Wheel Lacing

1975 MKIII

Just received my rims and spokes from Buchanan's. Excel WM3 -19 dimpled and shouldered. Before I start this project I would like to know if anyone has any advice or suggestions on how to proceed. Is it easier to install all 40 spokes first and then start to lace. Do inside, then outside... etc.
I have the offset measurements but plan on snugging up the spokes to these measurements and then install the rim on the bike and come up with an actual number. Going to use the fender mounting lugs in the front to center the rim. I am going to set the rear so the drive chain is straight from sprocket to sprocket and plumb bob between the rear hoop to find center. The frame is straight, I shot it with a laser using the center of the hoop, down the backbone to the center of the triple trees.
Any advice and suggestions will be appreciated. I am sure drink heavily will be one of them.

Thanks,
Pete

Usually you need all the spokes installed on the hub to be able to juggle them all into their corresponding dimpled holes.
Don't do the nipples up tight on any of them, until all the spokes are fitted and home.
Using plastic tubing on the last few can sometimes prevent them scratching your nice shiny new rim.
If the wheel is about all spoked up, It can be nearly impossible to install a missing spoke, etc,
they usually ALL need to be done together.

If the supplied spokes are all the correct lengths, and they should be,
the rim will go to the required offset, no choice no ifs no buts.
There shouldn't be much margin to move it, at all...

Hopethishelps, havefun !

There's plenty of online help on how to do it. That's what I did, seems you have to get all the spokes in first then put the nuts on and tighten up slightly. I found I could move the rim to one side or the other by tightening one side and loosening the other equally after you're about done. I'm talking a mm or less here and quarter turns on the spoke nipples. You'll need a runout gauge, but you can actually do the final on the bike after it's laced, but a stand is nice to work on the bench standing or sitting.

Other thing is the bend at the hub needs to be right or the spokes will bend when installed, you can just bend the neck angle more or less to suit how it wants to be straight.

Thanks guys.
I have a truing stand and some dial indicators. Looks like I need to get all the spokes in the hub first, then work my way around the rim. Guess I should take some pictures to get the pattern right. Appears front and back have arrangement.

Pete

I've always found it easiest to fit the inner spokes with the buts facing out and lace up the rim, then put the outer spokes in. The outer spokes can fit easily without any obstruction even with all of the inners in place. If you tighten all of the nipples by hand until the spokes are flush with the top then you will be in the ball park for beginning the tightening and trueing.

Pete,

For the front wheel one way is using a pointer through the steering head bearings or steering stem, mark the wheel rim centre line and adjust the rim to the pointer.

The rear wheel is not so easy. When the frame design was drawn up the draughtsman would have used vertical and horizontal datum (T-square and set squares) to generate the two dimensional drawings. The three views, plan, side and front gave all the information to make the 3-D object. A laser beam is two dimensional. A two dimensional line can't check the relationship of e.g axes in two planes 90 deg to each other of a 3-D object.
The frame is three dimensional and it's design is based on reference planes in the horizontal and vertical from which the position of the steering head and swingarm axis are determined. To establish the frame centre line you need a horizontal plane to work from. You can then centre the rear wheel rim centre line to this,

Jose.

If you lace the wheel up on the truing stand as Rohan has said, as long as the nipples are not tight on the threads you can wind them down by finger until the tops are level with the ends of the spokes then tighten them a turn by finger as you rotate the wheel a few times. None of it is difficult, you will find the wheel will centre easily, and then you can get the rim equidistant from the hub and even with the spoke spanner. Alignment of the rear wheel is not a problem, you can do it easily with a string line unless there is a twist in the swing arm or the pivot is not exactly at right angles to the steering head. You can check it with a rod through the pivot mounting holes and centred, then measuring from the centre of the pole nut on the fork yokes to the ends of the rod. If the rear wheel is skew in relation to the front, the handling can be stiff when you lay the bike over in a corner. If you drive along behind your bike with somebody else riding it, you can sometimes pick up if the wheels are skew in the vertical direction.

