I changed my hoops after 1 year of indoor storage and only 4 - 5 light washings about 4000 miles riding time since new.
When my wife started breaking down the wheels we found rust in the nipples and inside the hoop.
When I relaced the wheels I used SS nipples and used a non metallic anti seize on nipple threads and long term storage gun oil inside the hoop.
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My point is

If I were worried about spoke tension one of the first thinks I would do is apply a small amount of WD40 or liquid wrench to the nipples and spokes a week or so before trying to test or adjust spoke tension.

 

Yah, my spokes came from Buchanan's spoke and Rim with oil to lubricate them with so they don't bind up while tightening. I have the wheel all trued up and the spokes pretty tight. I set the offset by putting the wheel on the bike and measuring distance between the forks. I just want to make sure all the spokes are the right tension other than hitting them with a screwdriver and listening for the "ting". I don't think that is very precise and before I mount the tire, I want to make sure they are all pretty close to the same tension. I have a standard repair manual but not a shop manual so what I am looking for is the spec from the shop manual. The Harley shops around here haven't bothered to answer my questions so I thought you guys might have the answer.

 

The dealerships can not make money dealing with spoked wheels. Most just farm it out to other shops therefore they are not making a shop rate which most dealerships survive on. Try a shop that caters more to dirt bikes.

If you have a good ear that ting can be very accurate. that's how most stringed instruments are tuned.

 

Buchanan's recommends 80 inch pounds minimum...which is quite a bit higher than the typical 50-ish. This may be to get the nipple and bend properly seated while expecting some stretch or relax during the first run. Regardless, I remember thinking I wished they gave a range or a max value. Regardless, use a torque wrench during truing and adjust individual spoke torque within the recommended range (say, 60-80) to get the rim both true and tight. It will take some time.

I smacked the nipples sharply near the end of the truing process to ensure they were well seated. Maybe unnecessary, but it made me feel like I "measured twice, cut once". Once true, torqued, and mounted up, 'ting' them for a baseline and use that as a quick check. Definitely recheck after the first ride.

 

Years ago I ran a 111hp/117ft lb FXDXT with an Excell rims and SS heavy duty spokes from Buchannans. It was assembled locally. I checked the spokes for a while with a gentle ping; don't remember any being really loose. The wheel was re-trued and checked when it was time to replace tires. (first rear tire went in just over 3000 miles). There was never any real problem

 

I'm not a torque to spec guy. I like to go by feel. I'm also not a spoke doinker as there can be issues with tightening the spokes. It's good to find real loose ones but in the case of dyna/sportster front wheels can be misleading. The problem is that the inner spoke can touch the outer in a manner that kills the ding.

One thing to make sure you don't tighten the spokes in a manner that the wheel goes out of true is to first get a feel for the average tightness then go through and only tighten the loosest spokes first one flat at a time working around the wheel. Once you've got everything about the same tightness then start adding one flat to all spokes till it feels good. I guess if you got a torque wrench you could do one flat at a time.. Start at the tire valve and make sure that when you do a flat, you end up at the valve. Generally, IMO, if you need to go more than a few flats, you might want to true the wheel. I don't use a stand, but put the axle in a vise and use a dial indicator. The dial indicator is sensitive enough to even find spokes that are 1/4 to 1/2 turn loose from the others.

I like the idea of smacking the nipple but don't think it should stop you from checking the spokes later. I worked in bike shops back when all bikes had spokes and worked commision. I was pretty much the guy who got the wheels because I could beat the charged rate. Guys that were fixing crash damaged bike would give me wheels. Part of the standard service was to go through and tighten spokes. The first 500 miles usually found wheels that needed 1 or 2 flats to bring back to tight.

 

Thanks for the info. The wheels are from a 99 883. My bike is a 89 883. I have no idea how many miles are on the rims. My bike is stock. The wheels had really rusty spokes so I replaced them all. That's why I am interested in the torque value since I have no reference for what pitch the "Ting" should be at.

 

Thanks for the info. The wheels are from a 99 883. The wheels had really rusty spokes so I replaced them all. That's why I am interested in the torque value since I have no reference for what pitch the "Ting" should be at.

 

Max, that's pretty much how I did mine. Having zero previous experience with spokes I wanted a real data point (torque), mostly to ensure good wheel integrity and resistance to loosening. Once I was confident that everything was tight enough (and fairly true) I went thru and fine tuned individuals to adjust runout without a torque reference. I also used a dial indicator, but mounted to a truing stand. I think I called it good when axial and radial runouts at both tire beads (inside the rim lip) was inside about .015" TIR.

Excellent point about the touching/crossed spokes. Never really considered that.

 

The manual instructs you to loosen the spokes before checking torque because for accurate use of a torque wrench the fastener must already be moving when you reach the specified torque. If you're starting from a stationary fastener and the torque wrench clicks immediately before there's any movement you may be encountering the added resistance from overcoming the friction of a non-moving fastener, and you may not actually have reached the specified torque.

With a fastener, such as these spokes, that has already been torqued correctly, it's likely that if the torque wrench clicks on a stationary fastener that it is adequately tightened, but you can't be absolutely sure.