wheel truing
- Thread starter NRSracer
- Start date
1. tried it and screwed up the true so bad I had to take it to a shop to fix it.
2. read a book about it, got totally confused, tried truing again. Back to shop.
3. Sat down at the stand, loaded wheel into it, stareed and thought real hard about the dynamics of turning this spoke vs. that one etc. . Tried again, 3 hours later had a pretty much straight rim.
Seriously, you can do it. It just takes an understanding of what your twisting does to the wheel. Also, invest in a truing stand and a quality spoke wrench.
If you are just installing a new hoop. Zip tie the spokes at all the cross points, yank the tire and screw all the nipples out. While you are at it, replace all brass nips w/ alum's. Oh,when truing, take the tire off too.
good luck!
2. read a book about it, got totally confused, tried truing again. Back to shop.
3. Sat down at the stand, loaded wheel into it, stareed and thought real hard about the dynamics of turning this spoke vs. that one etc. . Tried again, 3 hours later had a pretty much straight rim.
Seriously, you can do it. It just takes an understanding of what your twisting does to the wheel. Also, invest in a truing stand and a quality spoke wrench.
If you are just installing a new hoop. Zip tie the spokes at all the cross points, yank the tire and screw all the nipples out. While you are at it, replace all brass nips w/ alum's. Oh,when truing, take the tire off too.
good luck!
i don't have a truing stand. something tells me i should get one. right now i just leave it in the frame and use the brake bungs as a relative guide. i generally give up after 20 minutes, and just live with a non-straight wheel. i know this is evil, but eh.
Dude, i don't have a stand either, but I use and older bike that has linear pull brakes on it to see the rubbing and work from there...so far, so good.
i go to the shop and use their stuff. but i really need to buy my own equipment.
I just started doing this myself. For wheels that are just a little out of true this seems to work okay...oh, also if you're not trying to get absolute accuracy, just trying to get the rim to stop rubbing the brake pad!
I definitely felt that just spending the time to think about how the spokes are tightening/loosening and which way that will direct the rim, the concept/theory isn't too hard. But when I was doing this on one of my slightly older/bashed up rims, I found that I needed to loosen one side...when the spokes on that side were already pretty darned loose, and the ones on the other side were still pretty darned tight (and yes, I'm sure I was looking at loosening the correct side). I'm kind of assuming that it's at a point where the rim is about finished?
The most important lesson I learned is... make small incrimental adjustments. When one spoke is tensioned it does two things...
- it pulls on the hub which pulls on the other side of the rim
- it also pulls the the rim toward the side of the spoke being tensioned.
So again make small adjustments.
- it pulls on the hub which pulls on the other side of the rim
- it also pulls the the rim toward the side of the spoke being tensioned.
So again make small adjustments.