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Wheel truing without a truing stand.

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Wheel truing without a truing stand.

Old 08-21-19, 12:19 PM
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3S1M
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Wheel truing without a truing stand.

I do realize this has probably been asked before. But I did do a search and looked through several pages and didn't see anything.

I did just watch the shorter Park Tool video and plan to watch the longer one that is 22 minutes.

My issue is that money is really tight and can't really afford a stand. Although I don't really know how much they are. I've heard some say it can be done with a pencil and rubber bands around some kind of makeshift mechanism.

Any tips on how to true a wheel on a shoestring budget, I would really appreciate it. I guess I should google that subject and see what comes up. But if you guys know of a good video that might show a good technique, I'd appreciate the help.

I started riding again this year but it's mainly just leisurely jaunts with the family. But all my bikes could stand to be trued. But the first bike I started riding this year had a bit of side to side wobble but it got a lot worse after a few months of riding. Is that typical? It's not a high dollar bike. Just a Schwinn Del Mar about 9-10 years old. But when I looked at it last night I was surprised to see how much it degraded. I tried to true it when I first started riding it early in the year but I'm not sure I did any help. Plus I was using a needle nose pliers and I will buy a proper tool for it when attempting to true it this time.

I would like to figure out myself but I guess if I can't I'll take it to the shop. But I'd rather not be without a bike. My whole family just started riding again and would like to not stop for now. It's still rideable but I can feel the wobble in the rear rim and it's starting to annoy me. LOL.

Thank you for your help and patience with a newbie. I'm sorry if it's been asked a bunch before.
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Old 08-21-19, 12:28 PM
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Hang your bike by the seat (from a tree, garage overhead or whatever - I am assuming you do not have a bike stand). Fasten guides to the fork or chainstay (taped on credit cards or just about anything else. Get creative.) Insert wheel and true.

This has been done forever. I started building wheels 1973. Bought my first stand in the '80s. My first race wheels were built on the bike (then I landed a job in a bike shop).

Edit: A very good place to spend money is on Robert Wright's book "Building Bicycle Wheels". Came out in the '70s. The principles of wheel building haven't changed at all and that simple little book is an excellent place to start. Google it. The book never got popular so it won't cost you very much.

I learned about the book after meeting the author on a bike ride. I had 8 spokes cut out of my wheel in a town line sprint by another rider's QR. Author was on my wheel. I rode to a standstill, didn't crash. In his appreciation for not going down hard on top of me, he went back to get his truck and we became friends. Learned he was a gifted bike mechanic and wheel builder.

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Old 08-21-19, 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted by 79pmooney
Hang your bike by the seat (from a tree, garage overhead or whatever - I am assuming you do not have a bike stand). Fasten guides to the fork or chainstay (taped on credit cards or just about anything else. Get creative.) Insert wheel and true.
Ben
This should work fine. I never thought of it as there is no tree in my apartment. Early in my cycling career I found one wheel needed truing. Being a newby, I took the wheel to a bike shop. When the wheel came back it seemed to be true alright but spoke tension was all over the place. It was not any measure of my genius to figure out that spokes should be at near equal tension if they were to do equal work.

My solution was to turn the bike upside down in the apartment and spin the wheel rapidly while holding a felt tip pen against the stays or fork and just touching the rim. This leaves a clear ink mark on the high rim areas of the rim that easily washes off. This process is repeated until until the wheel is true to a satisfactory point. When the wheel is true, the pen leaves a mark almost all the way around the rim. I find an accuracy of a mm or less is not difficult, depending on how patient you are. It is necessary to make sure, (by eyeball in my case) that the wheel is maintained centered in the frame. The first time was slow and frustrating but I have gotten quite a bit faster. Spoke tension is judged by plucking and listening to pitch.
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Old 08-21-19, 12:54 PM
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Do at least spend a few bucks for a decent spoke wrench. Nothing ruins spoke nipples faster than using pliers.

You can true the wheels while they're in the bike, using the brake pads as reference points. Assuming you have rim brakes, of course. Otherwise, a couple zip ties on the seat stays/fork blades can be reference points.
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Old 08-21-19, 01:05 PM
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For quick basic truing I mount the bike on a Cycleops trainer or workstand and just eyeball the rim against the brakes as reference points. I turned the barrel adjusters snug enough to clear the rim where it was already true and drag against the wobbly spots. Worked fine.

