Short answer: Yes, you can give all the spokes a quarter turn and check if the clicking is gone.

Long answer: If some spokes are significantly looser than the other ones, you won’t be able to tighten the spokes to a close tension without truing issues. You might be looking at a wheel build with new rims in that case.

Well, now you’re getting to the next decision tree. It’s working, but has an issue getting to fourth reliably that I haven’t been able to adjust out so far. When the front wheel goes on, I’ll be putting on new cables and will do rear brake- and shifter cables at the same time. We will see how that works.

Because of the weird gears in an XRD8, it wants really low primary gears. I ride around in first to fourth now and never go higher. It’s 34/25 and that’s not low enough to comfortably get up the hill to my house with two kids and groceries. (This hub has 1:1 first and seven overdrive gears.) 34 is as small as I could go with 110bcd cranks. I found an inexpensive Shimano 104bcd crankset and 30t sprocket. That should put me in third through sixth mostly and have the lower gears to get up that hill.

Shifting down into fourth is more reliable than shifting up into it. So spending more time in higer gears along with new cables may effectively resolve my problem.

If if it doesn’t, however, then I will be getting a new hub. The XRD8 has a 325% range but isn’t “rated for heavy duty use” although by reputation the newer hubs are stronger. It also only comes in 70mm drum size. The XRD5 is rated for heavy duty use, has a reputation for being durable, and has a 90mm drum brake. But it’s only a 243% gear range. (It’s two underdrives, direct, and two overdrives, so I’d need new chain and sprockets, but those are inexpensive.)

On a bike that doesn’t really allow for standing and cranking up hills, I worry that the narrower gear range will leave me wanting more gear.

Which beings me back to my spokes. I want to try to keep this wheel assembly in good nick so I can play around with the gearing. I may find that I never use the top two gears when it’s geared low enough for my hill. Then if I need a new hub, the 5 will be fine. But I’m trying to keep the rear wheel alive long enough to figure that out.

(As for other hub options, the Shimano roller brakes suck, the Nuvinci is really interesting but more expensive and would require a disk or new rim brakes, adding more expense and complexity to the project. Obviously the Rollhof is that problem magnified. If I’m sticking with a drum brake, I think the Sturmey-Archer hubs are my best options.)

That’s a good idea. I already have the cranks and sprocket. Unfortunately I juuuust bought a tire in the same size. I will keep that in mind if I want to go any lower.

I just went with a simple tightening of all the spokes. I took the position that it’s true (enough) now so even tension would be fine. My buddy suggested a full turn on each spoke, a suggestion here was a quarter.... I chose a half.

Only problem was that my spoke wrench wouldn’t fit. The 15 size was too small. Luckily, I had been shipped an inexpensive single-size wrench when I bought the multi wrench. I was able to go over to the band saw and shave off a little at a time until I had the right size. (Not the first time, either, as I have a Park headset wrench that I opened up to remove and replace the forks/triple clamps on my Triumph.)

I marked a spoke with a Sharpie and went at it. A couple times I got it backwards and loosened a spoke first, but it seems to have worked out in the end. Spokes feel better and the wheel is still about as true as before. I might go back and add another quarter turn. But I might just leave it alone. It’s imoroved and nothing broke. Better can be the enemy of good.

Thank you all for the advice.