Author Topic: Truing trike wheels - a solution  (Read 3906 times)

Kim

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Truing trike wheels - a solution
« on: 31 January, 2012, 01:59:23 pm »
I've asked about this a couple of times, and only ever got an unhelpful "truing doesn't really matter on a trike" as an answer.  Which is fair enough, unless you're of the OCD persuasion, or want to build or repair a wheel or something.

Anyway, I finally discovered a proper sensible solution, in the form of something called a Thru-Axle hub (some kind of mountain bike thing, m'lud) adaptor.  These can be obtained cheaply on ebay, and the 12mm version is a perfect fit for the ICE front hubs.  Your trike/trailer/wheelchair hubs may vary.



They simply insert into either side of the hub...


...to give a conventional QR sized hole.


A skewer can then be inserted and the wheel fits in the truing stand in the usual manner:

(I've bunged a few nuts on the skewer to adjust the length for the width of the hub.)

Simples.

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #1 on: 31 January, 2012, 07:39:09 pm »
thanks kim , a very useful find  :thumbsup:
the slower you go the more you see

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #2 on: 31 January, 2012, 09:15:35 pm »
Really useful. I'll have to take a wheel off my Rogers upwrong to work out the sizing; its hubs are hexagonal on the inside because they fit onto a similar shape on the axle.

Hitherto, the best suggestion involved grinding points onto large bolts to fit into the end of a temporary axle...

In the end I did mine by eye, and finished them in situ on the trike.

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #3 on: 31 January, 2012, 09:28:02 pm »
Really useful. I'll have to take a wheel off my Rogers upwrong to work out the sizing; its hubs are hexagonal on the inside because they fit onto a similar shape on the axle.
It will not work becasue you don't have bearings unlike the front wheels of a recumbent tadpole.  You need something that will allow the wheel to spin while in the wheel jig, hence my old solution which you have described of a front QR axle with cones (so there is some self centre effect in the hub) which is put in the jig between big screws with conical ends.  The screw are fixed in the jig.  Then the hub and axle turn on the conical end of the screws.  Not perfect by any means.

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #4 on: 31 January, 2012, 09:41:03 pm »
Off-topic: reminds me of when I visited Ken to collect a pair of new alloy hubs. He had them ready except they weren't hexed. A long bolt with a hex head drawn through the hub on a little hydraulic press gave the finishing touch*.

*Almost. I had to file the corners to made them fit the axles.

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #5 on: 31 January, 2012, 09:42:50 pm »
Doh! I suppose I was thinking that the hub would spin on the fittings, but that's not really good enough.

Kim

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Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #6 on: 01 February, 2012, 01:21:37 pm »
It will not work becasue you don't have bearings unlike the front wheels of a recumbent tadpole.  You need something that will allow the wheel to spin while in the wheel jig

D'oh!  I hadn't thought of that.  It must be a solved problem though...

Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #7 on: 01 February, 2012, 01:44:26 pm »
D'oh!  I hadn't thought of that.  It must be a solved problem though...
Somebody building wheels regularly might have built a number of rotating stub axles to fit into a jig.  The only trike wheels I've seen being built were some years ago at Longstaff's.  The wheel was on a flat steel table (engineer's reference table?  I cannot remember the term) and the wheel was measured using dial gauges.  So I reckon there was probably a stub axle in use there.

I've been building my own wheels for 30 years.  I build them well enough for my use and find the QR axle and pointed screw fittings work well enough for an amateur who probably builds a pair of trike wheels only every 5 years or more.

Kim

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Re: Truing trike wheels - a solution
« Reply #8 on: 04 March, 2012, 08:29:45 pm »
Remembered I had a tap and die set while ranting about Battlestar Galactica and waiting for dinner to cook this evening, so I dug it out and cut some more thread on that skewer so the spacer nuts are no longer needed.  Proper mechanical engineering, that!