well I took off my wheels and cut off the rusted stock chrome spokes. ordered Landmark SS smooths for $300 total for front and rear and powdercoating the hub and ring. Plan on doing a lot of research on how to lace a wheel and I've seen a "trueing wheel stand" at harbor freight for around $50. We'll see how that goes. From what i've been reading on the forums it's not that hard. Gotta get your hands dirty and learn how to do things yourself, you know? $80 an hour can bite my ***!

 

Got mine trued this evening...about an hour. I did it myself and I agree 80 an hour...not from me. I put the wheel back in the forks with the axle all tight to do mine. I read a couple things about truing: One guy says-get that thing within .020". Then I read an article from a motorcycle magazine that said if you get it within 1/16" your gtg. I chose the 1/16" method...and i actually got down to prolly .030"-.040". However you do it,take your time. PS- I can't verify yet that I did everything correct. About another month I'll be ready to ride it. Good luck.

 

How much would it be to just take it to a shop and let them verify the wheel is gtg. Since we only ride on two wheels, having one not 100% could be a problem. Just suggesting for peace of mind sake.

 

I little local indy wants $30 for truing, but he just opened. He might be trying to make business. I'll take mine to him!! I don't know if I trust myself truing.

 

When I laced my 21", I was not confident in truing it myself, so I had my dealer do it. I went not having much confidence in them either, but they did fine. They charged me $40.00 two years ago. It would probably be $45.00 now

 

Well...took it to an indy last night. He put it on the stand and it was out about .040"-.050" up/down and about the same L/R. (He told me he generally shoots for around .030".) He said it would be gtg unless it was a high speed wheel. The faster you go... the straighter the wheel needs to be(makes sense).I had everything pretty good. The one thing I didn't do that I had to go back and do was "seat the spokes". This involved laying the wheel on the bench on the hub. Using a brass / aluminum drift punch and a hammer, hitting the heads of the spokes to get them down into the hub (The heads on the long ones were all sticking out a little away from the hub).That needed to be done on both sides of the hub. He told me to do that and go back around it trueing it up again the same way I did the first time I would be gtg. I will be buying a new tire and will get it balanced and hopefully everthing will be ok. Oh yeah, I still have to grind down the spkoes on the inside were they came thru the nipples.

 

Good job and the lacing and truing it yourself. Looking forward to pics.

 

Lowridermike- where'd you get your truing stand and how much?

 

Don't have a stand. I laced it up and made sure all the nipples were hand tightened the same amount of threads. Put the wheel back in the forks and tightened the axle down. I had the fender off so i could spin the wheel and put a machinist ruler inside the lower fork tube and measured to the rim. For the up / down I bent a piece of wire made it point to the inside of the rim.

 

wow, that's some old school **** right there! Kudos!