The Easiest Way To True Motorcycle Wheels!

That I want to give you guys one of them so win just like this What's going on guys So today my beard and I are gonna be walking you through the process of balancing a dirt bike wheel now I'm gonna break this down as simple as possible. So any of you to do this at home, so stay tuned So what is balancing a wheel or as many call it truing a wheel? It's basically taking all of the wobble out of the wheel whether that side-to-side movement or up-and-down movement And we correct this by either tightening or loosening the spokes in a certain fashion It really is that simple so literally any of you guys could do this at home with minimal tools? All right. So let me explain the basic concept of truing a wheel So say if you have side-to-side wobble how we're gonna correct that is by tightening the spokes in the right area So if your wheel is wobbling out to the right side or pulling out to the right side we're gonna tighten the spokes coming from the left side of the hub here and That will bring the wheel back over Center and straighten that out it's really simple as that and then for up and down wobble See if you have a wobble that goes up right here in this portion of the rim so you'll need a tightness folks in the area of the high spot and that'll push the rim down toward the hub and Correct that up-and-down wobble so you can do your wheel truing on a truing stand like I have here Or you can do on the bike as well I'm gonna do the front wheel on the truing stand and then bust off the back wheel on the bike I'm gonna say it's a lot easier to do your truing on a stand but plenty doable They do it on the bike as well So before you start truing you want to make sure your spokes are somewhat loose but not loose to the point where? The rim is wobbling on the hub looks like this one's pretty solid So let's take a peek at this rim and see where we're out of balance So we've got some definitely side-to-side movement out of it And I believe some up and down as well Yep, you can see a little up-and-down wobble. So The first thing I'm gonna attack is the side-to-side movement here on this truing stand. We have an indicator bar So we're gonna line that up with a rim to pinpoint exactly where the high and low spots are So one thing I thought I would mention if any of you guys have this truing stand It's a tusk one from Rocky Mountain great stand by the way, but if you're going to be truing smaller wheels on it There's one little modification here you have to do to the indicator bar so you can see when I tighten down the bar It doesn't line up with a rim now on a full-size wheel. This wouldn't be an issue at all but my solution to that is to Pull off the bar loosen this up a little bit and Put a little cardboard shim behind it and that'll allow you to tighten down the indicator bar So it actually lines up with the wheel. So now with the cardboard shim you can tighten that down Bring it over the wheel And it lines up. So just a little tip for you guys that have one of these trimming stands So now we can see exactly where the high and low spots are on the rim. So that's a low spot I'm gonna find the high spot here right about there and a correct that we're gonna make sure the spokes coming from this side of the hub are loose about four or five of them and then come over to this side and tighten about four or five spokes coming from this side of the hub and the key here is to go only about a half a Turn or maybe a full turn the littlest weeks make the biggest difference now We're gonna grab a spoke wrench and fix this thing up the wrench I'm using has multiple sizes here super handy to have I'll have it linked down below in the description All right. We're at the middle of the high spot here And I'm gonna loosen up four spokes coming from the left side the hub so one two, three and four Looks like these ones are already loose This one a few turns out And then I'm gonna tighten four spokes coming from the right side of the hub so these four right here Let's go a half a turn on that one and if these things are Loose enough to turn by hand just get them snugged up and then do a half a turn All right, let's see if that made a difference Nope, it's still pretty far out of whack. We're gonna have to do a full turn on this one and find the high spot again Right there We are gonna go full turn this time Definitely getting better This could take four or five different adjustments to get it closed Once again, the key here is be patient and just make little tweaks at a time You don't want to play the game where you're going overboard and shifting the rim from one side to the other and just going back And forth and also, I would recommend flipping the rim around on the stand Every two or three tweaks that way you're not pulling the rim way over to one side and messing up