Bicycle Mechanics - Loose spokes

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Tilton
10-27-07, 08:39 AM
Hi,
I'm in the process of cleaning up an old road bike and today while working on the back wheel noticed that there's some seriously loose spokes. I know that i should tighten them, but are there strategies for doing this? There's a slight kink in the wheel, will tightening these spokes straighten this out?

It's a Weinmann wheel, with 18 tapered spokes on each side, some of which look bent. The hub is a Gipiemme sprint.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Tilton

tellyho
10-27-07, 08:42 AM
Check out Sheldon on wheel truing. The short of it: fairly simple to fix, really simple to f--- up.
Scooper
10-27-07, 09:03 AM
Another good reference for truing a wheel is Barnett's Manual (http://www.bbinstitute.com/manual.htm). Scroll down the page to "Download Chapter 17: Wheel Truing and Repair" and right click on the link to download and save the chapter to your hard drive.

Tilton
10-28-07, 03:04 AM
Thanks for the advice, really helpful. I think I need some tools — Tilton.
DannoXYZ
10-28-07, 05:03 PM
Get a set of the 4-sided Park spoke-wrenches. Really handy and gives nice positive grip on the nipples. A lot of times, they even work on nipples which have been stripped by 2-sided wrenches. :)