I've got a set of Pro 4 hubs with Halo rims that are trashed and need replacing and due to a load of other bills trying to repair on the cheap. I also have some new brand new Chosen cheapie oem hubs with Race Face AR30 rims. plan is to swap the rims, lace and tension(ish) then get my LBS to finish off truing. But now I'm getting into the minefield of spoke lengths.
How critical is spoke length and what's tolerance upper / lower length? Been using probuilder.com to get lengths for the Hope RF combo but the Chosen hub isnt listed so cannot check to see what it should be to get an idea of what I can get away with.
Chosen front hub stripped and after expecting 16 of one length / 16 of another I actually have 17 @ 293 mm and 15@292mm so some botching in the factory maybe. And suggesting 1mm variance is deffo within "acceptable"?
According to prowheelbuilder.com, for the front I need 289.1 and 289.9 for hope/RF so in a nutshell 289 one side and 290 the other or can I use 32@290 and not worry? I'm gussing the latter given what I've just removed?! Could I re-use spokes 3mm longer or will I get into issues with not enough thread to take up the tension? That extra length wont come through the rim bed so no issues with tubeless....its just the wheel tension and thread length.
No idea about rear spoken lengths yet as not stripped that but same again? if the difference in length per side is 1-2 mm can I use same length spokes each side and if it's say 2-3mm from what I have from the chosen build can I reuse or is exact lenght critical for continuation of life?
You can round up/down to nearest even number as even numbers are sometimes the only choice. 3mm may be pushing it though.
Spokes usually only come in 2mm increments so that is a good indicator of how approximate you can be. And you can usually go a bit more.
First thing I would do is compare the ERD (rim diameter) of the old and new rims. If they are close then I would do a rim swap. That's a much easier DIY job. Tape the new rim to the old wheel then move the spokes over one at a time.
I'd be surprised if you lacing and part tensioning would be any cheaper at the LBS than just dropping the hubs and rims off. It doesn't take someone who knows what they're doing long to lace a wheel. if someone brought a part build to me, the 1st thing I'd do was back the spokes right off and bring back to tension myself anyway so I knew where I was at with it.
If you're going to lace and part-tension, you might as well just crack on and build the wheel yourself. Loads of online guides everywhere. Lot of people recommend the Roger Musson book, it's an good indepth read through. I've also found Ali Clarkson's (seperate lacing and tensioning) videos very clear and more useful to guide me through it as I work.
Don't forget the AR30 is an asymmetric rim, which will make a tiny difference to spoke length.
Careful with RF ERDs as sometimes they don't include spoke nipple head ?
You didn't ask about this, but, I bloody love these:
https://www.spokesfromryan.com/product/bsc-tools-sb-1-adjustable-spoke-nipple-driver/
Simply means every spoke starts out at the exact same point. Not quite as helpful if you've got a mix of spokes as you suggest but still very useful. You can get surprisingly close to a fully tensioned wheel with just the depth stop (you could genuinely build and ride on a wheel with just this, though, not a very good one probably)
torn. ERD is too different to reuse existing spokes but the nipples are fairly corroded and had a couple snap so would want to rebuild.
New spokes plus LBS intervention is knocking on the door of £150-£200 plus then annoyance time for bike out of action whilst I'm sorting it. Feels a lot to resurrect compared to a new set of wheels minus whatever I can get selling the pro4 hubs and aAR30 rims.
But then it feels like wasteful consumerism to buy new and not rebuild the hopes!
Dont know that I'd trust my first wheel building foray on an eBike.
I have a wheel building job to tackle myself because I thought I had a "bargain". I picked up nukeproof horizon Pro wheels for £135 for a 29" rear and a 27.5 front.. I figured I could swap them round to make a cheap mullet setup.
Defo seems like a job to do while in front of telly. No idea if it's as simple as it seemed in my head.
I'll second that thought. Lying in bed this am it all seemed so simple!! A quick undo of some spokes, swap it all over, quick tighten and away we go. I was amazed at how much tension there was when undoing the spokes.
Look on the bright side with like for like....as long as you put mark out which side spokes came from and which way round the rim goes at least everything should fit properly 🙂
Look on the bright side with like for like….as long as you put mark out which side spokes came from and which way round the rim goes at least everything should fit properly 🙂
Not necessarily - unlikely unless the hubs have been designed especially for matching length spokes. Rear hubs are wider, and so typically need slightly longer spokes, that can be offset by having bigger flanges - but I'd definitely not expect to be able to reuse spokes for a front/rear swap like that.
In this case, the Nukeproofs look like they're well matched for spoke reuse, though.
Yeah looking at the horizon Pro specs it seems the spoke lengths should be suitable for the swap. I'll get my head around it eventually. I've been pondering on different methods but I'm guessing it's gonna just be a case of pulling out every spoke and relacing each wheel from scratch.
If it works as I'd imagined then I think £135 for a good wheelset like that isn't too bad. Better than the stock wheels on my levo anyway.
Getting the hub dimensions for the chosen hub is easy enough, rest the hub on it's end cap on a flat surface and measure from the flat surface to the hub flanges and subtract that measurement from half the hubs width to get the flange to centre measurement, the flange diameter hole to hole is easy enough to measure. Double square nipples can be used if your spokes are 2mm too long, you can get away with 1mm too long with normal nipples and there's always nipple washers to add about half a milli.
I recently stripped an NSbikes wheel and had 4 different spoke length 270,269,268,267, 8 of each on normal 3 cross built, god knows what that's about.
Spocalc ftw. Install libre office if r'qd.
