Fallingwater

I need to shift a rear wheel's centre by 7 millimetres (because of issues with frame spacing and freewheel width). However, I have neither a tension gauge nor a dishing tool, just a spoke wrench.

If I loosen all the nipples on the non-drivetrain side by a very precise amount - say, half a turn of the wrench - and then tighten the nipples on the other side by exactly the same amount, would I end up with a reasonably straight wheel? And if so, do I need to do this in a particular order (I don't know, act on nipples 180 degrees apart maybe), or do I just pick a nipple on one side and go one by one?

mconlonx

Yes, this should work. Starting at the valve as a reference, adjust every other spoke, all of them on one side first, then do the other side, every other spoke. I find it much easier to get into a tighten-skip-tighten-skip-tighten and then loosen-skip-loosen-skip-loosen rhythm, than tighten-loosen-tighten-loosen alternating every spoke. The wheel should stay reasonably trued during this process, but will inevitably require a few small adjustments to get back to some semblance of absolutely true.

fietsbob

Reference is brake pads : Realize reaching across the far side of the wheel your perspective is reversed.... so CW is loosening CCW is tightening

the opposite of the side nearest You.

Bill Kapaun

The DS side spokes have much greater tension on them, so turning the nipples EQUAL amounts doesn't quite work.
You may have to loosen twice (or so) as much on the NDS.

If you were dishing the opposite direction, you could probably get by just tightening the NDS spokes.

You say 7mm. Does that mean the rim has to move 3.5mm in relation to the hub?
IF so, I'd probably loosen NDS spokes so the rim shifts 2-2.5mm and then tighten DS spokes.
You may want to do each side in 2-3 equal steps.

Fallingwater

No, the rim has to move 7mm.

Picture as clarification

This wheel seems to be relatively neutrally dished, though (hence my problems). I'm not sure if this is because it's a cheap wheel and whoever put it together just didn't care, or what - it's a single-speed that I'm trying to use with a three-speed narrow freewheel, but it'd be off-center even if I were trying to use it with a single-speed freewheel, though in that case I could offset the axle with spacing nuts and have done with it - which I can't do my three-speed because then the smaller cog is too close to the frame (it's supposed to look like this instead, but when it does the wheel is off-center and I need to re-dish it, hence this thread).

Edit: note, this is a 110mm-width axle in a 120mm-width frame, so it requires spacing nuts whichever way I decide to mount it.

Bill Kapaun

Pictures can be difficult to interpret with the stays running at an angle and the wheel not.
Just to make sure something isn't "wonky", measure the brake track difference on each side from BOTH the seat & chain stays.

And use the minimal amount of extra spacing on the DS axle.Every MM makes things less difficult.

Fallingwater

My digital caliper has a hard time getting in there, but there don't seem to be any "wonky" things going on (by which I assume you meant varying difference between chainstays and seatstays). I took more precise measurements while I was at it, and the rim needs to shift to the right 6.2mm.

Bill Kapaun

Sometimes I'll just take a wood splinter (tapered) and see how far it goes in to compare side to side.
It doesn't measure, but will tell you if things are "parallel".

Retro Grouch 

Can we start at the beginning? You skipped over the part where you say why you need to redish the wheel and I think that part might be important. There is a limit on how far a wheel can be dished. 130 OLD road wheels with 8+ speed cassettes are already real close to that limit.

sch

There is also the consideration that the last 5-8 spokes you tighten up will progressively just torque the spoke (ie twist the spoke without
the nipple progressing on the threads) and you can't be certain that the spokes you are loosening aren't doing the same. Spokes and
nipples tend to become adherent with time, freezing together to a variable degree, even with "lube" when assembled, which may just as
well be a variant loktite. So what sounds easy and straight forward becomes a mess. YMMV

3alarmer 

...from your description, I think you ought to re-evaluate the spacers on your axle and where they sit. often a problem such as the one you describe can be solved without redishing the wheel at all, and if different spacers, arranged differently on both sides of the axle can do this for you and the freewheel cogs still clear the chainstay, this is your preferred solution.

