A customer brought in a Racing Zero (high-performance hub wheelset) for service.
After a crash, both front and rear wheels have runout,
and the customer already attempted to true the front wheel themselves.
Also, it looks like the rear wheel spokes are bent.
↑Temporary center of the front wheel
There's runout on both sides, so this isn't reliable as a reference.
If there's essentially no runout or it's a new wheel,
you'd tighten the left side (bearing preload nut side) gradually and evenly and you're good,
but that's not the case here.
I did as much truing as possible and got the center right, but
there's a dent right about where this little character (inspection sticker) is pointing.
Please remove it after inspection.
Since there's no deformation on the outer edge (bead hook),
if you align the brake shoes to the top, it should work fine.
Though not as bad as the front wheel, the rear wheel has significant runout too,
so the temporary center isn't very reliable.
If there were no runout, I'd say it shifted from age-related wear and tear.
When I inspected all the spokes, I found one with a slight bend
(I checked the front wheel the same way and found no problems).
To be honest, it's not a front-to-back deformation (∧ shape or ∨ shape),
and the deformation is very minor, so I could true it as-is,
but since the customer came from far away, I'll replace it.
This is what it looks like with the tension removed.
In case a single bent spoke develops in the future,
this can serve as a replacement spare, so I'm returning it to the customer.
Besides truing, the customer said I could fix anything else that looks off,
so I checked the freewheel pawl return springs and they were fine.
I wiped away excess grease from around the freewheel ratchet mechanism,
so the cloudy quality in the ratchet sound is gone now.
After truing, the center wouldn't come out, and when I tried to center it, radial runout appeared—
it was quite a struggle.
The fact that I could listen to the complete Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" during the work
means the front and rear wheel work took about 50 minutes.
The No. 4 rear wheel I built today was assembled while chatting with a customer who dropped by after 8 PM,
but the actual work time was only about 20 minutes.
Completely unrelated, but
today I also serviced another pair of Racing Zero (hubset) from the same year (with gray hub flanges).
I didn't take photos, but
the rear wheel was in terrible condition. I replaced the outer bearing on the freewheel body and overhauled the hub.
After a crash, both front and rear wheels have runout,
and the customer already attempted to true the front wheel themselves.
Also, it looks like the rear wheel spokes are bent.
↑Temporary center of the front wheel
There's runout on both sides, so this isn't reliable as a reference.
If there's essentially no runout or it's a new wheel,
you'd tighten the left side (bearing preload nut side) gradually and evenly and you're good,
but that's not the case here.
I did as much truing as possible and got the center right, but
there's a dent right about where this little character (inspection sticker) is pointing.
Please remove it after inspection.
Since there's no deformation on the outer edge (bead hook),
if you align the brake shoes to the top, it should work fine.
Though not as bad as the front wheel, the rear wheel has significant runout too,
so the temporary center isn't very reliable.
If there were no runout, I'd say it shifted from age-related wear and tear.
When I inspected all the spokes, I found one with a slight bend
(I checked the front wheel the same way and found no problems).
To be honest, it's not a front-to-back deformation (∧ shape or ∨ shape),
and the deformation is very minor, so I could true it as-is,
but since the customer came from far away, I'll replace it.
This is what it looks like with the tension removed.
In case a single bent spoke develops in the future,
this can serve as a replacement spare, so I'm returning it to the customer.
Besides truing, the customer said I could fix anything else that looks off,
so I checked the freewheel pawl return springs and they were fine.
I wiped away excess grease from around the freewheel ratchet mechanism,
so the cloudy quality in the ratchet sound is gone now.
After truing, the center wouldn't come out, and when I tried to center it, radial runout appeared—
it was quite a struggle.
The fact that I could listen to the complete Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" during the work
means the front and rear wheel work took about 50 minutes.
The No. 4 rear wheel I built today was assembled while chatting with a customer who dropped by after 8 PM,
but the actual work time was only about 20 minutes.
Completely unrelated, but
today I also serviced another pair of Racing Zero (hubset) from the same year (with gray hub flanges).
I didn't take photos, but
the rear wheel was in terrible condition. I replaced the outer bearing on the freewheel body and overhauled the hub.