adavis84

I have a pair of Shimano R550 wheels that have seen better days. Cones were are all shot, so I asked around to lbs's to see if anyone could round them up. One actually came through and got me a complete NOS set. I had already decided to get new wheels, but felt obliged to buy the parts they so diligently sniffed out for me. I had them look at the cups and their opinion was that they were still in good enough shape to use. I was going to overhaul the hubs with the new cones and sell the set when it occurred to me the rim sidewalls are pretty near their end and would be a tough sell to someone who knows what they're looking at, and I feel it would be irresponsible to sell them to someone who doesn't know what they're looking at.

SO...under normal circumstances I'd either trash the rims and sell just the hubs, or lace up a new set of rims and keep as a back up. Problem is: EVERY friggen part on these is proprietary so new rims are not so easy making the hubs a tough sell and me rebuilding the a PITA. I've done some searching but I can't really find the OE rims and I don't know enough about Shimano wheels to know if I can sub in something else.

Question 1: Are there substitutes for the OE rims on a Shimano WH-R550 set that I could use to rebuild these?
Question 2: Is that even a good idea? Should I just bust them down, part out the hubs and spokes and move on?

adavis84

I read this thread: Dura Ace WH 7801 hubs...are there rims available for a build?

Posts #8 and #10 have some (maybe hairbrained?) suggestions for adapting these hubs to conventional rims. So, just how bad an idea are either of these? I have time to spare and an uncanny patience for futzy tasks...

CliffordK

If you choose to sell them on E-Bay, I'd either sell them whole, or remove the spokes rather than cutting the spokes, which will be a pain to do. However, the spokes and nipples would be beneficial to buyers. But, you'll obviously get beat up on prices.

If you disassemble the wheel, you could measure the ERD on the rim, and probably replace with any rim with a similar ERD and number of holes. The spokes might be able to be rethreaded to make them shorter, but that would be a pain.