Truing a bent wheel
- Thread starter Mrtennis
- Start date
Id suggest that even a complete novice could true their own wheel enough to get them home given they know the basic premise.
Spin the wheel and note where the wobble is.
Count 5 spokes with the worst of the wobble in the middle
Tighten 3 spoke spoke spoke spoke spoke to pull the wobble into the middle .Work on quarter turns.NO MORE you wont need to and bet do things a little at a time.
You can practice using a front wheel in a set of forks as thats the easiest way of holding one .You will need something to act like a baseline fixed point to judge your work against,something like a lolly stick taped to one blade.
Spin the wheel and note where the wobble is.
Count 5 spokes with the worst of the wobble in the middle
Tighten 3 spoke spoke spoke spoke spoke to pull the wobble into the middle .Work on quarter turns.NO MORE you wont need to and bet do things a little at a time.
You can practice using a front wheel in a set of forks as thats the easiest way of holding one .You will need something to act like a baseline fixed point to judge your work against,something like a lolly stick taped to one blade.
Mrtennis":2p3uk4y5 said:
The key point for 3 at a time is that you halve the amount of turn you do on one side into 2 spokes on the other side. So 1/4 turn on a single spoke and then 1/8 turns on the 2 adjacent spokes to counter balance the tension. Of course it will pull in a little on the single spoke to get it true but is then balanced by doing the opposite. You want to balance it to keep it relatively central.
OK, so I gave it a go this afternoon at straightening me wheels.
The front wheel went really and is virtually perfect.
The back one however is harder and has brought up some problems. It was worse than the front to start with, with it bending one way and then the other in three or four places. So I started tweeking away. Got the worst of the bends out although not quite perfect. But I stopped there because I found I was adjusting various spokes, to get some tighter or loser in the direction they had to go, three or four have become really lose! I'm not certain whether the tension is meant to be the same on all spokes, but this handful of spokes really is very lose! I decided just to stop in the end and come and see what more info I can find online.
I rode the bike a bit on the rode and at first there where a couple of sounds from the spokes on the back wheel. Don't know if this is normal after adjustment because it settled down pretty quickly.
Anyway, help appreciated as usual!
The front wheel went really and is virtually perfect.
The back one however is harder and has brought up some problems. It was worse than the front to start with, with it bending one way and then the other in three or four places. So I started tweeking away. Got the worst of the bends out although not quite perfect. But I stopped there because I found I was adjusting various spokes, to get some tighter or loser in the direction they had to go, three or four have become really lose! I'm not certain whether the tension is meant to be the same on all spokes, but this handful of spokes really is very lose! I decided just to stop in the end and come and see what more info I can find online.
I rode the bike a bit on the rode and at first there where a couple of sounds from the spokes on the back wheel. Don't know if this is normal after adjustment because it settled down pretty quickly.
Anyway, help appreciated as usual!
you need to tighten up any "very" loose spokes, there shouldn't be any that are signifficantly looser than the others.
It can get a bit confusing sometimes as to which way loosens / tightens the spokes, but I try and start on one side of the wheel (eg the left) and attempt to reduce/remove any points on the rim that touch the brakepads... then I turn my attention to the other side. Eventually you'll get there.
You'll most likely hear a "pinging" sound when you first ride the wheels, that's just the spoke nipples seating themselves in the eyelets and twisting slightly. Really you should "stress relieve" the spokes after alterations, so Google that.
Sounds like you're almost there though
It can get a bit confusing sometimes as to which way loosens / tightens the spokes, but I try and start on one side of the wheel (eg the left) and attempt to reduce/remove any points on the rim that touch the brakepads... then I turn my attention to the other side. Eventually you'll get there.
You'll most likely hear a "pinging" sound when you first ride the wheels, that's just the spoke nipples seating themselves in the eyelets and twisting slightly. Really you should "stress relieve" the spokes after alterations, so Google that.
Sounds like you're almost there though
jimo746":jztbb011 said:you need to tighten up any "very" loose spokes, there shouldn't be any that are signifficantly looser than the others.
It can get a bit confusing sometimes as to which way loosens / tightens the spokes, but I try and start on one side of the wheel (eg the left) and attempt to reduce/remove any points on the rim that touch the brakepads... then I turn my attention to the other side. Eventually you'll get there.
You'll most likely hear a "pinging" sound when you first ride the wheels, that's just the spoke nipples seating themselves in the eyelets and twisting slightly. Really you should "stress relieve" the spokes after alterations, so Google that.
Sounds like you're almost there though
Thanks for the advice.
I gave it a rest for a couple of hours then went back out to take another look. Turns out the wheel was actually extremely straight, i did a better job than I thought. But those lose spokes were still there, and I don't feel comfortable leaving them. And if I start tightening those I know the rim won't be true anymore. That's where I'm getting stuck and not sure what to do next
Ah... but as the wheel is now it's not really as strong as it should be, and will probably go out of true after a few uses anyway.
You can still tighten those loose spokes up, it shouldn't have much of an effect on the rim until you're approaching the same kind of tension that you have in the other spokes in the wheel.
If you find that when you've tensioned up those loose spokes it's made the wheel out of true again, well you know what to do but try loosening off the spokes on the opposite side of the rim to the ones which were very loose before (but you have now tightened up).
It's all about getting the balance right between left/right/up/down. It can be tricky, so make small adjustments and check again.
You can still tighten those loose spokes up, it shouldn't have much of an effect on the rim until you're approaching the same kind of tension that you have in the other spokes in the wheel.
If you find that when you've tensioned up those loose spokes it's made the wheel out of true again, well you know what to do
but try loosening off the spokes on the opposite side of the rim to the ones which were very loose before (but you have now tightened up).It's all about getting the balance right between left/right/up/down. It can be tricky, so make small adjustments and check again.
