Help Needed With My Front Wheel

[Radfax]

Hey,

I got a new front wheel today, checked the wheel over and all seemed fine, spokes seemed tight enough although they had a bit of flex in them and the wheel itself seemed pretty true so pretty chuffed with it. anyway, i whipped the bike and brake on and went for a ride everything seemed fine, a solid feel and a straightish spin.

But after clooser inspection the front wheel looks as though it has been built by a blind monkey with no fingers and the build quality to be frank is shite! i dont really know how to inspect a wheel upon purchase but i am pretty sure you dont check that the pattern is all ok ect but i have come across the following problems...

The wheel is a 3x build and instead of going over the first spoke, over the second and under the third, in some cases it goes over all three. this happens about 3 or 4 times. also where the valve hole is, the spokes are also crossing making it imposible to fit a tyre pump. which in my eyes is a major cock up on the wheel builders part? i dont think it could be any worse?

My question is, would it be possible for me to take the wheel apart and rebuild it withought any problems or will the corners that have been cut effect me doing a rebuild?

thanks for any help!

[Luke Rainbird]

Assuming the spokes are the right length (sounds like they should be ok) the lacing errors shouldn't cause any problems to you rebuilding the wheel.

If a wheel's built without too much thought, it's fairly easy to end up with spokes crossing at the valve, though the under/over issues are a little more silly.

Just whip the wheel apart, follow a guide to put it back together, and you're away. OBM's guide in wiki/FAQ, or Sheldon Brown's guide should do the job nicely

[Radfax]

Thanks for that ! i thought that the spokes should be the right size but didnt want to assume and assume wrong! so thanks for that!

I hav been practicing using a guide from the iki section, not to sure who wrote it but the photos are of a blue mod rim being built up... so whoevers that is is the one i have used and it all seems to have worked out so far!

thanks for that mat, ill go sit in bed and get a working!

[Mark W]

Yeah, that was my back wheel about 3-4 years ago, haha. Glad you've found it useful anyway

[psycholist]

Sounds like a completely incompetent wheel build. Taking it apart and building it yourself is a better idea alright. I like to line the valve hole up with the logo on the hub for added pimpery. Loads of how to guides on d'internet, Sheldon Brown's site is the first place to try. Without diagrams it's pretty difficult to explain though.

There are a few rules to lacing. Lace the spokes that go from the insides of the hub flanges first as they're a pain to put in after the other spokes are laced. Lace the spokes from the right hand flange to the holes offset to the right of the rim centreline. To pick a specific orientation for the hub find the spoke hole that lines up best with the feature on the rim. A radial spoke will line these features up correctly. For 1 cross lacing move one spoke hole over from the radial spoke position, for 2 cross go two holes over, 3 holes for 3 cross etc. The spokes should be angled back towards the radial spoke hole to leave the hub lined up with the rim as required.

Once the wheel is laced, wind all the spokes to the same position (Either using the alignment of the end of the spoke with the spoke nipple or so that one thread is visible under every spoke nipple). The spokes should all be slack at this point. To tension the wheel start at the valve hole (So you know when you've done a full round) and wind every spoke a half to a full turn (Depending how slack the spokes are) tighter. Align the flats of the spoke nipples with the rim walls so you know you've got a full, half or quarter turn. This also allows you to visually inspect the spokes for loosening. I haven't seen some of this advice printed anywhere, but I've been using it to build wheels for the past 7 or 8 years. I have yet to have a wheel build fail on me (I've worn through a lot of rims and killed a lot of hubs though)...

[Mark W]

In that nipples are basically extruded squares, I don't get how you can see whether it's a 1/4, 1/2 or full turn, as it's going to look the same anyway? Even if you could still see the top of the nipple to see the flat-head area, you'd only be able to guess whether it was 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, etc.

[psycholist]

You know whether it's a half, quarter or full turn because that's how far you turn the spoke key. Aligning the flats of the nipples to the rim means you can see if spokes have started loosening with use because they won't all be sitting with the flats of the nipple parallel to the braking surface anymore. Some loosened spokes naturally will happen to be a 1/4 turn opened from their as built positions and they won't be obvious, but usually where one spoke goes slack more of them will also loosen, so you'll still get a visual warning.

For this to work well you do have to account for twist in the spokes. Generally going about 1/8 of a turn past where you want the spoke nipple to go and backing it off to the correct point will eliminate twist in the spokes, but there is a certain amount of feel that will come into play for this. If you have twist left in your spokes you'll get loads of pinging from the wheel the first time you cycle on it. Don't forget to stress relieve the wheel after building too - pretty much eliminates spoke fatigue failures.

[Mark W]

I see, yeah, I thought you were refering to squaring the nipples of as being a post-built thing. Just read it wrong I guess.

I usually find if you just de-stress the wheel after you've done the first bit of tensioning that if any spokes were twisting they sort themselves out, then when you spin the wheel next you can usually pretty easily see which spoke was doing what.

Usually put a dollop of grease on the threads before I build 'em though so it's usually not too bad. My old bike shop boss would probably kill me for not using linseed oil though, or whatever the hell he used to use religiously...

[psycholist]

There's so much arcane bizarre stuff involved in wheel building thanks to it being something people pick up through practice, often with no understanding of the engineering behind the design. I build pretty much as recommended by Jobst Brandt in the only engineering book I'm aware of on the subject of wheel building. I bet my wheels would be better if I sacrificed chickens before starting or something ...