Resurecting bike wheels.

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I did the front wheel first. The rim was in shocking condition, badly oxidised and pitted and it looked like the previous owner used a hammer and chisel when replacing tyres, left deep gouges all around the edge of the rim. After grinding back the edge to try and remove the gouges, I hit the rim with a nylon fibre wheel and then polished it. Came up pretty good, but unfortunately some of the gouges were just to deep to remove.

The hub wasn't too bad, the flanges were a little off, so I mounted it on the lathe, trued the flanges and took a little metal off the two bridges so I could get a mop in and polish. The hub is drilled both sides for twin disks, but the bike only had one, so I dabbed a round ally plate to cover the holes and replace the original rusted chrome cover. Also came up pretty good.

I bought some stainless spokes from a local supplier and laced the wheel, centred it, trued it and torqued the nipples and damn, there was 3 mm of thread showing between nipple and hub. To check I removed a couple of spokes and compared them with the stock spokes, sure enough, there was 3mm extra thread on the stainless spokes. When I contacted the seller and complained, all I got was a series of abusive texts and emails, telling me thread showing is perfectly acceptable by both him and his 'professional' spoker. He even sent me a picture of a rear wheel spoked by his 'professional' spoker and sure enough -visible thread. I've been spoking wheels, both bicycle and motorcycle wheels, since 1966, never have I had this problem before. There are formulas to work out spoke length and they all have pretty much the same amount of thread. All nipples are counterbored around 3mm to account for slightly off rims and to ensure all thread is hidden.

I drilled some lightning holes in the disk (probably not enough), polished the edge and blasted the ally disk mount.

Luckily the local supplier didn't have any rear spokes, so I bought some from Heidens in Holland. Funnily enough, despite coming all the way from Holland, the price was the same. Anyway, once again, I mounted the hub on lathe, trued the flanges, removed the bridges between fins and trued up the fins, then hit it with the nylon fibre wheel and finished off by polishing it.

The rear rim was the same as the front, battle scared, oxidised and pitted, so once again I ground the gouges out of the edges, hit it with the nylon fibre wheel, then polished it. It came up pretty good, bar a few gouges too deep to remove.

The spokes arrived and I laced the rear wheel, centred, trued and torqued it and guess what? No extra thread visible. This wheel looks good, thanks to Heidens 'professional spokes. So, I took some pictures of the rear wheel and emailed them to the Aussie seller, showing him the difference between the wheel he had spoked and my wheel. I further advised him that perhaps he should find another supplier and perhaps another spoker. Unsurprising I never heard back from him.

All the spacers were rusted, so I binned them, turned up some stainless spacers and ally dust covers, pressed them together and polished them. The brake plate was in surprising reasonable condition, so I just polished that, but the brake rod, pivot, adjuster and clevis were rusted, so I spun up some stainless replacements. The Anchor was a pretty ugly, tubular looking thing, so that went in the bin and I fabbed an aluminium replacement and polished it.

Fasters on both front and rear wheels are stainless Allen's. Bike looks pretty good with the polished stainless and aluminium wheels.

Bike looks pretty good with these wheels, but I do cringe when I look at the front wheel.

dirtyrim.jpg

fronthuband disk.jpg

2 polished rims.jpg

rear hub & rim.jpg

brake rod and lever2.jpg

brake anchor.jpg

front spoke close up.jpg

front 1.jpg

rear side spoke close up.jpg

rear brake side 2.jpg

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Bike looks pretty good with polished stainless, ally wheels. Last pic is a spoker's helper, very technical piece of kit this!

right side2.jpg

WIN_20211211_11_27_59_Pro.jpg