CliffordK

Dishing isn't that hard. You can evaluate your dish by flipping the wheel around backwards in the stand or on the bike to verify it is centered properly.

You will need to re-true the wheel. No getting around that, especially with moving the wheel so much. Although, if you're careful, you won't introduce much of a hop which is always a bit more of a pain.

7mm is quite a bit. One issue I had with the last wheel I redished was the nipples all bottomed out. So, I ended up having to remove all of the driveside nipples and add 2 nipple washers. I might have been able to cut new threads, but the nipple washers seemed to work well.

I've mostly done tension by feel without a gauge. You can "pluck" the spokes to gauge tension and even tension if you wish. If you're a musician, you can even hear the notes, and might be able to get a pretty close tension read, before & after. Noting, of course, the DS and NDS tensions are usually different.

Fallingwater

No, this cannot be done - the freewheel cogs don't clear the chainstay. I know because it's the way I had originally intended it - I'm terrified of spoke wrenches as I've messed up every wheel I've ever touched with one, but at this point I don't see an alternative.

If I space the axle uniformly - 5mm on one side, 5mm on the other - the result is that the freewheel is sufficiently distant from the frame, but the rim is off-center (hence this thread).

If I space it offset - 10-12mm on the non-drivetrain side, nothing or very little on the drivetrain side - then the rim is centered, but the smaller cog is too close to the chainstay, and the chain hits it.

I could space it offset and then add spacers on the drivetrain side as well, but this would end up bending the frame outward, which is what I've been trying to avoid - the frame is old and somewhat battered and I'm not sure how much cold-setting it can handle.

All right.

I'm in Italy and this is a seventies-vintage Torpado citybike, originally with a five-speed 15-16-17-18-22 freewheel. It was given to me in terrible shape after years of neglect sitting unused on a balcony, with everything seized and rusted. Moved by sentiment and an obsession for fixing everything I can fix I've been slowly bringing it back from death.

It had steel wheels, which needed replacing - both because they were rusty and because they brake badly at the best of times and lose most of their already-wimpy braking power in the rain.

So I bought two new aluminium wheels for it, but choosing the rear one posed a problem: frame spacing standards have changed since the seventies, and these days everything with gears has 135mm axles, with narrower width being reserved to single-speeds and fixies. Unable to find a 120mm wheel fit to take the original freewheel without buying vintage parts at vintage prices, and unwilling to cold-set the frame to 135mm in fear of damaging it or bending it unevenly, I bought instead a 110mm single-speed wheel and the narrow 16-19-22 freewheel you can see in the pictures (a gear setup that makes more sense to me anyway). My idea - or rather, my hope - was that spacing the axle out to 120mm to fit the frame would give enough space to fit the 3-speed freewheel even though the wheel wasn't meant for it.

And fit it does - but the rim is off-centered, and I believe this to be poor assembly rather than the fact that it was originally meant as a single-speed, because it's off-centered with the axle spaced evenly - which means it'd be off-centered even if I were trying to fit it to a 110mm frame. The fact that when I received the wheel the nuts were screwed in so tight I could barely rotate the axle, and I had to go to a local mechanic and ask him to use his impact gun to unscrew them - so I could grease the bearings properly and then set the nuts to a tightness that didn't make the balls beg for mercy - lends credibility to the poor assembly theory.

"But, why don't you go where you bought the wheels and tell them to fix their mess?"

Because I bought them online, and though I could theoretically complain and demand a fix it'd take time and I'd have to ship the wheel back, which would be a tremendous annoyance and a massive time sink, not to mention expensive as I'd have to pay for shipping of a rather large item.

Edit: I'm starting to suspect my NDS seatstay and chainstay might be bent outward by the same amount. Eyeballing them it doesn't look like it, but I took a picture from a different perspective and there certainly seems to be more space on the ND side. It's late now and I've been thinking about this too long, and it might well be a perspective illusion after all, so I'll have a good night's sleep, tackle the problem tomorrow and report on my findings.