the offset Looks like we're still about three or four millimeters off. I'm gonna find the high spot right about there. Just A couple more tweaks and this thing will be pretty close After a couple tweaks, we've got this wheel spin and pretty good Got basically all of the side-to-side movement out but keep in mind when you're chewing up a wheel for a dirt bike You're gonna be riding the bike on uneven terrain You know with bumps and holes and ruts and whatever and so you don't need the wheel to be perfectly true and honestly Dirt bike wheels aren't really manufactured to the spec to where you're gonna get it I mean within a millimeter of run-out the typical run-out spec for most wheels is going to be two millimeters So that's two millimeters of side-to-side movement, which this wheel it probably has maybe a little bit less than that So yeah, don't expect to get your wheels perfectly true Now if these were for a street bike or supermoto, I would definitely spend the time dial them in as much as possible but for a dirt bike Doesn't matter quite as much now that we've got all the side-to-side wobble out of this wheel. We're going to attack the up-and-down movement We'll see how much we're working with here. We've got a little bit of up-and-down wobble there. So let's pinpoint exactly where that movement is Using the indicator bar. So we're gonna bring this bar down to the bottom of the rim Put down a little bit slide it over so not a ton of up-and-down movement, but something we definitely want to correct Let's find out exactly where this wheel is out of balance So right there is where it dips down. We're gonna tighten the spokes coming from both sides of the hub in that exact spot and That'll bring the wheel or the rim closer to the hub and that'll correct that problem area So the highest point was right here. So I'm gonna tighten three spokes on each side of that so six spokes in total and you Always want to use an even number that way it doesn't pull the wheel out of balance from side to side We're gonna give each of these spokes about a half of a turn There's number two three Four Five and We're gonna see if that corrected it Honestly this wheel wasn't that far out of true from up and down so it ain't gonna take a whole lot to fix it In order to correct the up-and-down movement to the wheel sometimes you might have to loosen up the spokes opposite of the high spot so up here loosened about six to eight spokes up here and that'll allow the wheel to shift the way you need it a Little bit of play there, but that's definitely within spec. And another thing to consider here is Dirt bike rims always have a seam in them. That seam is right here on this wheel, you can see that's a welded seam and That seam is always like a dip in the rim or sometimes. It'll come out to one side or the other and So that will throw your truing off as well, but for the most part That's about as good as you're gonna get for a dirt bike wheel Once you're done straightening out the up-and-down wobble the wheel you want to check the side-to-side movement once again Looks like this one stayed in spec. So we're good to go The next thing we're gonna check is the wheel offset now the wheel offset is basically how centered the rim is in relation to the hub so Obviously you want the rim in the very center of the hub so for this particular wheel or this their bike The factory service manual doesn't give a speck on wheel offset, you know, it's a little kids trail bike So really isn't that important they don't go that deep into it But on any full-size bike you look at the factory service manual They'll provide you with that spec just a few pointers on this truing stand if you guys have one or end up picking one up This is how you set it up So you want the callers to be tight on either side of the hub? That way the wheel stays exactly where you want on the stand doesn't shift from side to side and then the callers on the end You want those just snug? Against the edges of the stand if you go too tight The axle will actually bind and the wheel won't spin very well. So back to the wheel offset Typically, you're going to measure that from the edge of the hub which is on the table to the edge of the rim So this gap right here and since we don't have the spec for it, we can't really set the wheel offset on this wheel so in the event You need to adjust your wheel offset What you can do if your spokes are loose enough you can push with both hands on the rim with the wheel on the table and That should shift the rim on the hub and if that doesn't work You're gonna have to loose up your spokes just a little bit and make sure you do that evenly now that we've got the wheel completely Trude I'm gonna go over how to do the final tighten on all the spokes without affecting the wheel balance now the very best way to do the final tightening