Wheelbuilding 102 for Dummies

For what it is worth, I prefer to use stainless for both spokes and nipples. Somehow I always fear the ugly rust bug on steel. Spoke kits from Buchanan's come with anti-sieze or you can use your own-use lots and cleanup later. Galling is not a problem with anti-sieze. If you opt for stainless rims you must use plenty of anti sieze on the rims holes too. Watch out for cheap rim pricing, they may be good steel rims but might be for painted finish, ie.no chrome. Good Luck

jimonthego said:

For what it is worth, I prefer to use stainless for both spokes and nipples. Somehow I always fear the ugly rust bug on steel. Spoke kits from Buchanan's come with anti-sieze or you can use your own-use lots and cleanup later. Galling is not a problem with anti-sieze. If you opt for stainless rims you must use plenty of anti sieze on the rims holes too. Watch out for cheap rim pricing, they may be good steel rims but might be for painted finish, ie.no chrome. Good Luck

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Too late now, they be ordered. I'm sure they will look fine. If it was a show bike I'd be more concerned but I just want to the wheels to go 'round. :mrgreen:

Apparently the Excel rims (alloy) are anodized? If they stay nice and I don't have to polish them all the time I be happy!

These rims come with a clear anodized coating, are made in Japan, but as you can see from the above picture the lettering stamped on the rim is very small and is stamped between two spoke dimples on either side of the valve stem hole.
The first two pictures show the rim with its clear anodized coating and in the third picture the anodized rim is placed on top of an Excel rim that has had the coating removed. As you can see the polished rim with the coating removed is only slightly brighter than the anodized rim.

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http://www.oldbritts.com/14_067712a.html

swooshdave said:

... and mounting. I don't want to do it myself as I don't trust myself not to mar the aluminum.

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I don't mount my tires because I can't, modern tires are so rigid it takes a machine to put them on.

Jean

Jeandr said:

swooshdave said:

... and mounting. I don't want to do it myself as I don't trust myself not to mar the aluminum.

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I don't mount my tires because I can't, modern tires are so rigid it takes a machine to put them on.

Jean

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I could do my trials tires because they are so soft and pliable. But I still mess up the rims (they are already dinged from the rigors of competition...) a little. These I don't want to even touch.

I'm thinking of taking them and covering the rims in blue painters tape just to protect them during the building.

Ok boys and girl, hang on!




After I opened the boxes and took out the wheels. I was thinking I hope they are marked because I forgot which rim went in which box. Phew.




I basically followed Jean's directions. I would have never gotten this far without them. But you folks know not to follow my lead anyways.

I put some blue painters tape to help me from scratching the rims too much. It took me a couple tries to figure out where the spokes went. At one point I had to take all of the spokes out of the speedo side and move them over a hole. I'm not sure if this did anything but once I figured out where the spokes were suppose to go it went really easy. It would have helped if I would have taken a lot better pictures but I didn't figure I'd be doing this back then.

So here it is. Nipple are hand snug and it looks round.

1. Since it's stainless spokes and steel nipples do I need any oil or anti-sieze on the threads? There was none supplied with the order.
2. I did the rear because it's going to be the easier.

The instructions say to over-tighten the spokes and then true the wheels. I'm really tempted to take these to someone for final trueing but I might give it a crack to see how close I can get them.

On to the front, hopefully tomorrow.

http://www.oldbritts.com/lacing_info.html

You can get close to round hand tight eye balling but not so true once a wire or gauge monitored. Then will likely have to back off hand tight to start again following the indicators. Tedium to the max, especially first few times, i never want to do again thank you, but increased my sense of self worth no end, till I remind myself it too about a season for each wheel on Peel : (

Wise to tape rim sides, wish I'd though of that rubbing and rubbing dial gauge probe, but nothing compared to damage tire testing to get spokes sealed for air. I've a lot of sanding and refinishing to do on rear now which will remove Excels logos, but got Tubliss decals

I had replaced some spokes on one of my Bultaco wheels once. Not knowing better I put the dial gauge on and tried to get it perfectly round and no runout. I gave it a go but there was no use with an old motocross rim. :roll:

Old Britts says the rear is offset 3/16"-ish and I've also seen 3/8". I assume the best way is to get the wheel on the bike? Will the rim even be centered in the frame when done?

Bless you for reporting Fred at Old Brits finds the same thing I have on rear rim offset. All the ones I've checked were about 3/8" to LH, which I first discovered on centering mudguards to tire. I've had an experienced race builder tell me he'd never seen this, so made me question my own reality, whew. Many motorcycles apparently do not have both tires on same line for one reason or another yet undetectable handling issue. Anyway its an non-issue if just mostly centered as the sprocket and brake rotor alignments are set by hub axles spacers not tire rim.

Whole power unit in Cdo was shifted ~3/8" for chain run, guess tire moved with that and cheaper not to bother changing spoke lacing procedure, as true to Norton tradition.

Oh yeah Swooeroo, please expand on your trials experience, I'm fascinated with going slow to flying over rough wierd stuff on heavy twin Commando, especially tri-linked. Many new subject line of me privately . I've increased my fork range to help a bit more twisting around a tree trunk and not go out of tape bounds > over edge of drop offs into pond or ravine.

