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Had planned to build up a cub scout frame for my eldest who has topped out at a mighty 5'.
I've a set of American classic 26" disc wheels I had thought to use in the build as they are nice and light. I've spotted that although the front wheel is true pretty much every nipple is cracked (age I guess).
What's a rebuild, £1 a spoke and the labour of £50 a wheel?
Oddly (or not?), the rear looks fine but on the front everyone is cracked. I guess I should get both sorted.
So £160-200 to get the wheels rebuilt, is that getting into a new wheel set territory?
Just replace the nipples with brass ones and labour should be about £25/wheel.
Alloy nipples are usually a nightmare. Always use brass unless they are for some fancy race wheels.
Where have they cracked? Is the rim still ok, or has that got stress fractures as well (often they will if it's an old rim).
If the rim and hub were in good shape I might consider repairing myself by replacing the nipples (assuming they haven't seized onto the spokes - again more likely with alloy nipples).
The rims look good, the spokes sound good,I've no idea if they have seized.
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This is the worst, another few are similar and all looked cracked in a similar way.
its likely to be really tricky to replace just the nipples as getting alloy nips off the spokes once they've started degrading is a nightmare, in the past I've had to just snip all the spokes.
That said, if the kid is light and the wheel is true I'd just continue riding it for now, it's extremely unlikely to fail in a catastrophic way
Have you tried turning that extremely corroded one? It may just crumble and be impossible to remove.
Replace with some Sapim brass polyax nipples then just get the wheels trued if you lack wheel building skills, spokes should be good unless they've got some damage from flying rocks or a crash.
Alloy nipples crack due to corrosion, water down the nipple which sets up galvanic corrosion with the stainless steel spokes, resulting in an aluminium oxide build up which seizes and then cracks the nipple. Anodised nipples and spoke prep can help.
buy a box of suitable brass nipples, and then see if you can start replacing them one by one. Shouldnt take too long, and if the visible part is cracked, there is still the slot head in the rim end.
Have removed the tape and every head looks covered in salt and none of the nipples are moving.
I'll take it to the shop and get a quote. Tempted to just run it and get rebuilt later in the year.
If you use Alloy nipples use good quality Sapin ones and dip the spoke threads in boiled linseed oil. On all my years of commuting winter and summer with loads of salted roads i have yet to see any corrosion. DT have had problems. Quality is not what it once was.
Tbf, I sweat a lot and I've ruined wheels (and ally frames too) before (but on the turbo, not MTB wheels).
Thanks all!
I re-nippled a wheel many years ago, it's still on the bike now. However they were those ones with a big fat 6mm nut on the other side, so I was able to use a socket to remove them all. The reason I replaced them was that the square bit on the exposed hub side crumbled as soon as I touched it so I couldn't true the wheel. If this happens to your nipples you'll be a bit stuck and it might need a rebuild.
Loads of mine cracked- Prime carbon road wheels.
Bought a load of nipples from Superstar, Sapim I think for a few quid for 100.
I can’t see them now, must have sold out.
I've used loads of Halo brass nipples to build wheels, never had a problem.
Slowly working through my Hunts as the nipples systematically snap. This time round I'm replacing the lot.
If you can slacken off some of the good nipples enough then you will be able to move the spokes around a bit more and might be able to get the bad nipples off from outside the rim with something like some pliers. Then replace with brass nipples.