Originally Posted by
Retro Grouch
I've worked on lots of bikes that had improperly dished wheels. That would drive me crazy. The fix is to loosen all the non drive side spokes 1/2 turn and then tighten the drive side spokes 1/2 turn and repeat the process until it's centered. If you are careful and precise during this process, you shouldn't have to do any additional truing afterward.
To answer your second question: Since you noticed, now you have to fix it or, like me, it will probably drive you crazy too. If you hadn't noticed it, you wouldn't have to do anything about it.
1/2 turn on both sides: that would work fairly well on a front wheel. (If a wheel had differing spoke tension due to a rim that's not perfectly flat, then it might get slightly out of true. That's easily adjustable, of course.)
But I don't think that's correct for a back wheel. The drive side spokes have much more tension. I think it would be a bigger amount of turn on the non-drive side compared to the drive side.
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Frame out of alignment
My old bike had a noticeable offset in the wheel. A very slight filing of one aluminum dropout moved it back to the center. It only took a small number of careful filing strokes with jeweler's rounded file. A
very tiny change in the dropout makes a much larger movement way out at the rim.
Yes, try flipping the wheel and see where the tire centerline goes. same side: frame is out of alignment. Opposite, equal movement: wheel dish