ConTENtious

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
What’s wrong with the site? I don’t get the pop up to upload pictures
IMG_1644.gif


Elaborate please

I can upload either way it would appear
 
@Captain Awesome I should be seeing this on my phone because I grab my pictures directly from my phone. (This is from computer

1697211485395.png


But I'm seeing this when I hit the picture button.

screen.png


Notice how the selections are grayed out, and that "Up Arrow" box has appeared lower right. That's all it does.
 
What’s wrong with the site? I don’t get the pop up to upload pictures

The POP up to upload pictures. There is no pop up to upload pictures. There is a button on the lower left that says Attach Files. Click on that, go to your storage and choose the image and upload it. Then put your cursor where you want the photo, go to the small thumbnail and click INSERT. Then choose thumbnail or full, I choose full. Then your image will show.
 
Notice how the selections are grayed out,
Sometimes happens to me that I can't do all the stuff... The grayed out buttons are because of what I assume is the "preview post" function. It is the button at the top right, a page with a magnifying glass over it. When I have that toggled, I don't have the option to edit text or upload pics...
 
I only ever use the attach files button at the lower left. Works from my phone and from my laptop.
 
Sometimes happens to me that I can't do all the stuff... The grayed out buttons are because of what I assume is the "preview post" function. It is the button at the top right, a page with a magnifying glass over it. When I have that toggled, I don't have the option to edit text or upload pics...

Did you try this ^

Looks like that what I’m going to have to do. The pop up remains gone

I see in your screenshot that everything is gray EXCEPT the preview post button which is strange

Also, just for kicks did you try logging out and back in and/or clearing your cache?
 
I was lucky enough to find one of the best 333 hubs I’ve ever seen. So, I cleaned and polished it, because that’s what I do.
4C33444F-719C-495A-8B5E-22FBA50DAE63.jpeg


Then I laced it up with new spokes after I polished the Murray M.O.M. rim I bought for it.
E8879B3C-6AFD-406B-8E1D-48606C2BAEF2.jpeg


WARNING: the following is long and boring. Move on to the next post if you don’t care about wheel truing. Summary: I trued the rear wheel.

I didn’t get a laced picture because I got right to work. I have 14 wheels in total I have to lace and true, so no time to fart around. @Pondo visited a while back, and @barbedwire has been asking questions, so I thought I’d take the time to give a poor explanation of how I tension and true rims.
Tools: Truing Stand, spoke wrench (I use a 14mm because I exclusively use 14g straight gauge stainless spokes and 14mm brass nipples because they most resemble original), dishing tool.
Oh… and I made a special spoke bit for my drill to speed up tensioning. @Pondo can tell you how slow it goes by hand because his nipples were too small. Yes, Pondo has small nipples)
First, rack it up and tighten the two nipples on either side of the valve hole. You want to tighten them until the spoke meets the bottom of the slot (roughly). My tool has a center “finger” that holds the tool in the nipple, then tells me when the spoke is there by pushing the tool out.
D231B2AA-596C-4D55-AF29-1EB831EC398B.jpeg


Then tighten the two that are 180 out from the first two. Then go 90 degrees and tighten those two, then 180 and tighten those two. You’ve just set 4 quadrants. It doesn’t matter the order, but pick a quadrant and tighten them up, then go to the opposite quadrant. It more evenly distributes the tension on the rim.

Then I take my spine wrench and go around and feel the tension evenness by giving each nipple a 1/4 turn, and adjusting for what I feel. After that, I lube the nipples! (I can’t get in trouble for this because the are called nipples. I didn’t name them nipples, but someone did. So… nipples)
Anyway…. LUBING THE NIPPLES!! It’s very important.
F0D8CFA6-C96D-4A60-8075-4B0C5C633707.jpeg

I put a drop on the top, then at the base for each. Then I go to the outside of the rim and put a drop on the head at the rim. This is important because you don’t want them to bind while you’re truing. If you bind up, the tension from the binding will get released and you’ll lose the work you did. You’ll still have the small pop or two, but nowhere as bad if you try this dry.
This is after the initial tension. Not a bad start.


Next up is the dish. Whether front wheel or back, multi-speed or single, “dish” is centering the rim to the outside nuts of the hub so it sits evenly in the frame or fork. You use a Dishing Tool for this.
5CAB0C13-EF76-447B-A489-3DA796C93A74.jpeg

Basically the tool is a gauge. You put the foot on one side, flip the wheel over and make sure it hits exactly like the other side. You tighten one side of nipples all the way around or loosen the opposite side to pull the rim (or push the hub. Whichever way you want to call it.)
Man… it’s so much easier to show this in action. I warned you this was going to be a poor explanation! Hard to see in the pic, but the drive side is “flatter” than the non-drive side to accommodate the freewheel.
666DF3FA-1D4A-4D97-9822-E6DBAAF5E867.jpeg


Next I get the side to sides evened in a little so it’s easier to judge the roundness of the wheel. That’s my next goal, to make the rim evenly round around the hub. This is tough to explain, but you have to think of spokes as a community, and they share tension. So if one side has too much, and is pulling the rim towards the hub, the opposite side has too little is is letting the rim slide too far away. So you have to exchange, not just change, tension. When you get it right, it looks like this.