CliffordK

I think there are some notes about string frame alignment. Sheldon Brown? Probably other sites too.

As far as truing, I do like truing in my stand, but I use a fairly simple stand. Dad made it years ago. This is my nephew trying it out.



It probably isn't much better than truing on a bike. One basically uses a pencil, pen, or BIC razor as a reference point. But, it is convenient, and it may be handy to have a stand rather than learning to true a wheel on a bike.

Note, front wheels and rear wheels have different spacing. This stand more or less springs out to accommodate wider hubs.

Just take it easy with the truing. A little at a time.

3alarmer 

...a single speed rear wheel has less dish than one designed for multiple cogs/freewheel for obvious reasons. You seem to understand this,and indeed, as you have surmised, if the wheel you received was not dished properly between the locknuts to begin with, there's something amiss.

I'm concerned at this point that you are starting on the wheel before you are certain the frame dropouts are aligned parallel and equidistant from the centerline plane of your bike, because if not, you will end up doing either the wrong thing or a lot of work for no good reason. AS stated by someone else, Google the "string method for checking frame alignment" and follow the instructions.

Redishing a newly built wheel is not usually a big deal, but I'm reluctant to start on it unless your frame is well aligned...almost every older bike I've Worked on has required some frame and/or fork alignment. If that's not reasonably true, it doesn't matter how well your wheel is dished and trued, your bike will pull to one side or the other.

3alarmer 

jimincalif

Before anything else, measure the wheel dish independent of the frame. Remove the tire from the rim, set out 3 equal size cans of installation fluid (beer) on at flat table in a circle the same diameter as the rim, set the rim on the cans, and measure from the table top to the edge of the cone locking nut or spacer that sits against the dropout when the wheel is on the bike. Turn the wheel over and make the same measurement and compare it to the first measurement. They should be the same. If they are then the wheel is dished properly and perhaps the frame has issues. If they are not, then you can dish the wheel to center it between the locknuts.

Fallingwater

I did the string thing and it cleared any doubts: the frame is straight to, frankly, an impressive degree for such an old bike - exactly the same distance from both sides of the seatpost to the string, down to the tenth of a millimetre. I measured three times to be sure.

I'm even more suspicious of the wheel now. Without touching the dishing, this is the only way I can achieve total centering - and note that this is impossible with the wheel as delivered; I had to use a narrower nut on the DS cone, and if I wanted to use it like this I'd have to unscrew the axle somewhat to get more of it on the NDS side so the wheel nuts have something to screw on:



If I threw on a single-speed freewheel it would be usable, if somewhat silly-looking - and I confess I'm tempted to do it, because while I enjoyed overhauling all the seized mechanicals this particular problem has been going on for entirely too long and is making me miserable - but at this point I'm pretty sure getting any sort of gearing here will require significant re-dishing. If it's even possible at all...

CliffordK

That almost looks like it has a reverse dish (although it could be the photo). Are the left side spokes at higher tension than the right side? Higher pitch if you pluck them?

How odd.

I wonder if someone built it backwards, then has traded it around a bit with single-speed applications before you got it.

Is there any way for you to estimate the length of the right side and left side spokes? I'd be tempted to pull out two spokes and check their lengths. If the right side spokes are actually longer than the left side spokes, then the best thing would be to do an entire tear-down and rebuild from scratch.

I'm sure you wanted wheel building practice

JBHoren

Just to note, this is an interesting and informative thread (made all the more so by the uniformly high level of discourse). Thanks to the OP and to all contributors.

Fallingwater

Why thanks! I try to be informative both when asking for advice and when giving it.

It is the photo; the camera was not perfectly perpendicular to the wheel.

Using the Mark I Eyeball, it almost seems there is zero dish; if I set the wheel so it's as perpendicular to my eyesight as possible, I can see more or less the same amount of spokes on the left and right side. Also I can't distinguish much of a pitch difference; there is some, but no side is consistently higher-pitched than the other.

