Spoke torque wrench

[TRANSPORTER]

Anyone know of where you can get a torque wrench for spokes, I,m kinda thinking of re building a wheel or two on my XR, still looking for wheels at the moment, got a mate down in Singapore looking for cheap wheels as i type, but the cheapest I,ve found a Torque wrench is around the £105 area which I think is mega bucks really.

[Dee Duble Yuh]

Don't you just tap each spoke and ensure they all ring at the same pitch? Or is that just me being a numpty?

In my experience spoke nipples suffer form "sticktion". A torque wrench may suggest a spoke is tight, but if you push on it will suddenly jump.

[TRANSPORTER]

I know what you are saying with the tapping, I do that when I,m checkng my spokes, but I, m looking at rebuilding a wheel "GULP" and I know that you can get a torque wrench for the spokes. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas of prices and availability.

[Lutin]

Have you not had a look at the Garage Night web-site and their video on wheel building? Might give you some ideas.

Ep 9: New spokes on an old wheel at Garage Night

[jasonbc]

I know what you are saying with the tapping, I do that when I,m checkng my spokes, but I, m looking at rebuilding a wheel "GULP" and I know that you can get a torque wrench for the spokes. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas of prices and availability.

I just changed 5 spokes on my xr's rear wheel ( photo's to follow end of next week) and didn't need a torque wrench, it's an easy job to do. I would also suggest if your not doing it, to replace all spokes as you can guarantee some are going to be seized and stretched or will twist when you try to undo them. I've just payed £3.15 each for mine

[Jacqueslemac]

Have you ever tried to build a wheel? If you haven't, you may be biting off more than you can chew.

I've tried it with a bicycle wheel (spoke keys cost about 99p, but the spokes are smaller) and it's a dark art.

I once spent a whole morning trueing a wheel on my mountain bike. It ran straight and true when I finished, but when I looked at it from the side, realised it was egg-shaped!

A bicycle wheelbuilder will charge a few pounds to true a wheel and as much as £30 to build one from scratch (it still takes an expert an hour or more). How come motorbike wheels are so much more expensive?

[sunnybrook]

Bicycle wheels are easy to build, but slightly more difficult to build well. I build all of mine.

But what does a motorbike wheel's spoke wrench look like? Those spokes can be a good 1/8" thick and the tension on them is high.

[1gear1brake]

I can't imagine that a torque wrench would be any use when building a wheel. I have seen a torque meter for checking the tension on a bicycle wheel but it was for checking a built wheel rather than helping to build the wheel in the first place. You couldn't start building by torquing up each spoke in turn as there is no tension at all until the wheel is fully laced and half tightened. And then, if you torqued a spoke, then you would not only be altering the tension on that spoke, but on the spokes opposite as well, and all the others to a lesser extent.
I would also say that it is a bit of a myth to say that all spokes have exactly the same tension anyway. In a perfect world they might but if a rim isn't perfectly round, with absolutely exact hole positions, and an equally presision made hub to go with it, then you need slightly different tensions in the spokes to end up with a round wheel. If you are rebuilding using your existing rim then this will be less round and straight than a brand new rim so this effect will be exaggerated. And this, as has been said before, is where it becomes more of an art than a science.
If you're not confident, don't do it would be my advice. There's a lot of weight and force on your wheels when riding. You only have 2 of them and you need them both.

Dylan

[Jacqueslemac]

I don't suppose you fancy doing a wheelbuilding demonstration at an event sometime, do you?

[1gear1brake]

I'd be happy to