The drill whines!
A customer brought in the front wheel from a Ksyrium ES (high-end wheel set by Mavic).
The images above are from after the work.
I forgot to take a close-up of the rim holes area.
The images in this article are compressed from 2592×1944 pixels to
640×480 pixels, but from the uncompressed second image above
I cropped the area around the rim hole where I worked to
640×480 pixels
↑That's it.
I wanted to take a close-up showing that there were no drill slip marks
or anything around the rim holes, but...
↑Before getting to the main topic.
These are Zicral aluminum spokes with nipples compatible with
the old generation Ksyrium tools.
The nipple can move loosely between the spoke's flattened middle section
and the round-finished rim-side end, but
When actually assembled into a wheel,
the situation naturally becomes like this.
As corrosion progresses, the nipple becomes immovable or,
even if you manage to turn it and recover the spoke,
it no longer moves loosely on the inner side.
The bottom image shows the new generation nipple, which uses a different tool.
While I'm at it, the spoke nipples on R-SYS wheels
have the same shape as this new generation nipple.
The Ksyrium ES is a 2006 model with old generation nipples.
Since the thread pitch itself is the same, repairs are possible by mixing
new spokes if the length matches.
This means a single wheel would have mixed tool types for its nipples,
but since that's all that was available,
I've had to mix and match repairs many times out of necessity.
So, the nipple directly below the most visible runout looked like this.
The customer had attempted to true the wheel themselves,
but the nipple was corroded and broke apart.
Looking at the same rim hole from the opposite side, it looks like this.
Under the condition that they wouldn't complain later even if things went wrong,
I started work on fixing this.
Trying to keep things as simple as possible, I started with the easier approaches,
but as a result I was forced to do the most difficult job.
I cut only the spoke, being careful not to cut the remaining nipple portion.
From here, if I strike the spoke's cross-section,
the spoke fragment should fall inside the rim.
Considering the rim depth, I sized it so the fallen spoke could be guided
toward the valve hole.
You might think there were things that could be done before reaching this point,
and I had already tried gripping the exposed nipple portion with a vise grip
and attempting to turn it.
The corrosion was too severe and the spoke wouldn't fall inside the rim, so
I switched my approach to open-pit mining of the center.
Though "open-pit" might be a misnomer—it's more of a cylinder than a cone.
As the spoke got shaved down and lost its bearing pressure, it fell inside the rim.
I continued widening the hole.
I did barely nick the bottom of the hole with the drill, but
the outer perimeter of the rim is not punctured.
By expanding the hole right to the root diameter of the nipple's threads
and making the material as thin as possible,
I was able to peel it open like this, and
recover the broken nipple without damaging the threaded hole,
or drop it into the rim.
Then, I happened to have some Ksyrium ES spokes in stock,
and after replacing it and truing, I reached the state shown in the opening image.
↑The recovered spoke and nipple fragments
The spoke's rim-side end
shows I drilled almost perfectly on center.
These are fragments from the nipple side.
There were larger pieces too, but I ended up losing them.
A customer brought in the front wheel from a Ksyrium ES (high-end wheel set by Mavic).
The images above are from after the work.
I forgot to take a close-up of the rim holes area.
The images in this article are compressed from 2592×1944 pixels to
640×480 pixels, but from the uncompressed second image above
I cropped the area around the rim hole where I worked to
640×480 pixels
↑That's it.
I wanted to take a close-up showing that there were no drill slip marks
or anything around the rim holes, but...
↑Before getting to the main topic.
These are Zicral aluminum spokes with nipples compatible with
the old generation Ksyrium tools.
The nipple can move loosely between the spoke's flattened middle section
and the round-finished rim-side end, but
When actually assembled into a wheel,
the situation naturally becomes like this.
As corrosion progresses, the nipple becomes immovable or,
even if you manage to turn it and recover the spoke,
it no longer moves loosely on the inner side.
The bottom image shows the new generation nipple, which uses a different tool.
While I'm at it, the spoke nipples on R-SYS wheels
have the same shape as this new generation nipple.
The Ksyrium ES is a 2006 model with old generation nipples.
Since the thread pitch itself is the same, repairs are possible by mixing
new spokes if the length matches.
This means a single wheel would have mixed tool types for its nipples,
but since that's all that was available,
I've had to mix and match repairs many times out of necessity.
So, the nipple directly below the most visible runout looked like this.
The customer had attempted to true the wheel themselves,
but the nipple was corroded and broke apart.
Looking at the same rim hole from the opposite side, it looks like this.
Under the condition that they wouldn't complain later even if things went wrong,
I started work on fixing this.
Trying to keep things as simple as possible, I started with the easier approaches,
but as a result I was forced to do the most difficult job.
I cut only the spoke, being careful not to cut the remaining nipple portion.
From here, if I strike the spoke's cross-section,
the spoke fragment should fall inside the rim.
Considering the rim depth, I sized it so the fallen spoke could be guided
toward the valve hole.
You might think there were things that could be done before reaching this point,
and I had already tried gripping the exposed nipple portion with a vise grip
and attempting to turn it.
The corrosion was too severe and the spoke wouldn't fall inside the rim, so
I switched my approach to open-pit mining of the center.
Though "open-pit" might be a misnomer—it's more of a cylinder than a cone.
As the spoke got shaved down and lost its bearing pressure, it fell inside the rim.
I continued widening the hole.
I did barely nick the bottom of the hole with the drill, but
the outer perimeter of the rim is not punctured.
By expanding the hole right to the root diameter of the nipple's threads
and making the material as thin as possible,
I was able to peel it open like this, and
recover the broken nipple without damaging the threaded hole,
or drop it into the rim.
Then, I happened to have some Ksyrium ES spokes in stock,
and after replacing it and truing, I reached the state shown in the opening image.
↑The recovered spoke and nipple fragments
The spoke's rim-side end
shows I drilled almost perfectly on center.
These are fragments from the nipple side.
There were larger pieces too, but I ended up losing them.