.and now my rear rim is screwed up....halp

After not being able to ride from a broken carb my rear rim is all wonky now. It bowed out to the left on one side and the right is now kicked over some enough to rub the chain id say all in all there's like 1/2 an inch or more of run out. Some spokes were incredibly loose and i tried tightening them and nothing got any tighter. Are the nipples prone to stripping or something? Any ideas or tips would be welcome, the rime has maybe 50 miles on it as I bought it from pirate a few months ago right before my carb took a dump. Here's a pic you can see where the chain is rubbing the tire due to runout





And another that Illustrate the bend to the right.







I didnt hit any bumps or potholes as I ride on pavement. I was riding home and noticed a bad wobble, so when that happened a killed the motor and pedaled home the rest of the way it was maybe a block.

Kevlarr said:

Just tightening the loose spokes isn't the way to fix a rim, You have to true it. You have to tighten spokes on the opposite side of the runout of a rim, a little at a time until the rim is straight again.

Yes spoke nipples can strip since they're only brass. Your best bet if you're unsure of how to true a rim is take it to a bike shop and have them do it. Leave the drive sprocket on since installing it puts some stress on the spokes and with it on they can take that into account when truing the rim.

I've seen people walk into my LBS with rims that were so bent I would have just pitched but after about 15 minutes in the back room and $20 they looked perfect.

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I've been reading some of Sheldon brown tips on truing and I get what your saying about not just ficing the loose ones. The closest bicycle shop is 50 miles away and I dont have a way to get there so imma buy a spoke wrench of ebay mount a wire indicator on the cahin stay and slowly work my way around the rim i guess im really hopping none of the nipples are stripped. I appreciate the advice

Creative Engineering said:

nogig,

This is one of the reasons why I made the sprocket adapters.

Get a sprocket adapter from Pirate to go with your Pirate wheel and you will not have this problem.

Jim

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they didn't have them in stock for several months. I checked the site again and see they have them now. This is my only transportation, so I figured if I bought a quality rim and installed the sprocket properly, as i did, That would last several hundred miles or at least until the CB110 adapters were back in stock.

Bikeguy Joe said:

I have built eight bikes, some with older (60's and 70's) rims, some were new bikes. All had the stock rag joint sprocket mount and I have not had any problems with any of them.

I'll bet your wheel didn't have the spokes tightened correctly, or maybe not at all as most wheels are "machine built" and about every third spoke is actually tensioned right.

Bummer to pay extra for a wheel that didn't hold up.

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I've built 10 bikes for people around my town and none of them had this problem either. One of the guys has over 1500 miles on his bicycle with the stock rag joint on a releigh walmart bike. The rim came in a worksman box and i knew that it wasn't worksman but i made the assumption that maybe it had been hand checked to make sure it was good and repacked. Pirate says they cant warranty the small gauge wheel that was rag joint driven. So imma try to possibly get a ride to the bike shop and have them true it when my Disabilty check comes in. I'm kinda bummed out bit my neighbor said I could use his bike to run back and forth to town on till I can get mine straight.

I feel ya on the machine built rim. What I cant understand from a mechanical point of view is why the side with the ragjoint has loose spokes. As mentioned earlier it would seem to me the mounting the joint would apply more tension to that side. I dunno this bike has been a real pain, less than 130 miles total on it since march, seems as soon as one thing is fixed another breaks. I'm off to pout in the corner now

Well my spoke wrench came in today. The ones on the right were so tight that they would barely turn and the ones on the drive side i think 4 maybe were the bad spot is are completely stripped. Does anyone have any old 14 gauge rims laying around i could get some nipples out of?