DT175MX Stainless steel spokes

[NE0]

Having just refurbished the motor with new bearings, seals, rings etc ready for the winter.

I also decided to replace the wheel bearings, which I've now done so she's back on the road.

I've already clocked up over a 1000 miles in 11 months, shows you i'm using it!!

The MOT is due in february and the front tyre is quite worn (to be fair i was surprised it went through the last MOT) Nonetheless, I've purchased a new Michelin X to go on before february.

Now on further inspection, I note the spokes are rusting quite happily and I could do with replacing them, even more so as I'll be taking the old tyre off (might as well do it altogether)

I'd like to do both wheels, not necessarily at the same time so i'd buy both sets.

it would be ideal if they were available off the shelf, I'd simply get on with it but I expect they're not.

I've looked on ebay and whilst there are a number of S/S spokes none are listed for my bike.

although other bikes must share the same sizes? anyone know?

it looks like each set will cost in the region of £60 (incl P+P)

So does anyone know where can I get new stainless spokes from for my 175MX?

Any recomendations?

[Ventura]

In order of (my) preference..............

Hagons....

http://www.hagon-sho.../wheels2011.pdf

Devon Rims.....

http://www.devonrimc....com/prices.htm

Central Wheels.....

http://www.central-w...kes/spokes.html

Ive used all three.

In all cases I'd ring them to order and to enquire on availability.

Hagons have a great database of spoke specifications for a multitude of bikes and usually will deliver within a week.

To be 100% sure you could always send a sample of the 4 different spokes.

Just to be sure!!

I just paid £70 from Central Wheels, but their delivery time was far too excessive compared to others.

Not so bad if the bike is in bits anyway, but not good if you're using it!

V.

[Airhead]

I had my wheels re-chromes Alan, then I took (with samples of spokes) them to

http://www.manchesterxtreme.co.uk/

The chap they use to build makes/ or has made...ss pokes to match the samples

build cost was around £60 each wheel using low grade SS spokes, incidentally I prefer those to the polished high grade ones and thay are far cheaper. I just phoned them for you and spokes only will be £1.50 / £2.00 per spoke for spokes only

here they are

[NE0]

They certainly look the dogs dangly bits Paul.

I didn't particulary want to take it off the road again and send the wheels away ,I was hoping I'd like to do it myself,

even if it means replacing one spoke at a time and until its all done, that way it would all remain true?

I'll give them a call, who do i ask for who knows you and this thread?

thanks for the quick response guys

[NE0]

I've just given them a ring , they would like samples but i said that Paul had his MX wheels done and had taken samples and that my wheels were identical to his (i.e standard yamaha 175MX wheels I assume they are not unique)

(I hope they keep a record of what bike uses what size).

Anyway, He'll look them up and ring back later...........

[NE0]

Great price on stainless spokes.........but

Not so good news, no samples of Pauls found and they don't keep a record of the ones sold or fitted to Pauls.

He suggested sending the wheels to him, which means taking off the tyres and posting them up to him

I really only wanted to do one wheel at a time, and i wasn't looking forward to doing the rear wheel just yet.

Don't get me wrong its not the money side of things its the time it all takes and inconvience of having the bike off the road again for another couple of weeks, I know it will be a proper job its just so full of hassle for me at this time!

I was hoping to do one wheel at a time over a weekend and back to work on a monday

i could do with a plan b.

[Airhead]

some plan b ideas

(option 1)

NEO theres a building tutorial here, I didnt bother mainly because building for £30 and no postage costs was good enough for me

I may have my old spokes at work, i'll check next week...if I can make sense of them I will post them to manchester xtreme if you want?

http://yamahadtclub....thread=4&page=1

(option 2)

I have a nice set of DT wheels with stainless spokes, if you want I could have them posted to you so you can rebuild yours at your leisure all I ask is you keep them clean because I will be selling them on ebay at some point

[NE0]

yes paul option 1, I saw the tutorial a few days ago, it helped inspire me to do it myself. to be honest the guy at your shop didn't seem to be over keen on just selling the spokes, as he strongly leaned on all wheels are individual approach, but hey....he's far more experienced than i am.

