Missing a spoke. Does that matter much?
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Heh - I live at the outskirts of civilization where experts are few and far between.
All the two bike shops and four tire shops I asked in this town declined to respoke wheels and suggested I should buy new instead.
There is a third one in the neighbor town that I asked about truing the front wheel. They told me it was a 3 hour job at 80£/hr, so I have no confidence in them at all. I spent half an hour myself twisting nipples until it was a fair bit better.
I got a puncture rear two days ago. Replacing the tube for one I supplied myself cost 25£ at the closest tire shop, which is a steal with the labor costs around here. Another wanted a mere 17£ for replacing the front tube before summer, but then wanted 30£ for balancing the wheel. Which is like a three minute job.
So I usually have the choice between doing stuff myself, or pay exorbitant fees for what is otherwise rather trivial work. I mostly do stuff myself, because it comes with the pleasant benefit of learning things and feeling capable. Though I do pay for swapping tires because that is a back-breaking chore that I hate intensely.
So thank you for your input and advice, but I think I shall wait addressing the wheels until next season. It works well enough for my commuting another month before the weather gets too cold. Need new tires soon anyway.
Wait - you are in UK? Read all "tires" as "tyres" then...
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@SpookDog Thanks bud
I think it depends upon a lot of factors how much a broken spoke would potentially lead to other issues. Sometimes one broken spoke can lead to others going like @Calum said. You can get away with a lot with spoked wheels but equally I've heard stories about wheels collapsing at my local MX track. Personally I'd see about getting it fixed.@OllieDTR and myself were talking about this the other day. OEM spokes are exactly the right length for an OEM DTR hub and rim so just ordering some by part number gives you an excellent head start. Having said that I once met a guy at a local bike meet with a restored YR5 (air-cooled 2T twin from the late 60s, the original RD350) who got his spokes/nipples replated and re-used them.
IIRC the front spokes on the DTR are all the same length but the rear set includes long and short ones (I think I did find my inner and outer rears were about 3mm difference) so you need to make a note of which ones go where when dismantling the wheel. If you don't have the original Yamaha tool kit spoke wrench the nipples on the DTR are 5.1mm (nothing is ever simple lol).
My truing stand cost about £65 and will also do for balancing wheels on bigger bikes. I also bought a spoke torque wrench which was a bit pricey but I also had a brand new KTM 250 at the time and wanted to keep an eye on the spokes on that as they work harder on dirt bikes; KTM recommend 5Nm on MX and Enduro bikes so I reasoned 3Nm should be OK for the DTR and this held up well on the set I built, I ran them for about 2000 miles without needing to re-tension. Mike at Salisbury Wheel Builders (very respected locally) told me to throw the spoke torque wrench away which coming from him is a fair point, but that illustrates the difference between an experienced professional wheelbuilder who does this week in week out and someone like myself who does a set once in a while.
Start off by truing your front wheel to get a feel, or even get some old ones off any old bike from a breaker which you can dismantle and put back together, do some destruction testing until the spokes break etc.
I got a lot of satisfaction from building DTR wheelsets but equally @SpookDog makes a fair point; I worked in a Yamaha dealership which also repaired bicycles as a teenager, and we used to do a lot of truing, spoke replacements etc. If we didn't have the right size spokes we just used to cut longer ones down and roll a new thread on (spokes have rolled threads which are stronger than cut threads). So I guess I've had a bit of a headstart here, I had friends at the time who worked for prestige car manufacturers who couldn't true wheels but despite this I still feel my knowledge barely scrapes the surface. So trash some old wheels that don't matter before tackling your DTR ones.
Here are some plans I drew of the spoke pattern before dismantling my DTR wheels. I watched these two vids a few times before starting as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeBEXq2dGnU&t=12s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCQtuGfz3c8&t=9s
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Great information, thank you!
I figure I should spend the snowy months getting new rims and spokes and putting them on the old hubs. I have one of these I'll convert into a truing rig:
Original parts are listed at hilarious prices, most of the time Out Of Stock and generally not available, I'm pretty sure that if I would ask for DT wheels at the capital they would happily order them from Japan and charge me a month's salary or something. So it is eBay or generic parts.
I find it outrageous that nipples do not use standard dimensions like 5, 6, 8 mm. What were they thinking? I mean, it's not even imperial they're using. Madness.
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Again! I have to reiterate what @HOTSHOT-III said, practice on an old wheel first! Please!…
Definitely good info! Should be pinned to the ‘how to’ section…
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I had issues with the front wheel, at least 3 spokes loose to the point I could bend them with one finger, several more not as tight as they should, tried to tighten one spoke and it snapped at the thread. For some reason, wheel spokes for motorcycles are almost unobtainable in my area but I've managed to find a few replacements of the same length, they're a mismatch in width and I did a botch job, the wheel is not perfectly aligned and the bike jerks when riding. Hope my axle or bearings didn't get damaged so far, I'll probably try to find a complete 21 inch wheel on a junkyard and replace all of the spokes
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@SpookDog 0 wheels in my area, you have to get lucky and find a totaled DT to scrap for used parts. Besides my rim and tyre is in good condition, I could gamble with spokes that could break or buy some spares just in case they break. Not sure if heat gun would be effective at loosening the threaded nipples
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@R3L3_89 I had some success winding short lengths of pipe cleaner around any nipples that were seized, then carefully spraying penetrating fluid on them regularly for 24 hours. Because the pipe cleaners are felt, they ensure a small area remains soaked in penetrating fluid long after you've sprayed it. This freed off the specific nipples that were seized without getting any on the ones either side of it (you really don't want penetrating fluid on a spoke nipple that isn't seized!).
It worked better on the front wheel to be honest because they're J-bend spokes, rears are practically straight pull so if you crank a seized one too hard it can spin right round in the hub. To prevent this some people grip the spoke with self-locking pliers whilst trying to turn the nipple, I've never known one to fail due to this but I've never been all that comfortable doing it either.
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@HOTSHOT-III is DT80 wheel compatible with DT125R? It looks identical from the photos, maybe I could swap the entire wheel and be doje with it
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@R3L3_89 I wouldn't want to say. Take a look at Yamaha France parts lookup, key in your VIN(s) and check the numbers, they have a lot of details even for Yamaha products not initially sold in France:
https://www.yamaha-motor.eu/fr/fr/service-maintenance/parts-catalogue/
