Wheel Builders

[850 Combat]

I need to have a spoked wheel built. Rebuilt, really. I had it built with an early hub which has no cush drive in it. I want to replace it with a custom cush drive hub, which I have. The hub is made specifically for my motorcycle, a Norton Commando. Even with a cush drive, I sheared a tooth off first gear a few times in the past when street racing. Back then, I could get a replacement gear for free. For the last 30 or 40 years, I have been using Wheel Works, who took over when Buchannon's moved North. I called wheel works yesterday. Their wheel builder is out of comission with an injury.

[salty_monk]

Sounds like a good time to pick up a new skill... Joe Nardy did one a few years ago & it came out ok. I've done bicycle but never a motorcycle. I would think a site like ADVRIDER might get you a better selection of answers on this one.

[Sandy]

I did my GS wheels a couple of years ago and never having done wheels before was intimidated at first but it turned out to be pretty easy. Take pictures of the spoke pattern before you start as well as measurements for wheel offset from the hub to get it centered properly. Easier than a bicycle wheel because with a bicycle the rim flexes and needs lots of trueing. With a motorcycle rim you're only set making sure it's centered and spins true. If your rim is out of round or bent you're going to be tossing it and not trueing it.

[Sandy]

How much time did it take Sandy? I acquired a set of aluminum wheels for a 79 1000 and I was thinking of pulling them down to polish/clean them but haven't done it before either.

I did it over period of a couple of weeks a bit at a time. I had NOS OEM spoke sets for both wheels and disassembled them, polished the rims and hubs but reassembly and trueing probably only took 1 - 1 1/2 hours. For torquing the spokes I did it by ear. A trick a friend that built multiple sets of wheels (he was my backup incase things went sideways) showed me. Take a wrench and wack a few spokes before you disassemble the wheel and listen to the tones, match it on the new spokes, they should all sound the same.


20180225_113741 by soates50, on Flickr

[Rob S.]

I did it my first year of riding/owning, so you can too. As was said, just tighten till you get a nice "ping" on each spoke.

[oldGSfan]

I did the front and rear on my '66 Norton N15CS. There are good tutorials on YouTube. I used a balancing stand from Harbor Freight. Front was a bit trickier because I fitted a Commando disc brake, and it is offset - one side's spokes are almost perpendicular to the hub/rim. The tutorials really help and I had no problem, except the Buchanan spokes were too long and I had to grind them down. It doesn't have the cush drive and uses HD spokes vs the Commando.