As regards option 2 its a very tempting offer,( geee i sound like Noel edmonds!!) If you lived just along the road i might say yes, but I'll have to decline. Although I make a counter offer ...is there a buy it now price for your wheels? i.e simply abandon mine and replace them!!

However, I do have a plan c which is a cunning plan which you could brush your teeth with and call it a weasel........(blackadder 3)

is to just put the new tyre on and leave the spokes until the summer when I take her off the road whilst I use the 400/4 again! then replace the spokes, i know it means taking the tyre off a second time but hey ho!!!......soon be summer again!

[Airhead]

i'm sure you could do them yourself with a little reading of a tutorial...is it that tuto you saw then?

nice as the spare wheels are NEO they are not original rims, I had them built years ago...it's a long story but in the end I wanted original ones.

perhaps plan option 1+3 ?

[NE0]

i'm sure you could do them yourself with a little reading of a tutorial...is it that tuto you saw then

yup!

Ok OG I think it will be a combination of option1 and 3 .........do it my self...........next year!

just got to find the right lengths of spokes to just purchase them.....where's me tape?

[Airhead]

yup!

Ok OG I think it will be a combination of option1 and 3 .........do it my self...........next year!

just got to find the right lengths of spokes to just purchase them.....where's me tape?

you didnt read my option 1?...I may be able to find some old spokes...I'll let ya know

[NE0]

Yes i did read option 1 .....just didn't remember it when i wrote the reply!

According to the tutorial it would appear there are 4 different spokes per wheel: the inners have 2 different lengths and so do the outers.

I'll await your good deed. In the meantime i took off the old tyre with levers. From start to finish. I.e taking the wheel off the bike to having the tyre off took 35 minutes...........whats the betting it takes longer to put the new tyre on........ready......steady............GO!

see you in about 10 hours!!

[NEV]

Triton John kindly sent me this 'how to' for re-spoking the other week, as I need to re-lace a 21" front hub into a rear 18" rim, so I can run a Supermoto set up.

Thought it might come in handy in this thread

Spoke Wheel Lacing

I like Spoke Wheels. They just look good ! But, unfortunately, it seems looks is as far as anyone ever goes with wire spoke wheels. They need regular maintenance, but seldom get it. The problem with spokes and nipples is that they do, over a period of time, get loose. Lots of times no one notices that they are loose till they fail. A quick, down and dirty way of testing them is to just tap them. A loose spoke will have a dull sound, while a tight spoke will have a hi pitched, tinkly sound. Go try tapping some spokes and you will see what I mean.

If you have some loose spokes you will need to tighten them with a spoke wrench. Tighten the loose spoke until it has a nice ring to it. Now, you would think that all the spokes would need to have the same sound to have the same tightness, but this is not really true. Tap the spokes of a new bike with no miles on it and you will see they have different tones. New wheels are put together with nice new parts, special spoke torque wrenches, and people who actually know how to assemble wheels. I think we can safely assume that the new wheels are trued and torqued right, but the ones I've tried have different sounds. Very similar to be sure, but different. So I just tighten the loose ones till they have a nice ring to them, and leave it at that.

Sometimes we find a spoke has broken. Depending on which spoke has broken, you may be able to replace it. If not, you can tape or wire it to another spoke, or cut it out. I leave the old nipple in to fill the hole in the rim. Lots of dirt racers wire spokes together where they cross so if one breaks it will not wrap or flail around the wheel. One broken spoke is usually not much of a problem. Two is not so good, but as long as they are not close together you should be OK. Three means you had better deal with things real soon and if they are close together the wheel could fail very suddenly. <center>

DO NOT RIDE THE BIKE IN THIS CONDITION.</center>

So, we find our wheel has a bunch of broken spokes or a broken hub and things are not going well. We have several choices.

• Get a new wheel assembly. This is very expensive. I would do this only if the bike is very new and the wheel really trashed.
  

  • Replace the broken spokes, rim, and/or hub. Then relace and true the wheel. This would seem to be the best way except for a couple of things.
    

