A customer left a gold Shamal with me for service.
They're asking for a complete overhaul and inspection.
It's not a recent model,
but the brake zone isn't particularly dirty,
so it's clear it hasn't been thrashed.
Whether the customer used some ninja Y○hoo auction technique
to bewitch me or not, I can't say.
Time to disassemble.
The original grease on the shaft is nice and clean.
The ball races don't show the kind of wear marks you'd get from hard use.
Same on the hub side.
Though the bearing balls did show some signs of use.
The rear wheel is in the same condition as the front—no visible damage.
Both wheels got cleaned and re-greased.
During inspection, the front wheel had a centering deviation of about a sheet of paper,
while the rear wheel was off by about twice that.
When I take the measurement from what I call the right side of the front wheel
and apply it to what I call the left side (the bearing cone adjustment nut side)...
↑There's this much gap.
At this level, even if you swap in a perfectly centered front wheel,
the brake adjustment difference isn't noticeable enough to matter.
I've been meaning to write about this for a while,
but when I describe centering deviations like "about a sheet of paper,"
the actual amount of rim lateral adjustment needed
is half of the visible gap.
So technically, the true centering deviation amount
should be described as "about 0.5 sheets of paper,"
but what I'm usually referring to
is this visually observable gap.
I know what I'm saying, so don't worry about it.
I've been nervous someone would call me out on it someday.
Say you have a hub with a 5mm axle locknut dimension
and a rim that's 2mm wide, offset as shown in the diagram above—
when you take the measurement from the freewheel side and apply it to the opposite side,
the gap between the gauge and hub becomes 1mm,
but the actual centering adjustment is "0.5mm movement toward the freewheel side."
They're asking for a complete overhaul and inspection.
It's not a recent model,
but the brake zone isn't particularly dirty,
so it's clear it hasn't been thrashed.
Whether the customer used some ninja Y○hoo auction technique
to bewitch me or not, I can't say.
Time to disassemble.
The original grease on the shaft is nice and clean.
The ball races don't show the kind of wear marks you'd get from hard use.
Same on the hub side.
Though the bearing balls did show some signs of use.
The rear wheel is in the same condition as the front—no visible damage.
Both wheels got cleaned and re-greased.
During inspection, the front wheel had a centering deviation of about a sheet of paper,
while the rear wheel was off by about twice that.
When I take the measurement from what I call the right side of the front wheel
and apply it to what I call the left side (the bearing cone adjustment nut side)...
↑There's this much gap.
At this level, even if you swap in a perfectly centered front wheel,
the brake adjustment difference isn't noticeable enough to matter.
I've been meaning to write about this for a while,
but when I describe centering deviations like "about a sheet of paper,"
the actual amount of rim lateral adjustment needed
is half of the visible gap.
So technically, the true centering deviation amount
should be described as "about 0.5 sheets of paper,"
but what I'm usually referring to
is this visually observable gap.
I know what I'm saying, so don't worry about it.
I've been nervous someone would call me out on it someday.
Say you have a hub with a 5mm axle locknut dimension
and a rim that's 2mm wide, offset as shown in the diagram above—
when you take the measurement from the freewheel side and apply it to the opposite side,
the gap between the gauge and hub becomes 1mm,
but the actual centering adjustment is "0.5mm movement toward the freewheel side."