Notice the exhaust pipe has been removed. I took them both off to start polishing the chrome, and also removed the rear wheel in preparation for lacing up new stainless steel spokes I had ordered:
Here is the wheel getting ready for me to remove the brake drum and then dismount the tire. Getting the tire off was a real chore because the tire was hard as a rock after more than 20 years. It had almost 100% tread, but was worthless.
When the spokes arrived, I proceeded to take the wheel apart. Lacing spokes can be a daunting task, and most people recommend having it done by a shop. I've done it before; in fact I did it to this bike on the first restoration. That time I tried to polish each spoke individually, but they are made of galvanized steel that does not polish worth a darn. This time I'm going all out with stainless steel.......expensive, but pretty.
The worst part of lacing a wheel is figuring out where to start......what hole in the rim does the first spoke go into? Which hole the next one? After awhile it gets obvious what the pattern is, but the start is hard. There are two different lengths of spokes for the two sides of the hub, and two different types of holes in the rim that face different directions. To make it easier, I numbered each of the hub holes and put a matching number on the rim for that spoke, before I took the wheel apart.
Then after all the old spokes were removed it was just a matter of putting the ends of the new spokes in the right holes. Sounds easy, but it still took me a couple of tries and most of an afternoon to get the wheel complete. The next tricky bit is getting the wheel trued. The spoke nipples are first hand tightened and then gradually tightened with a spoke wrench while checking the wheel for run-out, or wobble. To do this i used this dial-gauge setup:
If the wheel is moving over towards the dial gauge, I mark the wheel at the greatest deflection and loosen the spokes slightly on the dial gauge side and tighten them on the opposite side. Vice versa if the wheel moves away from the gauge. In the end, I got the run-out to around .005 inches. I don't know what the specs are, but I think that is pretty good. The wheel also has to be checked to make sure the hub is in the center of the wheel. If not it will cause "hop". By tightening the spokes slowly and evenly all around the wheel, it is pretty likely that the hub will be in the center. If it is not, you have to loosen a bunch of spokes on the short side and tighten them on the opposite side. It came out fine on my wheel. I used to ride dirt bikes with a lot more wobble and hop than this wheel, but on a street bike it is more important to get it minimized for a smoother ride. A final check for spoke tightness is made by striking each spoke with the spoke wrench, and going for the same high "ping" note for each spoke and tightening those that have a dull "thud".
Next, I put the brake drum back on the drive side of the hub. The original bolts holding the drum on didn't look all that wonderful; the threads were smashed in the part of the bolt that went through the drum. I replaced the bolts with grade 8 hardened SAE bolts and nuts, and used a paint pen to label the drum so that the next guy working on it will know they are not Whitworth fasteners.
The next step is to balance the wheel. I've mounted a new tire, but I need to find a source of wheel weights for spoked wheels. The wheel is pretty far out of balance and I'm going to need about 3 oz of weights.
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