tension all wrong- if you wind up the spokes on one part of the rim to pull it straight, for example. It'll look fine until it gets any stress, then the uneven tension will pull it right back out of true again. So you need to tighten them on one side, slacken on the other and then stress relieve to even it all out.
Check to see whether you've got it right, and repeat, repeat repeat...

Eventually you should have it round with even tension, so it'll stay that way.

Don't worry too much about getting it perfect this time. If it'll run in the brakes that's good enough to start and you can fine-tune it later.

Cheers,
W.

straas

Yeaaaaaaaah, it's not perfect but it's running within the brakes and it's all down to you mate, awesome.

Was about ready to stick the wheel in a vice and give it a whacking.

Little bit more tweaking and It'll be great, pints on me if you're ever around manchester!

wgwarburton

Cool. glad it worked out. Well done!

Cheers,
W.

Gussio

What a great thread - nice to read such clear and helpful advice!

wgwarburton

Gussio wrote:

What a great thread - nice to read such clear and helpful advice!

Why, thank you sir! Very kind of you to say so.

Cheers,
W.

flateric

Better job than i achieved first time, spent ages getting side to side motion right only to find the wheel was now..........

oval.

Yep managed to eliminate all roundness to create a perfectly true oval shaped wheel.

:oops:

z0tty

Mr WGWarburton .. your the man!!!! was a pleasure to watch you work sir!!!..much better than that nit lice guy who hogs giving out all the advice