A customer (technically speaking) brought in
the front wheel of a Fulcrum Racing Light—
the ultra spec version, as Campagnolo would call it—
the Racing Light XLR.
The owner of this wheel works in the industry,
but isn't quite a direct competitor—
they work for a distributor.
They removed the front wheel and leaned it against their car's front grille,
then forgot about it and accidentally drove off,
running over their own wheel.
In that instant, they thought, "Oh man, I gotta go to Nom Lab,"
and our shop immediately came to mind.
When I released the tension on the spoke
directly below where the rim was most out of true,
I found deformation. There was lateral bending,
so the spoke had developed a smooth curve.
↑Replacement spoke
In the images below, the top is the spare spoke
and the bottom is the original spoke.
The lateral bending—
when you place the spoke with its flattened side facing up,
it curves upward,
so I pushed it down to photograph it.
You can see it's also bent front-to-back at a certain point.
To make it clearer,
I've rotated the original spoke for the photo,
but even the threaded end was bent.
It's fixed.
They didn't expect it to be repaired on the spot.
That turned out well!
To replace the spoke, I had to temporarily remove the hub axle,
and even after the replacement spoke was installed—
at a point before the phase of maximum runout
(the state a second before the car ran it over)—
there were still minor lateral deviations at several points,
so I took those out too.
The adjustment work created conditions that could cause
center deviation in several ways,
but since the wheel had massive runout when it came in,
I hadn't checked the temporary center.
After the initial truing, I finally applied the centering gauge,
and it was dead perfect right away.
the front wheel of a Fulcrum Racing Light—
the ultra spec version, as Campagnolo would call it—
the Racing Light XLR.
The owner of this wheel works in the industry,
but isn't quite a direct competitor—
they work for a distributor.
They removed the front wheel and leaned it against their car's front grille,
then forgot about it and accidentally drove off,
running over their own wheel.
In that instant, they thought, "Oh man, I gotta go to Nom Lab,"
and our shop immediately came to mind.
When I released the tension on the spoke
directly below where the rim was most out of true,
I found deformation. There was lateral bending,
so the spoke had developed a smooth curve.
↑Replacement spoke
In the images below, the top is the spare spoke
and the bottom is the original spoke.
The lateral bending—
when you place the spoke with its flattened side facing up,
it curves upward,
so I pushed it down to photograph it.
You can see it's also bent front-to-back at a certain point.
To make it clearer,
I've rotated the original spoke for the photo,
but even the threaded end was bent.
It's fixed.
They didn't expect it to be repaired on the spot.
That turned out well!
To replace the spoke, I had to temporarily remove the hub axle,
and even after the replacement spoke was installed—
at a point before the phase of maximum runout
(the state a second before the car ran it over)—
there were still minor lateral deviations at several points,
so I took those out too.
The adjustment work created conditions that could cause
center deviation in several ways,
but since the wheel had massive runout when it came in,
I hadn't checked the temporary center.
After the initial truing, I finally applied the centering gauge,
and it was dead perfect right away.