Another day with wheels (and so on).
A customer brought in the rear wheel of a ZIPP 404 for me to work on.
With the latest Firecrest
It's a NSW rim setup.
The hub is a ZIPP 177 with 24 spokes, all-black CX sprint straight spokes—that's equivalent to a 4-cross lacing pattern. But the customer says when riding it, the rim rubs the brake shoes, so they want it rebuilt.
The customer wanted a rebuild with an Evolight hub, but when I recently built a rear wheel with a 177 hub and an older 303 rim, the hub didn't seem that bad dimensionally. So I told the customer, "You should keep that rear hub as-is. If this hub causes rubbing, an Evolight hub will too." Then they discovered the bearing on the left side of the hub shell was shot, so we decided to repair that bearing and use the hub as-is.
When I grab the final cross on the non-freewheel side, it feels mushy, but
Even so, the rim is still offset toward the non-freewheel side. It's possible the rim was off like this from the factory, but more likely some local shop did a sloppy truing job.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
There are clear marks of stripped nipples only on the freewheel side. It's puzzling that the nipples are stripped on the freewheel side when the rim is offset toward the non-freewheel side. Are they stripped? (Double meaning intended.) Surely they didn't loosen the freewheel side. The freewheel side does have higher tension, but not so much that you can't turn the nipple without stripping it like that (it's not seized with threadlocker or anything).
But someone might say the factory could've done this....
This nipple looks like a generic nipple, but it's a type you can turn from the outer edge too, so the factory should have used that side to turn it.
Since this rim isn't tubeless-compatible, if it used tape-type rim tape that would be one thing, but with a stretch-band type rim tape that's easy to remove and reattach, you should take it off and work from the outside.
Even the cheapest centering gauge would catch this wheel's center offset, but it remains misaligned, so maybe during the truing job they didn't even remove the tire.
Firecrest 404 rim brake is not tubeless-compatible, Firecrest 404 disc brake is tubeless-compatible, and NSW 404 is tubeless-compatible regardless of brake type.
↑There are specialized tools like this
(By the way, the bag below is from the ZIPP box that held the 177 hub in the 303 from the other day. Even the bag has dimples—they're thorough.)
The hex size isn't exclusive to this nipple, so you don't necessarily need this tool. Since the stripped nipple looks ugly, I'll use DT generic nipples for the rebuild.
Even though it's not tubeless-compatible, sealant must have been in the tube—it splattered toward the hub shell and left dried residue in the gap where a sensor band was wrapped around the hub.
↑In places like this, it was still liquid and stuck on
So I wiped it clean. I properly cleaned the hub shell afterward.
Just as the customer said, only the bearing on the left side of the hub shell was damaged enough to need replacement. The seal snaps into the groove of the outer race, but the inner race constantly rubs against the seal's ridges. In other words, it's a contact seal.
I replaced it with a contact-type bearing of the same size.
For reference, a non-contact seal looks like this on the inner race side. That both seal orientations happen to be at the country name portion is pure coincidence. Really, just coincidence.
All of the Sapim nipple washers B were installed in the correct orientation from the factory, so they were reusable.
About these nipple washers B—
On older 303s and similar rims that don't account for nipple washers, the outer hole diameter is too small—you can't use them even if you want to. Nipple washer A doesn't have much more contact area than the nipple itself and tends to unnecessarily wear down the nipple, so it's not really useful (though I do stock some), and
As for nipple washer C (right in the image above)—
There are almost no rims where you can actually use these (though as you can see, I stock some anyway).
Wheel's built.
Black half-leader straight spokes with lacing. The original CX sprint spokes weren't bad, but I didn't reuse them because I wanted a significant difference in spoke weight between sides.
The center is good. Obviously.
A note about rim replacement and wheel rebuilding: this rim's brake zone machining is directional, so it has left-right attributes that affect performance. Be careful not to mix them up.
Now the front wheel. This is just an inspection, but the customer said if we rebuild it with tangent lacing or similar to increase stiffness, that's fine. However, this 77 front hub only comes in 18 spoke configuration regardless of rim height, and this one is 18H too, so tangent lacing isn't possible. You can do exotic lacing patterns other than radial if you want, though....
The spoke tension was quite high, but
It's hard to imagine ZIPP leaving this much center offset from the factory, so maybe someone tightened it further afterward. And it had both radial and lateral runout.
↑I trued in the direction that reduces the center offset, and here's the state when it's almost runout-free.
The center offset was the rim shifted to the left in terms of rim left-right attributes. Just tightening the right nipples alone to bring it over is about the limit. You need to leave room for future truing adjustments. And even if I tighten further from here, the wheel won't noticeably feel stiffer.
So from here, while maintaining average tension between sides, I adjusted by sliding the rim—roughly half-turns on the right for tightening, half-turns on the left for loosening—and
I centered it. Overall, I tightened more than I loosened, so it's even more highly tensioned than before.
