Switching Hubs - Wheel Building Advice Needed¬

buckmulligan

Hi, I'm planning on upgrading my winter bike to 11-speed and the final hurdle is switching out the hubs on my winter/turbo wheelset. They currently have bog-standard Shimano 2200 hubs, which unfortunately aren't 11-speed compatible. I'm keen on trying my hand at wheel building, so thought it'd be a good opportunity to have a go by switching out the hubs myself to some 105 5800 hubs.

As far as I can ascertain from playing around with the spoke length calculator on prowheelbuilder.com it seems as though it should be a straight swap between these two, am I right in this assumption? I don't want to spend too much money on a bog-standard wheelset, so is there any issue with reusing the spokes? From previous attempts at truing these wheels, it seems as though a few of the alloy nipples have seized so I'll probably replace these with new brass nipples. The rims are 32-hole Mavic CXP22s, front and rear NDS laced with a 2-cross pattern and rear drive side laced 3-cross.

What do I need to know before attempting this?! Thanks.

ugo.santalucia

THere are issues in reusing the spokes

buckmulligan

Thanks for the reply.

I've seen a range of opinions on reusing spokes but having no experience of wheel-building I'm not sure what the 'real world' implications are.

If I'm just rebuilding on a very similar hub, reuse each spoke in the same position (i.e. outers as outers and inners as inner) and make sure to tension it very gradually, am I likely to have any issues?

Just for reference, this wheelset is about 4 years old but hasn't seen a whole lot of use or abuse. I'm fairly light (65 kg) so don't stress my wheels too much and have never broken a spoke in the past.

ugo.santalucia

You can try...

cycleclinic

You can reuse spokes if the nipples unwind. Brass nipples dont always they sometimes round or twist the spokes alot.

If the wheel was so so built or has had spoke replaced at some point then you are going to effort of building a wheel with fatigued spokes that will fail. For the cost of 32 sapim race is really is not worth messing about. If you are going to do a job do it right.

SME

Yep, can be done. I rebuilt my son's rear wheel for a cheap upgrade!

viewtopic.php?f=40012&t=12643811&p=19945477#p19945477

On both sides, the inner spokes are my trailing spokes - the leading spokes taking an over over under pattern...
https://postimg.cc/image/l45e4ovf3/
(yes, the first 'over' is as the spoke leaves the hub!)
I didn't use different spokes or a spoke calculator - i was lucky (i guess) in that the hub diameters were the same, so I just went ahead to see how it would turn out.

A week later my son and I done a 123.8 mile charity ride in September, and he uses his bike for an 11 mile commute with no problems, so I think the wheel turned out OK!!!

These might help...
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz3odeqJb_Y

Good luck.
Steve

buckmulligan

Thanks for the more comprehensive replies

I'm going to have a try reusing the spokes as a first foray. If I'm completely cack-handed and end-up building, disassembling and rebuilding them multiple times to get them straight then it might be a good idea to use old-spokes for practising with! The wheels are going to be used exclusively on the turbo for the next couple of months, so the chances of catastrophic injury to myself should be fairly low.

In case anyone is interested, Ribble have a seemingly good deal on 105 5800 hubs at the moment, £45 for a pair; all the usual retailers are almost charging that for a rear hub at the moment.

buckmulligan

So, I gave this a go with the front wheel over the holidays and it worked a treat. I just reused the old rim, spokes and nipples, transferring everything over to a new 105 hub. It took a whole afternoon given that I was somewhat apprehensive and overly cautious, not to get everything jumbled up, but I have had it on the commuter bike for the last week or so and it's still as straight as an arrow.

I'm going to have a go at the rear wheel next, but I know for a fact that some of the nipples on there have seized (and one or two may be rounded off too :oops:); I heard this can be a common problem with alloy nipples on an alloy rim. I want to replace these outright this time round, but how can I work out which size I need? I measured one from the front wheel whilst it was in pieces and it measured 12mm long, but is there an easy way to determine the spoke gauge? Sadly I don't have a set of vernier calipers.

I was thinking of going for some bog-standard DT Swiss brass nipples from Singletrack Bikes, which come in at around £7 for a box of 100, is that a decent price?

smoggysteve

If you are putting on an 11 speed hub the body will be longer meaning you are most likely going to need shorter spokes as the hub will come close to the centre of the hub from the outer edge. You only have a finite area to fit everything into and if you increase the hub body everything else moves to compensate

buckmulligan

So, I had a look on the prowheelbuilder.com spoke calculator and that states that the drive-side locknut-to-flange distance is only 1 mm longer on the new 105 rear hub vs the old 2200 one (and the drive-side flange-to-center measurement is thus 1 mm shorter.

Everything else is the same, so do you think this is likely to be an issue?

smoggysteve

1mm is quite a lot when it comes to spoke tension. The nipple could max out on the thread before they reach optimal tension

step83

It'll depend how they were built originally as Steve said you don't want to max out the nipple really due to tensioning. You may have to bite the bullet and get a set of spokes for that side, I would lace it up an see how much thread you end up with an go from there if you don't want to get more spokes.

buckmulligan

Well that's 1 mm in flange positioning, not 1 mm in spoke length. In fact, when I put the rim specs in the calculator gives me drive-side spoke lengths of 289.4 mm for the old hub and 289.3 mm for the new one.

I'm no wheelbuilding expert, but I'd be very surprised if +/-0.1 mm difference in spoke length is going to be terminal; granted, they could bottom-out, but I would hope that they haven't been built with spokes right at the limit of the acceptable range.

My grand plan is to rebuild these wheels again in the summer, but in the short term I just wanted to switch the hubs to get them onto 11-speed so I can stop using my decent wheels on the turbo. When the winter is over I'm going to buy some better rims, rebuild them and move these rims over to my commuter bike, at which point I can invest in new spokes etc all-round. However in the meantime I just want to switch them over with minimal expenditure and use the opportunity to practice some wheel-building.

Back to my original questions, how can I determine what nipple size I need for my existing spokes and are those bog-standard DT Swiss brass nipples any good?

step83

If its 0.1mm then there is no problem, a whole 1mm is a different kettle of fish.
The brass DTs will be fine, brass is better to use than alloy anyway as they wont seize or react with the spoke itself.

keezx

SmoggySteve wrote:

If you are putting on an 11 speed hub the body will be longer meaning you are most likely going to need shorter spokes as the hub will come close to the centre of the hub from the outer edge. You only have a finite area to fit everything into and if you increase the hub body everything else moves to compensate

Most likely it'll make no difference in spokes.

ugo.santalucia

SmoggySteve wrote:

If you are putting on an 11 speed hub the body will be longer meaning you are most likely going to need shorter spokes as the hub will come close to the centre of the hub from the outer edge. You only have a finite area to fit everything into and if you increase the hub body everything else moves to compensate

The difference in ideal spoke length is likely to be well below what can be measured... or even calculated

Steve-XcT

Some spokes like CXRAY are only sold in 2mm increments anyway....