Duggy007 Posted June 10, 2012 Posted June 10, 2012 Hi I'm just starting a rebuild on a 79 SR500. The alloy wheels need a good polish which is gonna take me a while, but can I remove the spokes one at a time and replace them without having to jig it up etc? I intend to race the bike next season if I can get it ready??????
slice Posted June 11, 2012 Posted June 11, 2012 Hi Duggy, be nice if you were to do an intro first old mate . As to your question about the spokes I think you will find that you HAVE to take ALL the spokes out and then rebuild it from scratch cos of the tension on each spoke, it's a long time since I did a rebuild but seem to remember that the only way was a complete strip and then rebuild, you CAN replace a single spoke if one get's broken but not all of them. it's something to do with keeping the wheel rim true as you tension each spoke into position, no easy answer or fix I'm afraid.
Moderator Airhead Posted June 11, 2012 Moderator Posted June 11, 2012 i think you will find that some of the spokes get in the way when tring to remove others but im not talking from experience here. I you do strip the wheels down entirely dont forget to note down the offset before you start
Speedshop Posted June 16, 2012 Posted June 16, 2012 Jap rims have no off set (except the RD400 rear wheel) You won't get the nipples undone, even if you did with all the other spokes tight you won't get just one spoke out very easily. Normally removing spokes involves a small pair of bolt croppers (as was the case with my SR wheel rebuild)
PB1 Posted June 17, 2012 Posted June 17, 2012 In theory you can do it that way, but it's going to be hard work. As said above, you are going to have to cut some out as the nipples will be seized to the spokes or may be rounded-off already, and to get some out you will need to remove others first, and then replace them again before moving on to the next one. If you are prepared to renew quite few along the way you could do it one at a time. Just think of it as replacing a single broken spoke 36 times. After replacing each one, tighten the spoke while watching for up/down trueness and in-out trueness. Get the tightness so that it sounds the same, when tapped with a metal object (screwdriver blade, etc) as it did before you removed it. When you are happy all is okay, move onto the next one and do the same. 36 times. You will almost certainly find that it will need some constant tinkering for a while in use, as the wheel settles in, to get it properly true. As I said, it can be done, but will take far longer than stripping it all out and doing it from scratch. I considered doing mine this way, but not for long, as it's much more time consuming than doing it in one go when you look into the practicalities of it. I've now bought 2 sets of new spokes and will be re-lacing my wheels soon.
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