Deets55 said:

1975 MKIII

Just received my rims and spokes from Buchanan's. Excel WM3 -19 dimpled and shouldered. Before I start this project I would like to know if anyone has any advice or suggestions on how to proceed. Is it easier to install all 40 spokes first and then start to lace. Do inside, then outside... etc.
I have the offset measurements but plan on snugging up the spokes to these measurements and then install the rim on the bike and come up with an actual number. Going to use the fender mounting lugs in the front to center the rim. I am going to set the rear so the drive chain is straight from sprocket to sprocket and plumb bob between the rear hoop to find center. The frame is straight, I shot it with a laser using the center of the hoop, down the backbone to the center of the triple trees.
Any advice and suggestions will be appreciated. I am sure drink heavily will be one of them.

Thanks,
Pete

Click to expand...

I lace mine on a shipping blanket on the floor.
On any rim you do the inside first. I always do 10 on one side screw in the nipples -2-3 turns then flip over the rim and do the next 10 inside with only 2-3 turns on the nipples.
first outside spokes do one side repeat 2-3 turns. flip over, do last 10 outside spokes 2-3 turns of nipple.
At this point the whole wheel assembly is very loosey goosey.
One thing to note on thick aluminum hubs i that if the spokes do not easily fall into alignment with the holes then I've made some spoke bend tweeker tools to make the wheel assemble without any spoke stress or bending. This is more common with the CWC spokes where the 80 or 95 degree spokes are not accurately bent. Buchanan seem to be pretty good.

Last saturday I started a wheel building frenzy at the local NENO north shore tech session.
It consists of instructing a member on a first time build:
both against my advice.. as too wide and going to 18" on rear
They were easily laced and truing will follow...

commando front disc WM3x19 flangeless sun/Buchanan SS spokes

Commando cush rear WM4/18 flangeless Sun/Buchanan SS spokes


Since then my projects done or in progress:

Commando MKIII rear converting from WM2-18 flanged Akront back to CWC WM2x19 chrome/CWCstainless spokes

1966 Atlas drum front CWC WM2x19 chrome/ CWC stainless spokes

1963 88SS drum front Morad WM2x19 flanged alloy/ Buchanan spokes

1963 88SS rear Morad WM2x19 flanged alloy/ Buchanan spokes

1951 M7 front CWC WM1x21 chrome/ CWC SS spokes

1951 M7 rear CWC WM2x19 chrome/ CWC SS spokes

1952 M7 front CWC WM1x21 painted steel/ CWC SS spokes

1952 M7 rear CWC WM2x19 painted steel/ CWC SS spokes

I have 2 wheel holders:
one with cones to go into the bearings of most wheels and yesterday I just picked up a set of balancer rollers to do the M7 rear which must be done while on the built-in plunger axle.
Fun stuff...

Dyno Dave,
On the MkIII rear, right side all the spokes go from inside out. Will the "outside" spokes be able to go in with the inside, left side spokes installed. Wish I was at the class.
Thanks Dave and everyone else.
Pete

Beach,
I will double check the front rim by doing what Jose suggested. Locate the center of the triple tree center bolt and compare to center of rim. I know that does not allow for any twisting of the steering head but I have to draw the line somewhere. The last time I trued the front I believe the distance from the fender mounting lug matched the correct offset measurements.
The rear was slightly different than the "correct" offset numbers. I wrote that off as a tolerance issue at the factory. Iso's are good, swing arm is tight, I put a level on frame hoop and the swing arm and they were parallel (left to right), I checked the frame as best as I could with out dis-assembly. My line of thought is, if the sprockets line up, it would best best to get the rim in the center of the frame hoop. I believe the difference was about an 1/8". I'll spend more time on the back this time and keep notes. Working off of memory right now.
Pete

Pete
The RH "inside" spokes are the ones that first go in the deep trough. The RH "outers" come out of the plain hole and then "trap" the inners.

