The drill screams!
A customer entrusted me with the front wheel of an R-SYS.
In the image above, I'd already removed the hub axle
and taken out one spoke, but
the nipple had broken right at the boundary between itself and the rim hole
with the remainder stuck in the rim.
At a Mavic dealer near the customer's neighborhood,
they said they couldn't fix it since they lack the skills, knowledge, or motivation
and tried to sell him a new wheel instead.
I guess if you tell that story to dozens of people, some percentage will eventually buy new wheels—
what a pathetic way to run a business, seriously.
There we go—got it out. I win.
As long as it wasn't seized, I figured I could get it out.
Using a drill bit with a diameter close to the original hole size,
but sized so it wouldn't catch the rim hole threads at all,
I gradually drilled in, then worked it with about a 9:1 push-to-rotation ratio
in the direction that would loosen the nipple,
and recovered it.
The tricky part is that when working from inside the rim,
both the drill bit rotation direction for loosening and for drilling forward
are the same—clockwise.
Since the inside diameter of the half-hole I'd made in the nipple matched the drill bit's outer diameter,
I was careful to tilt the drill bit slightly to increase contact pressure.
The shop near the customer apparently can't stock R-SYS spokes for some reason.
I don't know if it's discontinued or if they're just lying.
Our shop doesn't carry Mavic products anyway.
But I managed to repair it with a spare spoke I had on hand.
The anodized color of the spoke head and nipple is different from the original wheel.
All fixed.
A customer entrusted me with the front wheel of an R-SYS.
In the image above, I'd already removed the hub axle
and taken out one spoke, but
the nipple had broken right at the boundary between itself and the rim hole
with the remainder stuck in the rim.
At a Mavic dealer near the customer's neighborhood,
and tried to sell him a new wheel instead.
I guess if you tell that story to dozens of people, some percentage will eventually buy new wheels—
what a pathetic way to run a business, seriously.
There we go—got it out. I win.
As long as it wasn't seized, I figured I could get it out.
Using a drill bit with a diameter close to the original hole size,
but sized so it wouldn't catch the rim hole threads at all,
I gradually drilled in, then worked it with about a 9:1 push-to-rotation ratio
in the direction that would loosen the nipple,
and recovered it.
The tricky part is that when working from inside the rim,
both the drill bit rotation direction for loosening and for drilling forward
are the same—clockwise.
Since the inside diameter of the half-hole I'd made in the nipple matched the drill bit's outer diameter,
I was careful to tilt the drill bit slightly to increase contact pressure.
The shop near the customer apparently can't stock R-SYS spokes for some reason.
I don't know if it's discontinued or if they're just lying.
Our shop doesn't carry Mavic products anyway.
But I managed to repair it with a spare spoke I had on hand.
The anodized color of the spoke head and nipple is different from the original wheel.
All fixed.