[dsn_klr650] wheel building part deuce

[Dash Weeks]

Morning, I thought I'd get some ramblings out to you, before I doze off again. Last night was a late one. Sorry no new pics today. Last night was fun, yeah, I had a blast truing up my wheel, a few too many Metallica songs for rational thought today but.... well anyway. Here's the skinny.... Theory - Start with a new rim, new hub and new spokes/nipples. Lace the wheel so that every nipple is threaded on the spoke the same amount. Start at the valve stem hole and make one lap turning each nipple 1/4 turn. Make as many laps as necessary to tighten up the wheel. Next, Spin the wheel to determine run-out on the side of the rim and loosen spokes at high readings and tighten spokes at low readings. 1/8 to 1/4 turns on each spoke will be sufficient to get it to stop wobbling within tolerance. Next spin the wheel and determine run-out in the radial direction (centering the wheel on the hub) again loosen where it reads low and tighten where it reads high. Note: most sources recommend only loosening, however, what you'll find is that the torques on each spoke will change, compensate to keep the wheel equally tight all the way around. Additionally you have to be aware that you aren't changing the wheel offset significantly. Re-check the side of rim run-out, and adjust accordingly. The radial run-out shouldn't change with small changes to side run-out. Get it all within tolerance and then double check your wheel offset. If all the spokes were tightened the same amount and the spokes are the correct ones for the wheel and hub then the offset should be perfect. Reality - Take the theory and stuff it in the trash can. My wheels were straight and fairly round to begin with (no dents), I had new spokes and I used the stock hubs. I laced the wheel so that every nipple was equally threaded on the spoke. Some were tight and others were loose, indicative of an out of round wheel, that's OK though. So I go the laps and it starts to tighten up and get in a position it likes. All is good. I give it a spin and theres about a 50 thousandths wobble in 1/3 of the rim. No problem. Did a modified version of the theory and it straightened to within 10 thousandths in two laps. Gave it one more lap and got to 3 thousands. Oh yeah don't bother with a dial indicator, pain in the butt to set up and very difficult to start off with. Great for final finishing but it's like cutting a 2X4 with a nail file. Those numbers were the checks with the indicator after i got done with each lap. The real method and the one that is the most useful is the pencil method. Spin up the wheel, lay the pencil on the swing arm and move it towards the side of the wheel. Now you have a visual account of where to tighten and loosen. Erase before the next lap. Now that I got the side to side wobble out, I moved to the radial wobble. About 20 thousandths to start, not bad. So I stick the pencil on there and find the highs and lows. Did small adjustments and did it again. Small progress, but my thoughts were that it was more important to have this tolerance tight so I took my time. Several laps latter, this wheel was true. I checked the side run-out again and it only needed one small tweak. WHOO HOOOO! AWE SCHMUCK... hell no it wasn't done. (I'm still having fun by the way) I looked down the wheel and it was really far to the sprocket side. HHMMM this was supposed to be in the middle of the swing arm, lined up perfectly with my frame. Tighten each spoke the same and it should self center itself. Buncha crap if you ask me. So what you have to do in that case is loosen all the spokes on the short side equally and then tighten all the spokes on the long side equally. Do this for as many laps as necessary to get the wheel centered in the swing arm and have the correct offsets. Offsets only determine where your wheel rides, so don't worry about sprocket and brake rotor alignment. Well that's crap too. I loosened and tightened and loosened and tightened etc. But on a couple of spokes the threads started rearing from the nipples. Not what I wanted. Additionally a bunch of the spokes are getting dry, ie. they are binding in the nipple and turning them is not smooth. So I spent some time to remove nipples one spoke at a time and re-grease, then run them back up tight. Amazingly while doing all of this side stepping and re-greasing, my wheel remained true. As it stands right now, the wheel is 1/8" off the center line. It is tight and true and the spokes have plenty of grease for tonight's party. My advice is to take your time, stay relaxed, don't get flustered and it will go amazingly easy, not fast though. Fast will come with experience. We'll see what happens when it is all complete, but it seems that the sprocket side spokes could use to be an 1/8" longer. So then, that's about all I have for now. Oh yeah, last night at dinner I got a pinky in the door to maybe considering the slight possibility of getting a new riding jacket for my B-Day on Saturday. WHHOOO HOOOOO! Mrs. Dash isn't real thrilled with Da Bomb. But if I could just use my mechanical abilities on Mrs. Dash as much as I can on Da Bomb..... LaterZ Dash