Lastly is the side-to-side adjustments, but you have to keep in mind the dish, and the round. Any big changes can throw those off. But by now, you should be down to small adjustments. You will start with your guides wider, and work your adjustments smaller and smaller until none. You can tighten one side to pull the rim toward it, or loosen the opposite side to let the rim get pulled, or usually it’s a combo of tightening one/loosening its neighbor.
Steel is a lot hard to true than allow. And old, used rims like I work with a lot could have battle scars. So they may not come out perfect. But this came out pretty good.

 
The threads on my steer tube are damaged at the bottom. I couldn’t get the adjustable cup past them at all.
B9E27F90-E4F5-40AC-BB6C-2FA92C866C16.jpeg


So I took it to my LBS to have the threads chased and cut.
E36AE4D8-BBFA-4D9C-9BA7-B28D6A906E93.jpeg


He was able to get through the damaged threads no problem, and even cut about 1/4” of new threads just to make sure the middle cutting threads made it past to damage. He did it three times, and despite that, the race still stops dead at the damage! What?? Why? I can’t figure it out. If the die cut right through, shouldn’t the race be able to screw all the way down?
So I brought it home. If I can’t figure out what to do, I’ll have to devise a spacer. But this is bugging me. Any thoughts?
 
...despite that, the race still stops dead at the damage! What?? Why? I can’t figure it out. If the die cut right through, shouldn’t the race be able to screw all the way down?
One would think so. But remember, the 'new' threads conform to the die, not necessarily to the cone you're using. Even with the correct thread pitch, there could be very subtle differences in manufacturing precision. I suspect that the new threads stand a little proud of the existing ones, resulting in...snugness.

Do you by chance have any throw-away headset parts laying around? I keep a discarded race that has wrench flats so that I can chase the already-chased threads, and not mangle the knurled parts I actually want to use.
 
Last edited:
One would think so. But remember, the 'new' threads conform to the die, not necessarily to the cone you're using. Even with the correct thread pitch, there could be very subtle differences in manufacturing precision. I suspect that the new threads stand a little proud of the existing ones, resulting in...snugness.

Do you by chance have any throw-away headset parts laying around? I keep a discarded race that has wrench flats so that I can chase the already-chased threads, and not mangle the knurled parts I actually want to use.
^^^

👍
 
One would think so. But remember, the 'new' threads conform to the die, not necessarily to the cone you're using. Even with the correct thread pitch, there could be very subtle differences in manufacturing precision. I suspect that the new threads stand a little proud of the existing ones, resulting in...snugness.

Do you by chance have any throw-away headset parts laying around? I keep a discarded race that has wrench flats so that I can chase the already-chased threads, and not mangle the knurled parts I actually want to use.
This seems like a good solution. I would also add some of that nipple lube for some friendly persuasion! :wink1:
 
Great write up on the wheel building! I’ve really been getting into wheel building and love learning new things.

I have never divided the wheel into quadrants for the initial tensioning. This makes great sense and I will have to try it. I always wondered about this. Hard to explain, but if you start tensioning at one nipple and work you way around the wheel is seems like it would deform the roundness.

Question about lubing the nipples. Do you use “spoke prep” on the spoke threads? When I do use spoke prep, I do not lube the nipples. I’m really not sure if I should be using both, or one or the other.
 
Great write up on the wheel building! I’ve really been getting into wheel building and love learning new things.

I have never divided the wheel into quadrants for the initial tensioning. This makes great sense and I will have to try it. I always wondered about this. Hard to explain, but if you start tensioning at one nipple and work you way around the wheel is seems like it would deform the roundness.

Question about lubing the nipples. Do you use “spoke prep” on the spoke threads? When I do use spoke prep, I do not lube the nipples. I’m really not sure if I should be using both, or one or the other.
Spoke prep is ideal. But since I’m building show wheels, not race wheels, I go with the economical option. Steel rims do not require the precise tension adjustments allow race wheels require. So for what I do, spoke prep is overkill. I just trued a NOS Araya rim 5 minutes ago and it came out as close to perfect as I can get a steel wheel. Old, used steel wheels have slight bends from use, and cheap ones usually have poorly manufactured seems. So there can be no perfection.
 
Makes sense. Most of my wheels go on bikes for casual cruising and maybe spoke prep is overkill. I started using it when building wheels for a heavy rider that was having tons of issues with loose spokes.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top