on the wheel is to use a spoke torque wrench Now this will do a good job of tightening evenly and ensure you're not over tightening or under tightening The wrench I'm using is a tusk brand from Rocky Mountain pretty pumped to try this thing out Let's go ahead and set up the Stork wrench believe we're gonna be using Five millimeter head for this particular wheel looks like the tip just pops right in here Nice solid fitment and obviously in order to torque your spokes you're gonna need to know your spoke torque spec for this wheel that is going to be 25 inch pounds just slide down the little sleeve Spin it around so that right there is 30 Back it down 5 and that'll be 25. And once you release the sleeve just locks the spec right there So if you don't know your torque spec for your particular bike you can either google it find it on the forum something like that or what I would recommend doing if you're working on your bike quite a bit is Just go pick up a factory service manual It'll give you the torque spec for every single bolt on your bike and save you a ton of headache so like I was saying the torque spec for this wheel is 25 inch pounds and We're gonna want to torque the spokes evenly. So how we're gonna do that is find the hole on the rim here This is the hole for the tube. We're gonna tighten this spoke skip to spokes tighten this one Skip to more tighten follow that same pattern all the way around the rim come back to the valve stem hole Right here and then go to the second spoke torque that to spec. Skip two Torque skip two torque do that Same thing around the rim till you come back to the hole and then jump to the third spoke Same pattern once again all the way around and once you do that you will have hit every single spoke evenly and that's the way to torque the spokes without throwing the wheel out of balance again all Right dudes. Let's test this thing out see how she goes at the first spoke here I'm gonna go and tell it clicks I Like waiting for it kind of nervous It's gonna work, oh, there we go. Looks like we're at 25 That's where the wrench kind of pivots or locks out at the head. I'm gonna skip two spokes There's 25 skip another two oh I see works pretty good. It's nice. How secure the The head is on the spoke to on a spoke nipple. It doesn't feel like it's gonna strip it or anything All right, it's gonna torque this thing. Like I was explained to you guys a little earlier Now that we're all done torquing gonna spin this thing make sure it's still straight. Oh Yeah, that's buttery It's about as good as it gets right there So we're all finished up with this wheel and then when you're done torquing the wheel Make sure you spin the torque wrench back to zero To keep this thing accurate for many years of the cup to be honest with the guys Pretty impressed with this torque wrench for the price Definitely can't beat it so much that I want to give you guys one of them so to win a torque wrench just like this Test one they can be found at Rocky Mountain. All you have to do is go down in the comments section and Comment we're gonna go tusk. So tu SK and in the next video, I am going to pick the winner for it so once again, no strings attached just comment tusk and I'm gonna pick the winner and have Rocky Mountain ship you one of these So have attaboys now for you tightwads that aren't going to sack up and buy a torque wrench. Here's what you can do Basically, we're gonna tighten the spokes based on sound so when you tap the spoke They produce a different sound based on how tight they are So obviously you can hear when it's tight house like a tense sound like a ting and I'm Bo loosen up the spoke And kind of show you what it would sound at Different at different tightness --is if that's even a word right now. The spoke is completely loose I can just turn the nipple by hand and it's gonna have a pretty dead sound to it Tighten it up a little bit. Give it a few turns maybe Like half of where it should be the torque spec on most folks is gonna be anywhere from two to four foot pounds So I'm gonna go at about two one foot pound and see how it sounds Still got a dead sound to it. Nothing like the teen we're looking for like with this spoke So a couple more turns I Would say that's pretty close right there as you can see it is possible to do by sound but then again You're just guessing So it's never gonna be quite as accurate as a torque wrench Now that we've got the front wheel completely done and trued up gonna move on to the rear wheel And it has promised I'll show you guys how to true this one on the bike for all you cheap bastards out there No judgement, though. I did the same thing for many years before I scraped up enough money to buy a truing stand So we're gonna have to assemble it just like we were putting the wheel on the bike pop the spacer in Put the brake panel