Today, yet another wheel build (details omitted).
I received a rear wheel from a customer for a ZIPP 404.
Latest generation Firecrest
with a WO rim setup.
The hub is a ZIPP 177, 24H, all-black CX Sprint straight-pull
It's roughly a 44-spoke equivalent lacing pattern, but it rubs on the brake pads when ridden, so
the customer requested a rebuild.
The customer had initially wanted a rebuild with an Evo hub,
but when I recently built a rear wheel with a 177 hub and an older 303 rim,
I found that the hub's dimensions weren't particularly bad, so
I told the customer, "You'd better keep this rear hub as-is.
If this hub causes rubbing, an Evo hub would too."
But then it turned out the bearing on the left side of the hub shell had failed,
so we decided to repair that and use this hub.
When I grab the final cross on the non-freewheel side, it flexes quite a bit,
yet the rim is still offset toward the non-freewheel side.
It's not impossible that it came misaligned straight from the manufacturer,
but most likely someone at a nearby shop did a sloppy truing job.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The freewheel-side nipples show obvious signs of stripping.
It's strange that the rim is offset toward the non-freewheel side
yet the freewheel-side nipples are stripped.
Are they really that stripped? (Double meaning intended.)
Surely they didn't loosen the freewheel side.
The freewheel side does have higher tension,
but even so, the nipples shouldn't be so difficult to turn
that they'd get stripped like this
(and there's no evidence of threadlocker being over-applied or corrosion).
But someone might suggest the manufacturer made this mistake,
This nipple looks like a universal nipple, but it's actually designed
so you can turn it from the outer edge too,
which means the manufacturer should have used that side to tighten it.
Since this rim isn't tubeless-compatible, if they were using tape-type rim tape, that would be one thing,
but if they used a stretch-band rim tape, it's easy to remove,
so they should have taken it off and accessed the nipples from the outside.
Even the cheapest center gauge would instantly spot this wheel's center misalignment,
yet it's still off-center, which suggests that whoever did the "truing" didn't even remove the tire.
Firecrest 404 rim brake is tubeless-incompatible,
Firecrest 404 disc brake is tubeless-compatible,
NSW 404 is tubeless-compatible regardless of brake type.
↑There are specialty tools like this
(by the way, the bag below is the ZIPP packaging that contained the 177 hub from the 303 I worked on the other day.
Even the bag has dimples—attention to detail!)
The hex dimensions aren't unique to this tool,
so you don't necessarily need this specific one.
Since the stripped nipple looked unsightly, I used DT universal nipples for the rebuild.
Although this is a tubeless-incompatible rim,
sealant had apparently gotten into it and splattered toward the hub shell,
leaving dried residue in the gap around a sensor wrapped on the hub.
↑Here for example, liquid sealant was caked on, so
I wiped it off.
The hub shell was properly cleaned afterward.
Just as the customer indicated, only the bearing on the left side of the hub shell
showed damage requiring replacement.
The seal snaps into the groove on the outer race,
but the inner race continuously brushes against the seal's ridges—
it's a contact-type seal.
I replaced it with a contact-type bearing of the same size.
For comparison, here's what the gap looks like with a non-contact seal.
It's just coincidence that both seal orientations show country names—
pure coincidence.
Being a manufacturer build,
all of the Sapim nipple washers type B were correctly oriented
and could be reused.
About this nipple washer type B,
on slightly older 303s and such
that weren't designed for nipple washers,
the outer hole diameter is too small, so you can't use them even if you want to.
Type A washers have a contact area with the rim barely different from the nipple itself,
so they tend to unnecessarily damage the nipple,
making them pointless (though I do stock them just in case),
As for type C washers (shown on the right in the image above)
there's virtually no rim that can use these
(though as you can see, I stock them anyway).
Built.
Black half-leader straight spokes with lacing.
The original CX Sprint spokes aren't bad,
but I wanted a larger difference in spoke mass left-to-right,
so I didn't reuse them.
It's centered. Obviously.
A note about rim swaps and wheel rebuilds:
This rim's brake zone has directional machining,
so it has left-right properties that affect performance.
Be careful not to install it backwards.
Now for the front wheel.
This is just an inspection, though the customer said if switching to tangent lacing or similar
would increase stiffness, rebuilding would be okay.
However, this 77 front hub only comes in an 18H configuration regardless of rim height,
and this one is also 18H, so tangent lacing isn't possible.
Exotic lacing patterns are theoretically possible besides radial,
but...
The spoke tension was quite high,
It's hard to imagine a ZIPP build would have this much center offset straight from the factory,
so it was probably re-tightened afterward.
And it also had both lateral and radial runout.
↑This is where I trued the wheel in a direction that reduced center offset,
reaching a point with nearly no runout.
The center offset had the rim shifted toward the left side in rim terminology,
and tightening just the right-side nipples can only bring it in so far.
I need to leave room for future truing adjustments.
Furthermore, tightening beyond this point doesn't make the wheel noticeably stiffer to feel.
So from this point, while maintaining average tension on both sides,
I adjusted by essentially sliding the rim,
tightening the right side by half a turn and loosening the left by half a turn,
and achieved center.
On balance, I tightened more than I loosened,
so it's even more highly tensioned than before.