I even used that method to re-dish a couple of rear wheels. Those wheels were already pretty true so a quarter or half-turn of every spoke nipple was enough to dish the rims so they were reasonably centered when mounted on different bikes.

For best results remove the tires, tubes and rim strips. Lube the nipples and holes with a droplet of whatever light penetrating lube you have available. I generally use Boeshield T9 liquid with a needle dropper. Let it sit awhile, even overnight, with tight nipple/spokes. Otherwise turning the nipple just twists the spoke, which will eventually twist back and the wobble will return, or the spoke will fail.

But after hitting a rough spot, pothole or rock on some rural rides I've done a quickie roadside re-true with a multi-tool wrench with the tire still inflated, just to restore good braking and get home for a proper fix. Usually there's a fence somewhere to hang the saddle from so I can spin the wheel -- it's usually the rear wheel. Otherwise flip the bike and do it playground style.
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Old 08-21-19, 03:50 PM
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A truing stand is one of the least essential bike tools. I do happen to have one, but sometimes I just put a zip tie on the frame or fork. I use it as a gauge to see how close/far the rim is from the frame/fork.
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Old 08-22-19, 11:09 AM
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I really appreciate the help and encouragement. I made a little bit of headway on it but it still needs more adjustment. Where do you guys buy your spoke wrenches?
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Old 08-22-19, 12:12 PM
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Originally Posted by noglider
A truing stand is one of the least essential bike tools. I do happen to have one, but sometimes I just put a zip tie on the frame or fork. I use it as a gauge to see how close/far the rim is from the frame/fork.
I use the zip tie method also. On one bike I don't even take them off.
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Old 08-22-19, 05:17 PM
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Originally Posted by 3S1M
Where do you guys buy your spoke wrenches?
If you needed a special tool for a scuba kit, you'd hit a dive shop, right?
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Old 08-23-19, 05:52 AM
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Originally Posted by 3S1M
Where do you guys buy your spoke wrenches?
Any bike shop should have spoke wrenches or can get them. Jenson USA is a decent online source that I often buy from. I have the Park Tool red, black, and green wrenches, and they seem to so far cover almost every wheel I encounter. Offhand, I believe red and black are the two that I use most often.
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Old 08-23-19, 07:48 AM
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Originally Posted by JonathanGennick
Any bike shop should have spoke wrenches or can get them. Jenson USA is a decent online source that I often buy from. I have the Park Tool red, black, and green wrenches, and they seem to so far cover almost every wheel I encounter. Offhand, I believe red and black are the two that I use most often.
Yup. Black is the smallest, red is the biggest, and green is the mediumest. We used green on European spokes before DT came out with the black size, and then that size became more standard. Red is for Asian nipples.
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Old 08-23-19, 07:57 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
Red is for Asian nipples.
Yeah, I was going to say earlier that I believe I end up using red on a lot of OEM wheels, and especially on department store bikes. Whereas I'm pretty sure we used black when a friend and I hand built some wheels using DT Swiss nipples.

This all reminds me that I want to build another set for my singlespeed.
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Old 08-23-19, 09:16 AM
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Originally Posted by 3S1M
My issue is that money is really tight and can't really afford a stand. Although I don't really know how much they are. I've heard some say it can be done with a pencil and rubber bands around some kind of makeshift mechanism.
Others have already made the suggestion of zip ties. It works. Depending on how tight money is, you can find truing stands from about $40 (Fleabay) to about $60 (Sunlite truing stand). I trued and even built a lot of wheels with something like the Sunlite.

Originally Posted by 3S1M
I started riding again this year but it's mainly just leisurely jaunts with the family. But all my bikes could stand to be trued. But the first bike I started riding this year had a bit of side to side wobble but it got a lot worse after a few months of riding. Is that typical? It's not a high dollar bike. Just a Schwinn Del Mar about 9-10 years old. But when I looked at it last night I was surprised to see how much it degraded. I tried to true it when I first started riding it early in the year but I'm not sure I did any help. Plus I was using a needle nose pliers and I will buy a proper tool for it when attempting to true it this time.
It sounds like your DelMar is suffering from a problem that many Big Box Store bikes suffer from...inadequate spoke tension. The wheels that are shipped with the bike really need someone to do the final tension on them but if someone is getting paid slave wages to assemble bikes this week and lawnmowers next week, they aren't likely to know, care or have the skills to do the final tensioning. People can ride bikes with slack tension on the wheels for a long time but it will eventually cause failure of the spoke.
Originally Posted by 3S1M
I really appreciate the help and encouragement. I made a little bit of headway on it but it still needs more adjustment. Where do you guys buy your spoke wrenches?