A customer brought in the rear wheel of a ZIPP 404 for me to work on.
With the latest Firecrest
It's a NSW rim setup.
The hub is a ZIPP 177 with 24 spokes, all-black CX sprint straight spokes—that's equivalent to a 4-cross lacing pattern. But the customer says when riding it, the rim rubs the brake shoes, so they want it rebuilt.
The customer wanted a rebuild with an Evolight hub, but when I recently built a rear wheel with a 177 hub and an older 303 rim, the hub didn't seem that bad dimensionally. So I told the customer, "You should keep that rear hub as-is. If this hub causes rubbing, an Evolight hub will too." Then they discovered the bearing on the left side of the hub shell was shot, so we decided to repair that bearing and use the hub as-is.
When I grab the final cross on the non-freewheel side, it feels mushy, but
Even so, the rim is still offset toward the non-freewheel side. It's possible the rim was off like this from the factory, but more likely some local shop did a sloppy truing job.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
There are clear marks of stripped nipples only on the freewheel side. It's puzzling that the nipples are stripped on the freewheel side when the rim is offset toward the non-freewheel side. Are they stripped? (Double meaning intended.) Surely they didn't loosen the freewheel side. The freewheel side does have higher tension, but not so much that you can't turn the nipple without stripping it like that (it's not seized with threadlocker or anything).
But someone might say the factory could've done this....
This nipple looks like a generic nipple, but it's a type you can turn from the outer edge too, so the factory should have used that side to turn it.
Since this rim isn't tubeless-compatible, if it used tape-type rim tape that would be one thing, but with a stretch-band type rim tape that's easy to remove and reattach, you should take it off and work from the outside.
Even the cheapest centering gauge would catch this wheel's center offset, but it remains misaligned, so maybe during the truing job they didn't even remove the tire.
Firecrest 404 rim brake is not tubeless-compatible, Firecrest 404 disc brake is tubeless-compatible, and NSW 404 is tubeless-compatible regardless of brake type.
↑There are specialized tools like this
(By the way, the bag below is from the ZIPP box that held the 177 hub in the 303 from the other day. Even the bag has dimples—they're thorough.)
The hex size isn't exclusive to this nipple, so you don't necessarily need this tool. Since the stripped nipple looks ugly, I'll use DT generic nipples for the rebuild.
Even though it's not tubeless-compatible, sealant must have been in the tube—it splattered toward the hub shell and left dried residue in the gap where a sensor band was wrapped around the hub.
↑In places like this, it was still liquid and stuck on
So I wiped it clean. I properly cleaned the hub shell afterward.
Just as the customer said, only the bearing on the left side of the hub shell was damaged enough to need replacement. The seal snaps into the groove of the outer race, but the inner race constantly rubs against the seal's ridges. In other words, it's a contact seal.
I replaced it with a contact-type bearing of the same size.
For reference, a non-contact seal looks like this on the inner race side. That both seal orientations happen to be at the country name portion is pure coincidence. Really, just coincidence.
All of the Sapim nipple washers B were installed in the correct orientation from the factory, so they were reusable.
About these nipple washers B—
On older 303s and similar rims that don't account for nipple washers, the outer hole diameter is too small—you can't use them even if you want to. Nipple washer A doesn't have much more contact area than the nipple itself and tends to unnecessarily wear down the nipple, so it's not really useful (though I do stock some), and
As for nipple washer C (right in the image above)—
There are almost no rims where you can actually use these (though as you can see, I stock some anyway).
Wheel's built.
Black half-leader straight spokes with lacing. The original CX sprint spokes weren't bad, but I didn't reuse them because I wanted a significant difference in spoke weight between sides.
The center is good. Obviously.
A note about rim replacement and wheel rebuilding: this rim's brake zone machining is directional, so it has left-right attributes that affect performance. Be careful not to mix them up.
Now the front wheel. This is just an inspection, but the customer said if we rebuild it with tangent lacing or similar to increase stiffness, that's fine. However, this 77 front hub only comes in 18 spoke configuration regardless of rim height, and this one is 18H too, so tangent lacing isn't possible. You can do exotic lacing patterns other than radial if you want, though....
The spoke tension was quite high, but
It's hard to imagine ZIPP leaving this much center offset from the factory, so maybe someone tightened it further afterward. And it had both radial and lateral runout.
↑I trued in the direction that reduces the center offset, and here's the state when it's almost runout-free.
The center offset was the rim shifted to the left in terms of rim left-right attributes. Just tightening the right nipples alone to bring it over is about the limit. You need to leave room for future truing adjustments. And even if I tighten further from here, the wheel won't noticeably feel stiffer.
So from here, while maintaining average tension between sides, I adjusted by sliding the rim—roughly half-turns on the right for tightening, half-turns on the left for loosening—and
I centered it. Overall, I tightened more than I loosened, so it's even more highly tensioned than before.