I always measure offset to the valve stem hole which is at the center of the rim. That takes care of my friend who put the WM4 instead of the WM2. But he will probably have to cut the chain guard unless he puts a skinnier tire than he may be planning on.

Dave,

I was wondering about the best way to locate the rim center. I was thinking about putting tape across the flanges at a couple of different spots and mark center on the tape. Then set up a dial indicator on the outside of the rim and fine tune. Do you use a torque wrench or calibrated ear?

Pete

You'll find commandos have wheel offset on both wheels. This makes your life very much worse than it would be otherwise

Patience, and using the datums (for the front and rear you can use the disc mounting faces and measure them before tear down) will work perfectly. Usually I do it at home using a really ghetto but functional method. Rebuild the hub (after doing whatever you normally want to do with it, then throw the axle in. Use a pair of axle stands to support the axle (or a rear motorcycle pit stand) and use a mag base dial indicator on the wheel. If you have some money, use two. Then just spin the wheel and true it, but also keep checking the datum reference. Takes 3-4 hours for your first wheel, comes down as you do a few, but you can easily get ~0.002" or less runout on a good set of rims, and you'll see a dip potentially where the weld is depending on the quality of the rims. I then aim to tension the spokes by using a motion pro torque adapter, torque wrench, and a spoke wrench.

Make sure to use lubricant on the spoke threads and where the nipples seat on the rim. Also take pictures before taking apart the wheel to put the new spokes in (so they're in the same order and the SAME DIRECTION (made this mistake once....).

midnight,

Where do you get your torque numbers from. Better yet, what did you set them at?

Pete

I put all the spoke in hub then angle them all to slip rim on then diddle spokes into rim holes and put on nipples. Axle hub spacers set the brake locations. My novice way to center rims to spinal tube was using bike as the truing stand with string down center and then a stiff wire on rim edge to actaully watch for axle centering and mic or side of rim edge for the sideways truing as spokes nipped up in cycles. Mic probe rubbing on Al rim can scratch a path in polish finish. If going by t-wrench or just tight as can get, helps to shock nipple ends with hammer to release the strong binding force at nipple seat, similar to road shocks that can loosen seeming well torque spokes. Going by tone is better than going by a tricky t-wrench reading so pros use a spoke tension gauge if not just going by ear row by row. Pro's say spokes should be tighter than any expected impact can put slack in them. Bicycle lacers work up till rim umbrella's on them then use a bit less on final new rim, ie" tight as can be w/o danger of pulling through rim or stripping nipple treads or flats.

I usually ding all the spokes after they've been tightened so that they all sound the same , and then recheck for rim alignment.

Front tire is off, tomorrow is disassembly and hopefully polishing. Wednesday I hope to start lacing. I would like everyone for all the good information.
Pete

Ugh my 1st wheel was Norton disc front, mistake that took repeats of errors for many weeks till spot on. You do not want all the spokes rows tones the same expecially on Commando front as each row has a different lenght and tension so each row it tuned to similar tension by guess and by golly while watching the micrometer on side of rim as just setting to equal tone per row can distort the rim obviously just eyeballing, ugh. I say start on rear first to save learning curveballs.
I got rim centered and almost fully tightened with some raps on nipples ends + torque, then tap 3 spokes in a row and back off the extra hi pitch one and tighten the lowest tone one, then move one spoke over and tap 3 in a row and try to get them similar around and around, a little at a time or won't need a dial to make ya go ugh. Eventually whole row sounds close to same tone, then next row is tuned up.

I've only ever laced up one wheel. It's really tricky!

After several false starts with the hub mounted on an axle on a wheel balancing stand, I gave up that way and laid the wheel on a flat work bench and put the hub on a block that gave the correct offset with the rim lying flat on the bench. That way I could see the rim lifting off the bench each time I tightened a spoke and it was much easier to get them all equally tight and keep the rim true.