|   successfully straightened my bent rim | mhike
Sep 19, 2003 11:13 AM | | I was able to straighten my front wheel pretty well. I posted a few days ago about my crash and how my wheel was pretty bent all the way around.
I loosened all of the spokes, then I spent a couple of days finding the high spots (roundness away from me if I was looking from the tire bed, but slightly towards myself. I put the high spot (pointing away from me) against a 5 inch wide pillar in my house and placed my hands roughly at the edges of the spot. I'd push forward. I got the rim straighter than before, but it was still twisted. I spent a few days fie minutes here, five there doing this. In one operation, I had to untwist the rim, my feet holding down one side, my arms twisting the other side in the opposite direction of the twist. I placed the wheel in my fork and tightened the spokes in stages using the eye method against the Marzocchi arch (comes to a point in the middle) and the brake bosses. The wheel is nearly straight now, with only minor tuning up with some zip ties. I have pretty good spoke tension all around, considering the condition it was in before. |
| re: successfully straightened my bent rim | uofabill
Sep 19, 2003 11:54 AM | | Glad you had success. I had read your first post and started to respond then. I have had pretty good luck straightening some rims that had long lateral bends in them.
You got the first step right which is to loosen the spokes sometimes even taking them completely loose.
From that point I have laid the wheel flat on a hard flat surface like on a 2x4 on a curb and then carefully pound it with a rubber mallet. If that didn't work I have put a 2x4 block under each side of the bend and then pound in the middle over crooked section. You may also need to place a piece of board on top of the rim to pound on. You may need to have someone help you to hold everything in place. It can be hard to hold it all together and hammer at the same time. The key is to use caution and not whale away wildly on it and bend the side of the rim (braking surface on rim brakes) in and make a bad situation worse.
I have been able to get the worst of the bend out of a wheel this way and then finish up by truing it. I have had pretty good luck getting some pretty warped wheels back straight this way. |
| re: Congradulations (nm) | Walt Dizzy
Sep 19, 2003 12:51 PM | | |
| congraTulations. Spell well or die. nm | club
Sep 19, 2003 4:01 PM | | |
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