Howdy all. First time long time. Just want to start by saying how much I have appreciated everyone's insight and sharing of knowledge in this forum. Lord knows many of my projects have turned out great because of it.

To the question at hand. I have a 2004 FXDWGI that has sprung a leak in the rear wheel. More specifically...I have three or four spokes that are consistently leaking from where they joing with the rim, and all of them are near the air valve.

I am making an educated guess that somewhere at sometime I hit a pot hole that tweaked the spokes, and over time/weight, they just worked them selves into a tizzy.

I am now in search of replacing the rear wheel with a solid wheel option. I figure if I have to take the sucker off to fix it...I might as well replace it and move forward. The primary candidate is a 16" Fatboy wheel, many of which can be found on ebay.

I am very savy mechanically, but the thought of pulling apart my rear end to swap a wheel on the bike has me a little anxious. As well, the thought/fear of buying a used wheel leaves me a little apprehensive as well.

Any thoughts or insight as to this circumstance would be most appreciated. I am hoping to take this time with the rear disassembled to refresh the look a little bit. Might ponder going with some new (to me) fenders and tank with a different paint scheme and style. I figure it's been 11 years since I rolled her out of the dealership so I might as well go for a little facelift

Thanks all!

 

Hi and welcome. First off I would say if your spokes are leaking someone must have tried sealing the inside of the rim, because spoke wheels need a tube inside. I would take the wheel to HD and check for truing. If the wheel is ok I would put new spokes and a tube in there, IHO. Good luck.

 

your spokes do not leak, it is your wheel strip/tube. you can not just swap out 4 spokes the whole wheel has to be re trued. just pull the wheel off, replaced the wheel strip, and tube, put tire back on, put back on the bike... done and done!

 

Here is my question, is the laced wheel stock? If it is, the spokes are never sealed. The inner tube could be leaking in your case, don't overlook. FYI the rim tape is there to prevent spoke ends rubbing and cutting the inner tube, it does not seal. Some spokes wheels in the market like Fat daddy are sealed for tubeless tire.

 

Thanks guys. As I have come to expect here...timely, concise, and accurate responses.

The wheels are OEM spoke. I will buckle down and pull it off and take it to the dealer I guess. I'm sure it'll be a nice chunk of change no matter what

Was kinda looking forward to an excuse to buy new rims...but kinda hard to justify if it ends up being a truing issue. Either way I'm pulling my wheel off it looks like.

Thanks gents!

 

Oh...and my bad JRK...I know spokes don't leak. I should have been more precise in my wording while watching Olympics, listening to my 3-year-old snore, and pondering how tired I was from four days of being snowed in

 

If the spokes are tight and the wheel is true all you need is a new wheel strip and tube. The tire seals on the rim and the air is escaping thru the inner rim

 

Had my rear wheel trued 4 or 5 months ago by the Harley dealership in Anchorage and it only cost me around 120.00 (well more than that cuz they had a grage sale and i ended up getting a good leather riding jacket for $50.00 haha) Shouldn't be much more that that..