The wheel is new. I bought it from a reputable e-store, but it wasn't their product - they just re-sell it. I'll be writing a complaint - if anything it might push them to double-check their products - but as I mentioned earlier, going through the return rigmarole would probably cost me more than a new wheel entirely, and at that point I might as well buy a new wheel somewhere else and use this one as an oddly-shaped single-speed in the meantime.

I'm very wary of pulling spokes; when I had do to it to an old mountain bike (broken spoke) no amount of tinkering made the wheel straight again and I had to get it to a shop and pay them to true it.

However, it kind of looks like they might have the same length on both sides.

I did not. I very much did not. In fact, the whole reason why I bought these accursed wheels instead of buying new rims, spokes and nipples and rebuilding them on the old rear hubs was exactly so I wouldn't have to bother wheel building, or hopefully even touch a spoke wrench - as I mentioned earlier, they make me deeply uneasy. (Also for some reason buying all the bits was almost twice as expensive than buying the complete wheels.)

CliffordK

I think I'd talk to your vendor before you do any more. If the wheel is cheap, perhaps they'll just ship you a replacement or give you a huge discount rather than return or try to rebuild the wheel themselves.

Was it sold as a single speed wheel, or a multi-speed wheel? Did it have axle spacers on the right side?

With the wheel sitting in the dropouts like you have it, measure from the dropout to the hub flanges (spokes). It really does look like a reverse dish.

3alarmer 

...
...two bits of information, which you can use or not, as seems appropriate (now that we are certain your frame is aligned properly).

If your wheel is reverse dished, you can assume that somewhere along the line someone assembled the axle components 180* in error and you can correct that by reversing them. The only way you can figure that out reliably is either with a dishing gauge (someone might have one close to you, like the guy who helped you disassemble your axle in the first place), or with the cans method as mentioned previously by someone. Eyeballing dish is not a good way to do this. It's wildly inaccurate.

If there is no dish or minimal dish, moving the rim in the direction you want it to go can be accomplished by inserting it in your frame (with the appropriate spacers and nuts to make it a 120 or whatever you need in there to fit exactly between your dropouts), turning the whole thing upside down so the wheel spins freely. Starting at the valve hole as your reference point, use the proper fitting spoke wrench (buy a single one, not the vexatious multiple sizes ones), and do complete revolutions of the wheel, first loosening your non drive spokes by one full turn (like you said, every other spoke), then an alternate revolution tightening every drive side spoke a full turn. After the first complete cycle, measure or eyeball how far the rim has moved in the direction you want it to go, and as you creep up on where it needs to be, go to half turns.

You can use zip ties on the frame stays to help you measure the centering if you want to, or some sort of toothpicks with tape.....things like that. Or just eyeball it if that's adequate to your needs.

Once the rim is where you want it in terms of centering, stress relieve the bends at the hub flanges, because this has not been done on your cheap-assed wheelset, and will make them last a lot longer. Finally, use your upside downy, frame and toothpick wheel truing setup to true up any deviations from plane you might have induced in your wheel with all your spoke fiddling.

It helps a lot if you can be comfortable when you do this, so if your frame and wheel are not on a workbench, set them up at working height on chair or chairs, and sit down on another chair in front of this arrangement.


It's also worth mentioning that most cheap wheels are machine built, thus the tensions are invariably low. You can probably make your wheel more durable by increasing the tensions by a turn or three beyond what they are now....but that might be overkill and has some associated peril.

3alarmer 

Note: just looking at your photo, my first instinct would be to go over to the miscellaneous parts drawer and try to accomplish centering by moving the axle components and adding some spacers and or additional locknuts.......way quicker and easier than fiddling with the spokes.

At the very least, there seems to be a spacer missing from the drive side. And yes, from the photo, at least, it looks like dish is backward, which means this solution won't work.