You can buy them just about anywhere. This one is far better than a pair of pliers. You can find them for as little as a dollar...but as K says, "Spend more than a dollar". The Park SW-7.2 is about $10 and it works very well. I carry one in my pocket at my local co-op for those "on the bike" spoke tweaks.
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Old 08-23-19, 09:51 AM
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I have the Park spoke wrenches. If I buy a new one it will be this:https://www.wheelfanatyk.com/store/pk-lie-spoke-wrench/.
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Old 08-23-19, 04:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Kimmo
If you needed a special tool for a scuba kit, you'd hit a dive shop, right?
I was kind of meaning online. I do not have a bike shop close. They're all over a half hour away and not in places I normally go. I might go down there this weekend though. I was more meaning if someone bought them online, where was the best place. I'll see if amazon has the park tool ones and how much they go for if I don't make it down to the bike store this weekend. Life gets kind of busy and not always able to go to out of the way places. I wish I had a bike place on my normal routes. I'd be in there more often. LOL.
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Old 08-23-19, 09:00 PM
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It's good to have one each of the open-ended spoke wrench and one with four corners. The first you use most of the time because it's quicker, and the second one comes out for tight spokes where there's a risk of rounding the nipple.
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Old 08-25-19, 09:04 PM
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Well I was really excited. I went to my LBS which happened to be a Trek store and they had some of the Park tool stuff. Being on a tight budget I opted for the tool that has all 3 sizes in one. And that night I worked on my rim and I was so happy to see I made progress!!!! It is a LOT straighter now. I'm so excited.

We were kind of drooling over all the bikes in there but that's sort of another story. I'm trying to decide if I really feel like they are a necessity for us. Ours are working fine thus far. I may feel differently with more miles on them though..... But the del mar that we've been riding since may ever day seems just fine. Besides the wobbly rims. LOL. Even with the wobbly rim that is mostly fixed is still rode alright....

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Old 08-26-19, 05:17 AM
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Originally Posted by 3S1M
Well I was really excited. I went to my LBS which happened to be a Trek store and they had some of the Park tool stuff. Being on a tight budget I opted for the tool that has all 3 sizes in one. And that night I worked on my rim and I was so happy to see I made progress!!!! It is a LOT straighter now. I'm so excited.
It's always a good feeling -- isn't it? -- to work on something and improve it like that.
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Old 08-26-19, 09:20 AM
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Totally. I was starting to get concerned about riding it too much more cuz of how wobbly it got. But now I'm back in the saddle. Although I didn't go on a ride yesterday. I had a really lousy pain and not feeling well day. But hopefully it passed. That was the first time I hadn't gone all summer. It's been a daily thing since starting in May.

But yeah, I've had this sort of rebirth in mechanical prowess lately. I used to be a gearhead growing up but time, money and then health issues sort of zapped me of that. I used to do all my oil changes on the cars and brakes. But then oil changes were becoming a pain when I worked and little kids and church and such. And really, the dealership does it for not much more than if you buy the stuff yourself now a days.

But this summer I've worked on 4 bikes and 3 small engines and brought them all back to life. It is a great feeling.

Now, that rim still has a bit of "hop" to it. I think is the proper term. Now learning how to deal with that... I hear is more difficult. I'll have to start watching the videos all over again. Plus for that I may need to put it on a stand. Not sure..... My daughters bike the rear rim has a hop to it also. It sat for a long time, I think outside. The rims were rusty on one section more than the others and I think that's where it was on the ground. The upside is the rims that seem to need the most work are the rear rims. And the fronts are pretty straight. Less likely to have issues with turning and such.
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Old 08-26-19, 07:11 PM
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I've done the zip tie method. The major benefit of the stand is just a more comfortable workspace, and maybe quicker work if you're a pro. For me, the pace of work is limited by deliberately slowing myself down to avoid mistakes.

