Spent quite a few hours during the long Swedish winter lacing up a set of motard wheels.
Was able to get hold of a set of rims a while ago, turned out the front had the wrong spoke pattern so ended up buying a brand new and 2 spoke kits from Woody.
The original plans was to use the hubs from the stock wheels since I bought a set of narrower wheels more suited for off-road wheels.
But a cheap set with quite damaged rims came up for sale so bought them to get the hubs.
Had some help from my dad to build a cradle for lacing, used a Marc Parnes balancer and a gauge to to keep track of the progress, since I only had one I had to move it between roundness and side to side.
To get it centered I used the piece of wood seen to the left of the wheel and laid it along the hub and measured distance to the rim. Front was easy since it was centered, the rear need to be offset a little.
Bought a Pitposse spoke torque wrench but turned out the largest head for it is 6,9mm and the spoke nipples are 7,0, was tempted to just grind one out a little but cut out an extra head for it to work and not needing to alter a stock one. After that it was great to use.
Have two sprocket carriers and plan to use a smaller rear sprocket with the motard wheels, here is a trick to torque the nuts holding the sprocket to the carrier:
Some rubber for the new wheels:
The rim bands that I tried ordering felt very thin and narrow not worth the money at all, ordered from mynetmoto, the prices on tires might be good but DON´T order rim bands from them.
Cut an old inner tube to pieces and made my own sturdier rim bands:
Roughed up the surface with sand paper and then the same glue as with patching tubes, plastic bag wrapped around so it would´t stick to the wood pieces helping clamp the glued area together while drying.
A little WD-40 (a small can is great to bring along when traveling) and a hole punch to make a hole for the valve steam:
Rubber ready to go on, double check the rotation:
Good tire lube really helps out when mounting tires, visting a local tire shop, bring some cookies or a six pack you can score some, bring a bottle that seals well and if scooping out of their big bucked remove the top layer that is filled with sand and dirt.
Good tire irons are also essential and NO bigger is not better, I use a set of KTM Short Tire Irons, if done correctly more force should not be needed.
Rubber in place:
Balancing the tires using the Marc Parnes balancer:
All done and hanging on my garage wall:
Will post more after trying them out!
Leave a Reply