    • The spoke nipples, on older bikes, often get rusted so tight to the spoke you can't get them off without cutting the spoke.
      

      • The spoke nipples, on a high performance bike, can stretch the threads on the nipple and spoke. This can lock them together. This, in turn makes you cut all the spokes off. The spoke and nipple sets for some bikes only cost $30.00, which is not too bad. However, I know at least one high performance dirt racer who's spokes cost almost $200.00 for the set.
        

      [*]Get a used wheel. If you have an older bike, I think the best plan is to look for a used wheel at a motorcycle salvage yard. Check both the spokes, and the truing of the wheel before you buy the wheel and plan to replace the wheel bearings. The cost of the used wheel will be a lot less than going any other way.

If you must go the wheel relacing route, here are some things to remember. Count how many spokes there are, 36, 40, whatever. You must have the same number of spokes in the rim as in the hub (well, DUH !). The replacement spokes have to be of the right length, and gauge (diameter). The spokes have to have the right ends. That is, with no bend in the head, some bend, or a lot of bend. Straight spokes with no bend in the head are the strongest. Most spoke wheels do not use tubeless tires BUT, some DO, the spokes being off set in the rim, so there is an airtight seal. There are different thread pitches too, but as long as the spokes and nipples are the same, who cares, right ?

OK, we looked for a new wheel and found nothing. So we got a new rim or hub, got all our spoke nipples loosened, and are ready to do it to it. Now this is how I do it. I don't do very many wheels so I find this way to work best for me. I tie each pair of spokes (Right and left sides together) together with some wire. I then take all the nipples off the spokes. I then take the rim off the spokes. I then cut the wire on one of the spoke pairs and remove the two spokes. Then I put them into the new hub, or replace them with new ones. I do this 'cuse I aren't too smart. I get confused easily. There can be as many as four different types of spokes on a wheel with a conical hub. Two different types of spoke ends and two different lengths. Most times there are just two different spoke types per wheel. I keep changing spoke pairs and rewiring them together till all the parts are replaced. If you are doing a lot of wheels and they are all the same, you will not have to do this. It will become second nature to you. But if you are only doing one wheel, this method will save you time and aggravation.

Now screw in the nipples the same amount on each spoke and finger tight. Take the assembled wheel and put it on the bike and tighten the axle. If it's a rear wheel, adjust it like you would if you where adjusting the rear chain. Now comes the fun part. Truing the wheel. You wheel must be no more then two, onehunderths of an inch in out of roundness and side play. Set up a dial micrometer to measure out of roundness and side play. If it is a dirt bike wheel and it doesn't go very fast and your not too picky, you can fix a piece of wire as a pointer, instead. Set the pointer of the micrometer so that it almost touches the inside of the rims. Now turn the wheel. You will see rim move up and down. Now here comes the tricky part. Locate the spoke (call it #1) that is at the highest point of the wheel. Tighten it a little. Then tighten four or five spokes (#s 2,3,4,5) on each side of that (#1) spoke. Tighten each one a little less as you get further from the highest (#1) spoke. If you tighten the highest (#1) spoke one turn then tighten the next spoke three quarter of a turn, the next half a turn, the next a quarter turn. Do this on either side of the highest (#1) spoke. Now turn the wheel, again find the highest spoke (point) and do it all over again. After a while the height of the highest point on the rim will get smaller and smaller. Soon you will be turning each spoke only a little bit. Once you are pretty close, and before the spokes are real tight, change and measure the side play.

