What a low-grade wheel this is.
I received a Nepest Nova rear wheel from a customer for repair.
I forgot to take a before-work photo,
so the image above is from partway through the job,
with tape already applied to the spokes.
I've already told the customer I'd be using the phrase
"low-grade" in my writeup.
The reason they brought it in was
because of lateral wobble, but
at most angles the truing stand's indicator
was registering runout, and
at certain angles it was wobbling wildly like this.
This is the kind of runout that only shows up
if a spoke is broken or completely lacks tension.
On an aluminum rim, you'd suspect rim deformation at this level.
Like the similar wheel I dealt with separately before (→here)
I suspected some defect in the carbon spokes,
so I checked not just the wobbling sector
but every single spoke carefully—no abnormalities found.
There was one spoke directly below the worst wobble
that seemed to have lost tension,
so I suspected nipple creep there.
I removed that spoke,
applied threadlocker to the threads,
and reinstalled it.
What was strange was that for a VONOA spoke,
there was almost no resistance when turning the nipple—
it loosened smoothly and easily.
The spoke threads were very clean.
I applied threadlocker to these threads
and began tightening the nipple, but...
even without intentionally over-tightening,
just trying to remove the lateral runout,
I reached the end of the thread engagement
and still wanted to turn it more.
It wasn't just a feeling—I had genuinely run out of threads.
So this is the same image as at the top.
The spoke with blue tape,
in the outpoke direction,
is the one I removed and applied threadlocker to earlier.
The spoke with white tape,
in the inpoke direction,
is its cross-partner spoke at the final crossing.
Looking closely at the rim hole area...
↑The spoke with blue tape.
The bluish color you see is the threadlocker.
The threaded portion of the spoke
is sunken inward from the rim's inner surface.
↑The spoke with white tape.
The threaded portion of the spoke
is nearly flush with the rim's inner surface.
Looking at other rim holes,
there are some slight variations in the relationship
between the threaded part and the hole position elsewhere,
but nowhere else is the difference this extreme.
This is something
a respectable manufacturer would never question—
but it occurred to me: could these spokes be different lengths?
So I removed both the blue and white tape spokes from the wheel.
The white-tape spoke had the kind of excessive
friction resistance you often see in aged VONOA spokes.
You can see in the image above that compared to
the blue-tape spoke, its threads were dirty.
Oddly, it wasn't during loosening that the noise happened,
but around when tension fully released and the nipple
was coming off the spoke threads—
there was a loud "gigi-gigi..." sound.
The customer even remarked, "That spoke is making noise."
I removed both spokes from the final crossing
on that same flange side.
↑Sure enough, the blue-tape spoke in the image above
was noticeably longer.
At the point where the longer one bottomed out,
the shorter one (the correct one) had
more than five additional thread wraps of engagement available.
This is such a first-time discovery that even I caught it,
so there's no way the assembly line worker at Nepest
wouldn't have noticed the odd feel—
except I didn't know about Nepest's low manufacturing standards.
This rear wheel's first owner is the customer,
and the shop where they bought it, plus a nearby shop,
have no record of any inspection or service.
The tape-style rim tape that I had to remove for this work
was still in factory condition, so
it's certain that the wrong spoke length
was there from the factory assembly.
The customer brought the included spare parts box
that comes with carbon spoke wheels—
usually containing one spare spoke for each direction—
and inside was a spoke matching the white-tape length, so
I swapped it in and rebuilt the wheel.
↑The spoke in the outpoke direction is the original one.
I received a Nepest Nova rear wheel from a customer for repair.
I forgot to take a before-work photo,
so the image above is from partway through the job,
with tape already applied to the spokes.
I've already told the customer I'd be using the phrase
"low-grade" in my writeup.
The reason they brought it in was
because of lateral wobble, but
at most angles the truing stand's indicator
was registering runout, and
at certain angles it was wobbling wildly like this.
This is the kind of runout that only shows up
if a spoke is broken or completely lacks tension.
On an aluminum rim, you'd suspect rim deformation at this level.
Like the similar wheel I dealt with separately before (→here)
I suspected some defect in the carbon spokes,
so I checked not just the wobbling sector
but every single spoke carefully—no abnormalities found.
There was one spoke directly below the worst wobble
that seemed to have lost tension,
so I suspected nipple creep there.
I removed that spoke,
applied threadlocker to the threads,
and reinstalled it.
What was strange was that for a VONOA spoke,
there was almost no resistance when turning the nipple—
it loosened smoothly and easily.
The spoke threads were very clean.
I applied threadlocker to these threads
and began tightening the nipple, but...
even without intentionally over-tightening,
just trying to remove the lateral runout,
I reached the end of the thread engagement
and still wanted to turn it more.
It wasn't just a feeling—I had genuinely run out of threads.
So this is the same image as at the top.
The spoke with blue tape,
in the outpoke direction,
is the one I removed and applied threadlocker to earlier.
The spoke with white tape,
in the inpoke direction,
is its cross-partner spoke at the final crossing.
Looking closely at the rim hole area...
↑The spoke with blue tape.
The bluish color you see is the threadlocker.
The threaded portion of the spoke
is sunken inward from the rim's inner surface.
↑The spoke with white tape.
The threaded portion of the spoke
is nearly flush with the rim's inner surface.
Looking at other rim holes,
there are some slight variations in the relationship
between the threaded part and the hole position elsewhere,
but nowhere else is the difference this extreme.
This is something
a respectable manufacturer would never question—
but it occurred to me: could these spokes be different lengths?
So I removed both the blue and white tape spokes from the wheel.
The white-tape spoke had the kind of excessive
friction resistance you often see in aged VONOA spokes.
You can see in the image above that compared to
the blue-tape spoke, its threads were dirty.
Oddly, it wasn't during loosening that the noise happened,
but around when tension fully released and the nipple
was coming off the spoke threads—
there was a loud "gigi-gigi..." sound.
The customer even remarked, "That spoke is making noise."
I removed both spokes from the final crossing
on that same flange side.
↑Sure enough, the blue-tape spoke in the image above
was noticeably longer.
At the point where the longer one bottomed out,
the shorter one (the correct one) had
more than five additional thread wraps of engagement available.
This is such a first-time discovery that even I caught it,
so there's no way the assembly line worker at Nepest
wouldn't have noticed the odd feel—
except I didn't know about Nepest's low manufacturing standards.
This rear wheel's first owner is the customer,
and the shop where they bought it, plus a nearby shop,
have no record of any inspection or service.
The tape-style rim tape that I had to remove for this work
was still in factory condition, so
it's certain that the wrong spoke length
was there from the factory assembly.
The customer brought the included spare parts box
that comes with carbon spoke wheels—
usually containing one spare spoke for each direction—
and inside was a spoke matching the white-tape length, so
I swapped it in and rebuilt the wheel.
↑The spoke in the outpoke direction is the original one.