A customer brought in the front and rear wheels from a ZIPP (high-end wheelset brand) 303 Firecrест for me to work on.
They wanted an inspection.
Since they're not the original owner,
they asked me to replace any worn bearings if needed.
Let me start with the rear wheel.
Both wheels had Schwalbe tubeless-ready tires from the previous owner installed.
I removed them, wiped off the sealant, put them in a plastic bag and returned them.
These tires leak air with small bubbles coming out from the sidewall,
not from the rim-tire interface,
so they need a fairly strong sealant in decent quantity.
For what you get, they're not that great of a tire (just my opinion),
so unless you have some political reason or are being tortured to use them,
I don't think you need to bother with them.
This ZIPP hub has extremely high ratchet resistance and noise.
The grease between the pawls and teeth has dried up,
and with years of use, the sealing isn't very effective,
so the internal parts rust easily.
If this were a rebuild instead of just an inspection, I'd want to replace the hub,
but since it's just an inspection, I applied some appropriate grease around the ratchet pawls.
The bearings on both wheels checked out fine.
The rim tape was peeling at the seam end where sealant had seeped in,
and the tape width was less than the rim's internal width,
so I replaced it with Stans tape.
The rim was shifted toward the freewheel side.
I could easily center it by just tightening up the non-freewheel side,
but the tension was slack, so I tightened the freewheel side further first,
temporarily increasing the center misalignment,
then I got the center sorted by tightening the non-freewheel side.
In other words, I tightened all the nipples.
Though I didn't over-tension—if you had 100 identical wheels hanging around,
the top 5% probably have about this much tension.
It's the maximum result I can get from the original state without a full rebuild.
As I mentioned earlier,
I replaced the tubeless tape.
Now for the front wheel.
These are photos after I finished the work.
It started out temporarily dead-center and with minimal runout,
but from that state,
I focused on tightening the high-tension side,
fixed the runout and increased tension,
and shifted the rim to the left.
Then from that state, I focused on tightening the right-side nipples
to get the center right.
If the customer has actually used these front and rear wheels in their original condition,
I think they'll notice they've improved at least a little.
They wanted an inspection.
Since they're not the original owner,
they asked me to replace any worn bearings if needed.
Let me start with the rear wheel.
Both wheels had Schwalbe tubeless-ready tires from the previous owner installed.
I removed them, wiped off the sealant, put them in a plastic bag and returned them.
These tires leak air with small bubbles coming out from the sidewall,
not from the rim-tire interface,
so they need a fairly strong sealant in decent quantity.
For what you get, they're not that great of a tire (just my opinion),
so unless you have some political reason or are being tortured to use them,
I don't think you need to bother with them.
This ZIPP hub has extremely high ratchet resistance and noise.
The grease between the pawls and teeth has dried up,
and with years of use, the sealing isn't very effective,
so the internal parts rust easily.
If this were a rebuild instead of just an inspection, I'd want to replace the hub,
but since it's just an inspection, I applied some appropriate grease around the ratchet pawls.
The bearings on both wheels checked out fine.
The rim tape was peeling at the seam end where sealant had seeped in,
and the tape width was less than the rim's internal width,
so I replaced it with Stans tape.
The rim was shifted toward the freewheel side.
I could easily center it by just tightening up the non-freewheel side,
but the tension was slack, so I tightened the freewheel side further first,
temporarily increasing the center misalignment,
then I got the center sorted by tightening the non-freewheel side.
In other words, I tightened all the nipples.
Though I didn't over-tension—if you had 100 identical wheels hanging around,
the top 5% probably have about this much tension.
It's the maximum result I can get from the original state without a full rebuild.
As I mentioned earlier,
I replaced the tubeless tape.
Now for the front wheel.
These are photos after I finished the work.
It started out temporarily dead-center and with minimal runout,
but from that state,
I focused on tightening the high-tension side,
fixed the runout and increased tension,
and shifted the rim to the left.
Then from that state, I focused on tightening the right-side nipples
to get the center right.
If the customer has actually used these front and rear wheels in their original condition,
I think they'll notice they've improved at least a little.