Set the dial indicator point on the side of the rim, and spin the wheel. Pick the point of the rim that moves furthest to the right. Again tighten the nipple on the (call it #1) spoke at that point, however, make sure that that spoke (#1) goes to the opposite side of the hub. Now tighten every other spoke (#s 2,3,4), ahead and behind of that spoke (#1), decreasing the amount of the tightening on each spoke as you get further away from the first (#1) spoke. Make sure all the spokes you tighten go to the left side of the hub. This will pull the rim to the left. Spin the wheel again, find the high spot, or rather high side spot, and do it all again. You will need to keep measuring side play and out of roundness, back and forth, as you tighten the nipples. Also, remember to keep the rim centered in relationship to the swingarm or front fork tubes, depending on whether you are doing a rear or front wheel. When I say turn the #1 spoke on either side play or out-of-round one turn I don't necessarily mean one turn. Use your head. You may need to turn it several turns OR only a half or quarter turn. Same with each of the other spokes before and after the #1 spoke. Turn them in proportion to the amount you turned the #1 spoke. Each one a little less than the one before it. #1 one turn, #2 half turn, #3 quarter turn, #4 one eighth turn, ETC. In some instances you might have to loosen or tighten the spoke nipples on the opposite side of the wheel to the ones you are working on, too.

Got it ? If you don't completely understand, reread the above till you do. Do it wrong and with each adjustment things will get further and further out of kilter ! If things start going wrong, STOP. Try doing the OPPOSITE of what you were doing. If things are still going wrong, loosen all the spokes up and start over. DON'T just keep tightening things up and further out of whack. You can really bend up a rim by being bull headed and just driving on no matter what.

Take note, you may have to go back and loosen the nipples or tighten the nipples to get the rim to move into the right position. You may have to experiment a bit, before everything starts to come together. Go SLOW. Lots and lots of small adjustments is the trick.

You will want to have the rim centered, trued, and round before you get the spoke nipples real tight. This means no more that two, onehunderedths (2/100") of an inch out of true, both side and out of round. Doing it better than that would not hurt anything, especially if you like going fast. Faster you go, the truer it needs to be. Once this is done, tighten up all the spokes about half a turn at a time. Keeping a sharp eye on all three things, center alignment, side movement and out-of-roundness, tighten the spokes till they make a nice crisp sound. If you happen to have a spoke torque wrench, use it now to set the right torque. Check everything one last time ands make sure the spokes do not protrude through the nipple, possibly putting a hole in the tube. If they stick through, grind them down.

Remember, this is the trick. If you want to get this done right and as quick as possible, GO SLOW. Try to do this fast and you will just screw things up and it will take forever to get it right. Lots of little, tiny adjustments. Hundreds of them. That's the way to go.

Personally I reckon all this info would do well as a 'sticky'

[NE0]

Good news....for me anyway!

Managed to buy a pair of wheels including tyres for my 175 for £50

Tyres are ok and its got rusty spokes!

However, the reason for buying them is to get mine respoked with stainless without taking the bike off the road for the winter.

Might even just use them EVERY winter...

its a new option

[Airhead]

aha option 4 is it

[NE0]

Option 4

The spare ebay wheels have arrived with part worn tyres: the front tyre has hardly any wear, the rear is worn with just under half its tread left. The spokes are quite rusty and the rims are best described as a little tatty. However at £50 the pair I think it was a good buy.

I've spoken with 'Owen' at manchesterExtreme, and he'll rebuild my originals with new S/S spokes for approx £130 the pair.

I've now got to do a swap, but i might just put new bearings and seals in the ebay set for peace of mind. Then send mine off next week.

There's very little in the way of 'small industry' down here on the South Coast, but i did find a one firm within driving distance and they quoted £130 PER wheel (£85 for the spokes and £45 labour). and a 6 week turn around. Perhaps they're platinium spokes!

So even with postage to Manchester I'm better off.........thanks Paul for advice and link.

[NE0]

The 'temporary wheels' are on.

I did replace the bearings and seals from Weemoto (only down the road)

Good job too! two of the four bearings were rusted and the seals were shot!

The tyres are a bit cracked in places, I've seen a lot worse on other bikes put it that way! useable yes, but not forever!

Now just got to get my original tyres off, clean the rims up, pack 'em up, and send them off..........

..where's me sellotape!

[Airhead]

is your hub finish good enough NEO ?,

[NE0]

Yeahhh.....eeemmmm I was just looking at them this morning!!...................I think they could do with a lick of paint!

otherwise i'm going to have nice shiney rims and spokes with dull old hubs.......more work for me then!

[Airhead]

thats why I asked, nows the time to do it as its best done with no spokes, want to see more pics?