I think they say to offset to the right.

http://www.nocnsw.org.au/wheel.html

From the UK Norton Website:
Commando wheel offset - the definitive answer
I have the definitive answer as to what is offset, how much, and which way!
I set up a 1973 850 on the frame table and verified it was straight. I then put together a dummy engine and installed it with new isolastics, new washers, Hemmings adjusters, and a Norvil head steady. I put both adjusters on the left side, checked the swinging arm in my fixture and then installed it in the frame. I took all the play out of the adjusters and started measuring:-
The frame is symmetrical
The engine/gearbox cradle is offset 1/8" to the left.
The swinging arm is offset 1/8" to the right so the axle pads end up centred in the frame
I then installed the rear wheel:-
The spoke flanges are offset 1/8" to the left as mounted in the arm, so the rim is laced off 1/8" to the right to put the tyre in the centre
The centre of the rim is 3.3/8" from a straight edge laid across the brake drum (not the backing plate

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Trials is all about balance and control. After that it's all easy. :mrgreen:

Dave,
Oooooooooooo, nice shinny rims! Will you continue the wheel build or send them out?. The suspense is killing me!

My two cents, your at the point where they need to be in a stand to monitor the tensioning. I am interested in what the guys are using on the nipples. On bicycle wheels a spoke prep is available that when applied to the threads acts both as a lubricant and a locking compound.

Don't let me talk you into anything your not comfortable with but, judging by your approach to every other aspect of your build, I think you can do this!
G

I used an ignition wrench till straining to break its tiny jaws then switch to my big gun, a 3-4" adjustable wrench I snugged down good before each turn till I couldn't hardly turn nipples w/o a rap on their head to help shock em loose like an air impact : ) You can not get spokes too tight unless the threads give or spoke twists. Its like tuning an old piano, tighten one string, pulls the others off so back and forth to get each spoke row sounding similar while monitoring the dial gauge. Rim will actually end up wavy at each spoke, if ya measure to the 100 ths
of inch. Side to side more important than round de round.

T95 said:

Dave,
Oooooooooooo, nice shinny rims! Will you continue the wheel build or send them out?. The suspense is killing me!

My two cents, your at the point where they need to be in a stand to monitor the tensioning. I am interested in what the guys are using on the nipples. On bicycle wheels a spoke prep is available that when applied to the threads acts both as a lubricant and a locking compound.

Don't let me talk you into anything your not comfortable with but, judging by your approach to every other aspect of your build, I think you can do this!
G

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I will at least lace them and then see how true I can get them. I have a crude stand that I used on the Bultaco wheel. So far I just got the spokes in the right holes!

If I feel like I can't get it right then I will give them to someone else.

I just spoke to Buchanan's, because I am using the stainless spokes and the nickel-plated steel nipples no lubricant or oil or anti-seize is required. Just dry. If you use the stainless nipples then they provide a lubricant.

Keep the faith, Dave, and finish it yourself.

Regardless of metal, lubricant makes the job go more smoothly; clean-up is just a few extra minutes.
Full thumb pressure at 3" out on the spoke wrench gives you 30 in-lbs of torque. Six inches out gives you 60 in-lbs. Don't use your wrist or arm.
Once you're happy with the tuning, mount it up and check for clearance and allignment. The most common problem for the rear wheel is clearance with the chain guard. If you get frustrated, keep in mind that iterasion/itirasion/iteration (whatever) is the very soul of engineering.

Rick

So am I screwed?

1 pack says disc side outer and then there is one non-disc side outer and two non-disc side inner.

Might be in over my head with the front wheel...

Looks like bad labeling, check the length, non disk spokes are longer.

Jean

Once I got going it wasn't too bad. First attempt I tried to spoke all the some side. Fail. Put all the spokes that go into the hub first. You can't do those second. :roll:

The spokes weren't that easy to get in, due to the hub construction, I actually had to thread them into their holes until they got far enough in. I would never try this job with polished hubs. I don't know how they do it and keep their sanity.

I can see that it's going to be a fight to get the hub moved over. Almost tempting to give the wheels to someone to do the rest, that would be the smart thing to do.

We know that's not my MO... :mrgreen:

You're halfway there, don't give up

If the spokes bend in getting the offset right, you will have to remove them and bend the head end so there is no stress on bending the spokes getting the offset right, or it will look like crap. It happened to me on my front drum, the offset was way off with the spokes in their native condition. I thought I had the wrong set, but Mike at Walridge steered me right. You should be able to get the offset real close with the spokes straight and marginally tight.

It's really not magic, but some experience helps get things done faster. I can see if you did a lot of them, you would figure it out right away, unless you can't concentrate or have no patience.

Dave
69S

Dave
You will need to tighten the disk side spokes first to get the offset to behave. I think its 5/8" offset but I am away on a jobsite and I don't have my Roy Bacon Norton twin Restoration book to verify so maybe someone else can check the front wheel. Good luck.
Regards,
CNN

DogT said:

If the spokes bend in getting the offset right, you will have to remove them and bend the head end so there is no stress on bending the spokes getting the offset right, or it will look like crap. It happened to me on my front drum, the offset was way off with the spokes in their native condition. I thought I had the wrong set, but Mike at Walridge steered me right. You should be able to get the offset real close with the spokes straight and marginally tight.

It's really not magic, but some experience helps get things done faster. I can see if you did a lot of them, you would figure it out right away, unless you can't concentrate or have no patience.

Dave
69S

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You haven't done a disk brake wheel... The offset is going to be a bitch. I don't know why you had so much trouble with your front drum, I don't think there should have been any offset at all.

Even though the Buchanans spokes were mis-labled they went right in, once I figured out where to put them. :mrgreen:

But now is the hard part. Maybe. Since I'm going to take the wheels to someone to mount the tires and they also true wheels I should just have them finish them. I at least laced them, might as well declare victory and hand them to someone to fix.