A customer brought in a Racing Zero rear wheel for repair.
One spoke on the left side has snapped off from the hub flange.
The customer apparently started riding with a cable lock still attached,
but since the force was applied nearly horizontally,
the spoke shows almost no deformation and looks like it can be reused.
On the non-freewheel side there are 7 spokes, and
the hub body cap is secured with 3 screws,
but it was positioned directly below where there's no screw, so
the cap has deformed with 2 distinctive scratches.
Wheel repair is straightforward,
but fixing this cap might be tricky.
Here's where a specialized tool comes in handy.
The Undo Static Bender—a tool to straighten things back to their original shape—
which also goes by the acronym USB.
It bears a striking resemblance to a 2014 Racing Zero rear hub body,
but we won't dwell on that.
I set the gray cap in the USB tool and
tighten it together with the white cap that comes with the USB.
In the image above, I tightened the two screws first—the ones furthest from the scratch location.
↑Finally, I tighten this one.
↑The position with no deformation
↑The position with deformation
I tightened the screw firmly.
↑The position with the 2 scratches—the deformed spot.
I removed the white cap.
The tool body has "Ceramic Ultra Smooth Bearing" written on it,
but we won't worry about that.
↑The position that originally had no deformation
↑The position that had deformation
USB really works great!
It's fixed.
Just by adjusting the broken spoke's nipple, I was able to eliminate lateral runout entirely,
but at that point there was about a 2-sheet paper thickness of center offset, so I corrected that too.
One spoke on the left side has snapped off from the hub flange.
The customer apparently started riding with a cable lock still attached,
but since the force was applied nearly horizontally,
the spoke shows almost no deformation and looks like it can be reused.
On the non-freewheel side there are 7 spokes, and
the hub body cap is secured with 3 screws,
but it was positioned directly below where there's no screw, so
the cap has deformed with 2 distinctive scratches.
Wheel repair is straightforward,
but fixing this cap might be tricky.
Here's where a specialized tool comes in handy.
The Undo Static Bender—a tool to straighten things back to their original shape—
which also goes by the acronym USB.
It bears a striking resemblance to a 2014 Racing Zero rear hub body,
but we won't dwell on that.
I set the gray cap in the USB tool and
tighten it together with the white cap that comes with the USB.
In the image above, I tightened the two screws first—the ones furthest from the scratch location.
↑Finally, I tighten this one.
↑The position with no deformation
↑The position with deformation
I tightened the screw firmly.
↑The position with the 2 scratches—the deformed spot.
I removed the white cap.
The tool body has "Ceramic Ultra Smooth Bearing" written on it,
but we won't worry about that.
↑The position that originally had no deformation
↑The position that had deformation
USB really works great!
It's fixed.
Just by adjusting the broken spoke's nipple, I was able to eliminate lateral runout entirely,
but at that point there was about a 2-sheet paper thickness of center offset, so I corrected that too.