on of course if you're working with a bike with disc brakes You're gonna have a brake caliper instead and then just simply Get this thing on the bike Be kind of cool to see how this thing looks on here Anyways, man, that is so fresh, but it's gonna make the rest of the bike look like crap now so in order to do this on the bike, we're gonna need Spoke wrench obviously and then something plastic either like a marker or something Like a plastic tool like that something that won't scratch the rim So it's the same exact concept as the turing stand think of the swing arm or the forks as the stand itself And then the marker as the indicator bar, so we're just going to hold marker Tie it against the swingarm here Spin the wheel around and we'll be able to see Where the high and low spots are in relation to the marker So nothing too crazy here just takes a little extra time in diligence get it, right Let's see how far out of whack this one is Just like the front wheel it's got some good side-to-side movement Not really much in the way of up and down So that'll make it a little easier just like earlier we're gonna spin the wheel around find the high spot Which looks like it's right there. I'm gonna rotate the wheel back so they're going to make sure Four spokes are loose on this side And then go over to the opposite side of the rim or the spokes coming from the left side of the hub tighten these ones up a full turn Try to pull that rim back over Go ahead check that again and see where we're at now Getting a little bit better just gonna take about four or five tweaks to get this thing closed So like I was saying with the front wheel on the truing stand you don't always want to be pulling the wheel to one side About every two to three adjustments either flip the wheel around on the stand or in this case I'm gonna be looking for the low spots instead of the high spots Now that way I'm pulling the rim to this side, whereas the previous couple adjustments. I was pulling it to the left side So if you don't change in the direction in what you're pulling the rim? You'll end up with kind of a wacky offset. Check out how close I got this thing Now let's say that's pretty good for truant on the bike now, I'm gonna check the up-and-down movement here We're gonna do the same thing. Just take a marker Looks like we got a little bit of up-and-down play should be able to correct that pretty easily. It's gonna locate the high spot here Right about there My spoke wrench tighten down the spokes right in this area And give each one about a half a turn All right, I think we got our dialed Sweet looking pretty good Not too bad for chewing on the bike, huh? So I'll just need a torque those spokes and we'll be golden So it's really up to you guys what tools you want to use for the chirring process? Obviously to make your job as easy as possible pick up each ring stand a torque wrench you'll need a spoke wrench either way But for you guys that don't mind spending a little extra time and maybe some frustration. It's plenty possible They do it on the bike as well. So either way down in the description I'll link to true inks and the torque wrench spoke wrench and Maybe a case to brew for some you guys since it might take a couple hours to do now I'm gonna give this torque wrench a rip around the rear wheel and then from here on out. It's all on you guys I've taught you pretty much everything I know about trim wheels One thing I thought I mentioned you guys if you build a wheel from the ground up one thing you'll notice is After the first rider to the spokes will start to loosen up So you'll definitely want to check them. And then from then on out every say four to five rides I would go through and check the spokes as just normal maintenance. So that's gonna be it for this video Really appreciate you guys watching it and all I ask in return for me sharing all this free information with you guys Don't even charge a dime. I really should start charging you though but anyways All I ask in return is that you share the video with your friends or on social media if you enjoyed it or learn something New sounds like a fair trade right? Once again. Thank you guys so much Until next time keep it friend

Channel: Cameron Niemela

Views: 168,829

Rating: 4.9472156 out of 5

Keywords: Powder Coating, Honda, Dirt Bike, Motorcycle, Dirt Bike Build, Fixing Motorcycle, Cameron Niemela, Niemela, MX, How To, Rebuild, Honda XR80, XR80, Pitbike, Building Dirt Bike Wheels, Lacing Dirt Bike Wheels, How To Build Wheels, Motorcycle Wheels, Dirt Bike Wheels, Rebuild Wheels, Rebuild Dirt Bike, XR80 Rebuild, Wheels, Balance Dirt Bike Wheels, True Wheel, True Dirt Bike Wheel, True Motorcycle Wheel, Balance Wheel, Straighten Wheel, The Easiest Way To True Motorcycle Wheels!

Id: A4LKHI-vAWw

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2019