I received a rear wheel from a customer for a ZIPP 404.
Latest generation Firecrest
with a WO rim setup.
The hub is a ZIPP 177, 24H, all-black CX Sprint straight-pull
It's roughly a 44-spoke equivalent lacing pattern, but it rubs on the brake pads when ridden, so
the customer requested a rebuild.
The customer had initially wanted a rebuild with an Evo hub,
but when I recently built a rear wheel with a 177 hub and an older 303 rim,
I found that the hub's dimensions weren't particularly bad, so
I told the customer, "You'd better keep this rear hub as-is.
If this hub causes rubbing, an Evo hub would too."
But then it turned out the bearing on the left side of the hub shell had failed,
so we decided to repair that and use this hub.
When I grab the final cross on the non-freewheel side, it flexes quite a bit,
yet the rim is still offset toward the non-freewheel side.
It's not impossible that it came misaligned straight from the manufacturer,
but most likely someone at a nearby shop did a sloppy truing job.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The freewheel-side nipples show obvious signs of stripping.
It's strange that the rim is offset toward the non-freewheel side
yet the freewheel-side nipples are stripped.
Are they really that stripped? (Double meaning intended.)
Surely they didn't loosen the freewheel side.
The freewheel side does have higher tension,
but even so, the nipples shouldn't be so difficult to turn
that they'd get stripped like this
(and there's no evidence of threadlocker being over-applied or corrosion).
But someone might suggest the manufacturer made this mistake,
This nipple looks like a universal nipple, but it's actually designed
so you can turn it from the outer edge too,
which means the manufacturer should have used that side to tighten it.
Since this rim isn't tubeless-compatible, if they were using tape-type rim tape, that would be one thing,
but if they used a stretch-band rim tape, it's easy to remove,
so they should have taken it off and accessed the nipples from the outside.
Even the cheapest center gauge would instantly spot this wheel's center misalignment,
yet it's still off-center, which suggests that whoever did the "truing" didn't even remove the tire.
Firecrest 404 rim brake is tubeless-incompatible,
Firecrest 404 disc brake is tubeless-compatible,
NSW 404 is tubeless-compatible regardless of brake type.
↑There are specialty tools like this
(by the way, the bag below is the ZIPP packaging that contained the 177 hub from the 303 I worked on the other day.
Even the bag has dimples—attention to detail!)
The hex dimensions aren't unique to this tool,
so you don't necessarily need this specific one.
Since the stripped nipple looked unsightly, I used DT universal nipples for the rebuild.
Although this is a tubeless-incompatible rim,
sealant had apparently gotten into it and splattered toward the hub shell,
leaving dried residue in the gap around a sensor wrapped on the hub.
↑Here for example, liquid sealant was caked on, so
I wiped it off.
The hub shell was properly cleaned afterward.
Just as the customer indicated, only the bearing on the left side of the hub shell
showed damage requiring replacement.
The seal snaps into the groove on the outer race,
but the inner race continuously brushes against the seal's ridges—
it's a contact-type seal.
I replaced it with a contact-type bearing of the same size.
For comparison, here's what the gap looks like with a non-contact seal.
It's just coincidence that both seal orientations show country names—
pure coincidence.
Being a manufacturer build,
all of the Sapim nipple washers type B were correctly oriented
and could be reused.
About this nipple washer type B,
on slightly older 303s and such
that weren't designed for nipple washers,
the outer hole diameter is too small, so you can't use them even if you want to.
Type A washers have a contact area with the rim barely different from the nipple itself,
so they tend to unnecessarily damage the nipple,
making them pointless (though I do stock them just in case),
As for type C washers (shown on the right in the image above)
there's virtually no rim that can use these
(though as you can see, I stock them anyway).
Built.
Black half-leader straight spokes with lacing.
The original CX Sprint spokes aren't bad,
but I wanted a larger difference in spoke mass left-to-right,
so I didn't reuse them.
It's centered. Obviously.
A note about rim swaps and wheel rebuilds:
This rim's brake zone has directional machining,
so it has left-right properties that affect performance.
Be careful not to install it backwards.
Now for the front wheel.
This is just an inspection, though the customer said if switching to tangent lacing or similar
would increase stiffness, rebuilding would be okay.
However, this 77 front hub only comes in an 18H configuration regardless of rim height,
and this one is also 18H, so tangent lacing isn't possible.
Exotic lacing patterns are theoretically possible besides radial,
but...
The spoke tension was quite high,
It's hard to imagine a ZIPP build would have this much center offset straight from the factory,
so it was probably re-tightened afterward.
And it also had both lateral and radial runout.
↑This is where I trued the wheel in a direction that reduced center offset,
reaching a point with nearly no runout.
The center offset had the rim shifted toward the left side in rim terminology,
and tightening just the right-side nipples can only bring it in so far.
I need to leave room for future truing adjustments.
Furthermore, tightening beyond this point doesn't make the wheel noticeably stiffer to feel.
So from this point, while maintaining average tension on both sides,
I adjusted by essentially sliding the rim,
tightening the right side by half a turn and loosening the left by half a turn,
and achieved center.
On balance, I tightened more than I loosened,
so it's even more highly tensioned than before.