I received the front and rear wheels of a Bora WTO45 from a customer.
They said it was obtained at an auction,
and they wanted an inspection at our shop before using it.
But beyond just that,
they've already noticed that some spokes are bent,
so they want those replaced too.
Let me start with the front wheel.
I identified the deformed spoke and,
to make it more visible,
I took a photo with the tension released.
It's a radial spoke on the
lower spoke count side of the G3 lacing.
It's fixed.
Now for the rear wheel.
There were two locations where spokes on the G3 parallel spoke section
on the freewheel-side hedgehog direction were bent.
The photo above was also taken with tension released.
The deformation direction isn't what would happen if something got caught during wheel rotation,
so the cause is unclear.
It's fixed.
The blue tape marks where I replaced the spokes,
and the white tape marks the spokes whose tension I released
to perform that replacement.
↑ The replaced spokes
I was glad to have spare spokes in stock.
These front and rear wheels had defects beyond just spoke deformation.
Let me go through them in order.
There was a history of tubeless use,
but the tubeless valve wasn't something that came with the wheel—
it was an accessory from Shamal Ultra 2 WAY-FIT.
I can say with certainty it's a Shamal Ultra tubeless valve
because it had the same part number M1-035 as the one in the photo above.
Addendum: I've received a few comments, but
it appears there are examples where the Bora WTO45
comes with the M1-035 valve as standard.
Since this tubeless valve alone wasn't long enough,
they extended it with a valve extender,
but to make tubeless function properly,
a valve nut needs to be installed,
so the valve extender
needs to have threads cut into it.
The Tni extender in the photo above
has threads all the way to the parallel grip section
where you hold it during installation,
↑ On this wheel,
an extender of this type was installed
without threads cut into the
grip section.
↑ Like this
The important thing is that the section
protruding from the valve bushing
has no threads cut into it.
And then an O-ring was additionally installed on it,
Minor point though it is,
the stepped valve nut
was installed with the smaller diameter side
facing toward the rim.
Here's the problem with this:
In the diagram above, there's still a bit of wrench clearance on the nut,
but in reality, it was tightened hard enough to crush the O-ring,
and the valve nut reached the very end of the threads—
it was at the point where it couldn't be tightened any further.
Yet even so, the sealing at the base of the tubeless valve
on the outer rim side wasn't completely airtight,
so Muc-Off's pink sealant hardened in large quantities
around the rim hole on the outer side,
and that's what somehow made the tubeless condition work.
A considerable amount of sealant had also seeped into the rim interior,
and when doing the wheel truing, pink liquid
was leaking from rim holes at positions away from the valve hole.
Complete removal of the sealant inside the rim is impossible.
Since this is a rim tape–less rim design with no holes on the outer perimeter
besides the valve hole, I can only clean around the valve hole.
I wonder if the previous owner might have thought,
"The Bora WTO holds air poorly for a rim with no visible holes!
Even when I packed it with sealant, the air loss was terrible!"
and gotten frustrated without noticing the valve installation defects.
It doesn't make sense that they weren't using the wheel's own original tubeless valve.
It's also possible that the previous owner wasn't the first owner
and the tubeless valve was already missing when they acquired it.
They said it was obtained at an auction,
and they wanted an inspection at our shop before using it.
But beyond just that,
they've already noticed that some spokes are bent,
so they want those replaced too.
Let me start with the front wheel.
I identified the deformed spoke and,
to make it more visible,
I took a photo with the tension released.
It's a radial spoke on the
lower spoke count side of the G3 lacing.
It's fixed.
Now for the rear wheel.
There were two locations where spokes on the G3 parallel spoke section
on the freewheel-side hedgehog direction were bent.
The photo above was also taken with tension released.
The deformation direction isn't what would happen if something got caught during wheel rotation,
so the cause is unclear.
It's fixed.
The blue tape marks where I replaced the spokes,
and the white tape marks the spokes whose tension I released
to perform that replacement.
↑ The replaced spokes
I was glad to have spare spokes in stock.
These front and rear wheels had defects beyond just spoke deformation.
Let me go through them in order.
There was a history of tubeless use,
but the tubeless valve wasn't something that came with the wheel—
it was an accessory from Shamal Ultra 2 WAY-FIT.
I can say with certainty it's a Shamal Ultra tubeless valve
because it had the same part number M1-035 as the one in the photo above.
Addendum: I've received a few comments, but
it appears there are examples where the Bora WTO45
comes with the M1-035 valve as standard.
Since this tubeless valve alone wasn't long enough,
they extended it with a valve extender,
but to make tubeless function properly,
a valve nut needs to be installed,
so the valve extender
needs to have threads cut into it.
The Tni extender in the photo above
has threads all the way to the parallel grip section
where you hold it during installation,
↑ On this wheel,
an extender of this type was installed
without threads cut into the
grip section.
↑ Like this
The important thing is that the section
protruding from the valve bushing
has no threads cut into it.
And then an O-ring was additionally installed on it,
Minor point though it is,
the stepped valve nut
was installed with the smaller diameter side
facing toward the rim.
Here's the problem with this:
In the diagram above, there's still a bit of wrench clearance on the nut,
but in reality, it was tightened hard enough to crush the O-ring,
and the valve nut reached the very end of the threads—
it was at the point where it couldn't be tightened any further.
Yet even so, the sealing at the base of the tubeless valve
on the outer rim side wasn't completely airtight,
so Muc-Off's pink sealant hardened in large quantities
around the rim hole on the outer side,
and that's what somehow made the tubeless condition work.
A considerable amount of sealant had also seeped into the rim interior,
and when doing the wheel truing, pink liquid
was leaking from rim holes at positions away from the valve hole.
Complete removal of the sealant inside the rim is impossible.
Since this is a rim tape–less rim design with no holes on the outer perimeter
besides the valve hole, I can only clean around the valve hole.
I wonder if the previous owner might have thought,
"The Bora WTO holds air poorly for a rim with no visible holes!
Even when I packed it with sealant, the air loss was terrible!"
and gotten frustrated without noticing the valve installation defects.
It doesn't make sense that they weren't using the wheel's own original tubeless valve.
It's also possible that the previous owner wasn't the first owner
and the tubeless valve was already missing when they acquired it.