Like @cyccommute says, inexpensive wheels are often sold with poor tension. This may be the case with more expensive wheels too, if the dealer is expected to perform the final adjustments, like how quality control worked on the Ford Model T: At the peak of production, cars were shipped without being fully tested at the factory, and the dealer was expected to get them working.

I think if the wheel starts out fundamentally round and not sharply bent anywhere, correcting the tension and getting it true are not rocket science. It would probably not hurt the wheel to just arbitrarily tighten all of the nips by 1/2 turn and comparing the tension by twanging a spoke and listening to the pitch, compared to a known good wheel -- yours or a friend's. Once the overall tension is decent, then make small adjustments for lateral truth, and call it a day. I did that on one entry level bike in the family fleet, to good effect.

If it's a single wall rim, the tire has to be off the wheel. In any event, you might have to remove the tire in order to assess what you've got. In the case of the "hop" that you mention, make sure it's not the tire before wrenching on the rim. Merely storing the bike in one place won't warp wheels. Also, you mention rusty rims... are steel rims worth trying to get them perfect? If it's a kids bike, it will be outgrown soon, problem solved.
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Old 08-26-19, 08:20 PM
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A wheel is good enough it clears the brake pads when they're adjusted so the lever doesn't hit the bar, doesn't have a perceptible jump from radial runout, is tight enough to stay true, is centered in the fork/frame so it won't rub when deflected sideways a bit, and the tension is uniform in each wheel half.

"Tight enough to stay true" is likely to be the issue with heavy riders, especially with straight gauge rear non drive side spokes. Increasing tension slows the automatic tensioning machines which reduces profit. There are cellular apps that will measure tension by analyzing the tone of plucked spokes.

While I do get wheels as perfect as they can be while keeping a pair of nipple flats parallel to the brake tracks, it's not necessary.

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Old 08-27-19, 11:16 AM
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Yeah. Some of what you're saying went over my head but I think I get the gist of it and I agree. I don't really notice small imperfections when I'm riding. The one bike got bad enough that I think I was feeling it so I felt like I needed to do something about it. We don't ride fast enough or long enough for it to be a big issue. But it was very exciting to see that I could actually make things better once I got the tool. And I'm glad I got the three in one tool cuz I started on my daughters bike last night and it needed the #1 size. Where my Schwinn needed the #2 .

I thought it was kind of strange but I was not really surprised. Her bike is a Murray Actra that was made probably in the 90's maybe and has these super duper heavy duty chrome rims. It was made in America too (Lawrenceburg, TN), so I would imagine they did things differently than the chinese or overseas made stuff.



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Old 08-27-19, 05:01 PM
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Old 08-28-19, 09:11 AM
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Thank you. I will watch that. I started working on the Schwinn Hurricane last night and I made it a little better but still not perfect. It still rides pretty darn smooth though. Do alloy rims seem to give a smoother ride than say steel ones? I noticed it when test driving cars when I we bought our 2009 Ford Focus. I drove a few models with steel wheels and the ones with the better rims seemed to feel like they rode nicer. Maybe that's the case with bikes too. Because that hurricane feels particularly smooth and it has Weinman alloy rims on it. I did put new tires on it though too. I probably said all that earlier.....




Schwinn tires from Kmart nevertheless. But I like the tread on them.
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Old 08-28-19, 10:32 AM
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Notes:

1. Put a drop of light oil on each nipple where the spoke enters it, and spin the wheel to get the oil to work into the threads.
2. The 'heavy duty' steel wheels on the Murray are only there because they are cheaper than alloy rims. They are weaker and heavier and more difficult to fix than basic alloy wheels. They also provide almost zero braking when you try to stop in wet conditions because of the chrome finish..
3. The saddle on the Murray is too low for the person sitting on it.
4. An out-of-true rim is normally very difficult to feel when riding. If you feel a 'wiggle' as you ride it is more likely caused by a damaged tire casing or tire not fully seated on the rim.
5. All other advice given here is correct. I use a zip tie around my seatstay to true my wheels. I remove the wheel and install it backwards and see if the zip tie is at the same place relative to the opposite side of the rim - this is how I check 'dish' (how centred the rim is between the outer lock nuts on the hub) without a single purpose 'dishing tool'.
Wilfred Laurier is offline  

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