First time posting on the forum, so I'm not sure how this will go but I'm also going to revive this thread. I too have suffered an eyelet failure. The spoke is fine and close inspection of the spoke hole in the rim shows no obvious damage.The bottom part (hub side) of the eyelet is intact and so slipped down the spoke just as Map Tester describes in his post. the top part (tube side) of the eyelet was gone when I remove the rim tape and checked inside of the spoke hole. I found a sliver of shattered eyelet material so I suspect the rest is between the double walls of my rim. I have '87 Mavic Titan rims which are stock on my '87 Trek Elance 400 D.

Closer inspection and careful consideration (driven by the pricepoint on a new rim to replace what appears to be an eyelet failure on perfectly good, if old, rims) led me to draw a tentative conclusion. The eyelet failure occurred on the spoke immediately adjacent to the butt joint for the rims. Furthermore the bottom of the eyelet for the spoke on the other side of the butt joint on the rims also appears to have come away from the rim a little towards the hub and so I suspect that this has also seperated and is about to slip down the rim also, potentially that spoke is about to go too. I think that what may have happened is that the butt joint has resulted in accelerated corrosion of those eyelets.

Theories aside, I am convinced my rim is sound and am determined to try to find replacement eyelets. I'll measure them up and harness the power of google to source a replacement. My main concern is how I'll tool the eyelet into place, as it seat in the lower wall of the rim so the spoke hole is unlikely to easily take an eyelet tool. If anyone is at all interested I can post some pictures and if anyone has any information or advice on sourcing eyelets and replacing them that would be great.