Solo_rider

Hi all,

It's only my second time doing this but Ive just finished truing the wheel on a bike I have and it looks pretty good (side to side wobbling is very minimal now). I actually did this with the wheel mounted (tire on too) but I'm wondering if this is enough and if the results will hold up or do I need to do this with the wheel -and tire- off for better results. Do I really need to worry about a dishing tool and a spoke tension meter... ? It's not a fancy rim or nothing and the rim doesn't look off center. I'm very picky but I'm actually satisfied with the results but I'm wondering how you (those who are DIYs) do your truing.

Thanks.

andrewclaus

I volunteer at a non-profit shop where we have truing stands, dishing tools, tension gauges. But depending on the bike and the wheel, I often just true quickly on the bike in the stand, using rim brake calipers as a guide. It might be a two-minute job. If the bike has disk brakes, I use the truing stand. If the wheel comes off the bike for any reason, I use the truing stand. If I need to do a lot of truing, the tire comes off and the rim strip/tape gets checked.

pdlamb

If it's good enough to ride, just ride it!

JohnDThompson 

You're fine. If all you're doing is minimal tweaking you're not going to change the dish at all; that requires significant adjustment of every spoke.

In fact, a case can be made that truing with the tire installed and inflated could work better, since the tire and inflated tube will affect spoke tensions.

The Old Peddler

A little wobble side to side isn't going to affect your ride much. That can be adjusted while on the bike, with care and a light touch. An inflated tire will not make much of a difference either. But an out-of-round (dished) wheel is something else and should be re-tensioned on a truing stand IMHO. And if you go to the trouble and expense of having a truing stand, get a tension meter too. It saves a lot of time and frustration.

The Old Peddler

Bill Kapaun

You can't check for hop with the tire on, but probably not an issue if you didn't go crazy cranking on the nipples.
Dish & hop are entirely different things.
You can use a wire tie as a "pointer" to check dish.
Flip the wheel in the DO's and see if the "pointer" is the same distance from the rim in both orientations.

Rogerogeroge

You don't need a dishing tool. Just flip the wheel over in the truing stand and see if the difference to the gauges changes.

You don't need a tension meter. But for a fun factor you can pluck the spokes and compare the pitch they produce, which really does show differences. Of course the DS spokes will produce a higher sounds than NDS spokes on a rear wheel. And the most important factor that helps with consistent spoke tension is proper stress relieving the wheel.

Solo_rider

OK guys. I appreciate all the replies and the info. I was a little worried about this. I was actually selling the bike and wanted to make sure the buyer didn't have any problems with the wheels wobbling due to them being out of true. But now I feel more confident about the work I did. I think the side to side wobbling was almost 90% gone but it needed just a tiny bit of lateral truing but it wasn't really that bad. Yeah I know plucking is an option to listen to spoke tension but I'm the kinda guy who usually likes to do things by the book.
Anyway, I found a Youtube video on how to make a wheel dishing tool from a 2X4 piece of wood for a couple of bucks. I'm going to make one for me to keep.

Thanks again for the replies.

Bill Kapaun

Another cheap dishing tool is a table, 3 soup or tuna cans & stack of coins.