How important are tight spokes?

I had a quick Google, but nothing jumped out at me...

I have a fair bit of experience with building and truing bicycle wheels
and know it is very important to have all the spokes at the same tension
to keep the wheel true.

I just bought a well used 1990 TT350 and it seems to have landed hard
from (at least) one jump and has a small flat spot on each rim. It is
not enough that if you take the weight off the wheel and spin it you can
see it, but it is enough that the spokes at that point (maybe 3 or 4)
are a little loose. I went to tighten them up but the nipples are
locked tight on the spoke and I could not budge them.

I know I could take the tire off, spray some WD-40 or something on them,
wait a while etc. and get them to move. But, it does not seem worth the
effort. These wheels are so "chunky" compared to my bicycle I only
ride off-road and don't notice any problem when I ride...

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Brian

 

One time, many years ago, on an old 400 suz I had, I didn't pay
attention to the spokes. Enough of them were loose that the few that
weren't pulled out thru the rim when I pulled out particularly hard on
asphalt. The rim went immediatly out of round & hadda bounce my way
home to see what happened. Got my first lesson in spokin' a wheel a few
days & $$s later. Steel wheel. If they are dented bad enough, simply
tightening the spokes probably won't be a proper cure.

 

acceleration forces.

 

Hey! Pay attention now. Your axles hang from the spokes. The wheel is
made up of spokes in tension and an I-beam rim that's bent in a circle.
The rim is plenty stiff because of its shape, but the spokes have
strength in only one direction, that is tension.

The spokes must be tight. Period.

If several spokes break at the same time and the wheel disintegrates
and you have to physically manhandle the machine out of some
car-inaccessible location, you'll think differently about the
importance of tight spokes...

I bought a used street bike once and totally went through it before
riding it to Las Vegas. But I neglected to do anything about the
spokes. As I rode home from Vegas, I noticed the rear end of the bike
seemed to weave a lot. But southern California freeways have rain
grooves that cause a lot of wiggling. I got home and grabbed the rear
wheel to lube the chain before
calling it a day, and the wheel moved sideways about half an inch due
to the loose spokes.

If I'd had to ride another 200 miles, the wheel might have
disintegrated...

 

Apply some Kroyl to the spoke threads without removing the tire
and let it work a while. Kroyl is a pentrant that's worked
really well for me. The "WD" in WD40 stands for water dispersant.
I don't think it's really intended as a pentrating oil.

If "loose" meant a slightly lower note when I tapped the spoke,
I wouldn't get too worried, but if "loose" meant wiggly I'd worry.

I probably wouldn't pull the tire unless the above failed. If it's
some really serious tightening or changing a spoke, you'd want the
tire off so you could grind down the spoke end. If I did have to
pull the tire, I might consider just clipping the spokes and
replacing them one by one.

 

It's possible to replace just one broken spoke if you have some nice
soft wire spokes, the kind that rust. Chromed spokes will probably snap
if you try to bend them.

It's necessary to bend a curve into the spoke in order to get it
through the hole in the hub (unless it's one of those BMW straight
spoke hubs) and then maneuver it into the spoke nipple.

As the spoke is tightened, it will be pulled straight again. The only
problem is whether the end of the spoke is going to penetrate the rim
rubber and then chafe on the inner tube. But it probably won't. seeing
as how a little bit of curvature will probably remain in the spoke,
making it effectively shorter than the rest of the spokes around it...

 

Thanks for all the replies. The bike is going to be off the "road"
while I split the cases and figure out why the turning the countershaft
sprocket, while it is gear, does not turn any part of the clutch :-( As
the motor is coming out I am also going to strip it right down and get
the frame blasted and powder-coated. Looks like I add fixing the wheels
to my list... (mind you, I am not spending a cent until I figure out
how much the gearbox is going to cost - I might have to end-up junking it)

Can anyone recommend a place to get my rims straightened in Sydney,
Australia. Prefer south-west.

Thanks again,

Brian