There are many Sunday mechanics who love to tinker with their motorcycles, do maintenance, and love DIY customization. They enjoy DIY maintenance as much as they can, and ask professionals to do what they can't do themselves. There are many Sunday mechanics who enjoy building their own custom machines and improve the condition of their machines with proactive maintenance.
When the owner of the machine wanted to replace the rusty spokes while replacing the wheel hub bearings, he decided to leave the spokes to the professionals and proceed with the machine construction efficiently. So, he consulted with a professional spoke stretcher and received an unexpected answer. This report is the result of that consultation. The world of spoked wheels is truly a profound one.
Spokes can be custom-made.
This machine owner developed a custom plan for the suspension based on the Yamaha SDR. He decided to change from cast wheels to spoked wheels. He decided to use aluminum rims to make the wheels 17 inches wide front and rear. The parts he prepared were the same genuine Yamaha parts, the same disc rotor diameter, and an early model of the Virago 250 with an offset rotor. The disc rotor was offset because of the slightly narrower 36-hole hub. The Dachi brand offers stainless steel spoke blanks (straight spokes) in a variety of lengths and thicknesses. The Dachi brand has a lineup of stainless steel spoke blanks (straight spokes) of various lengths and thicknesses. Dachi also sells spoke benders for the Sunday mechanic who likes to DIY. He could have made them himself, but he asked a professional spoke maker to make them for him.
Once it was in the hands of a professional, the assembly work was an instantaneous event. This is the big difference from us Sunday mechanics. Mr. Suzuki, the owner, gave us some advice and we decided to make a special front wheel with special spokes. We made the original spokes from Dachi's blank spokes to match the special specifications. The special feature is that the spokes are stretched differently for the disc rotor side and the meter gear side.
Tighten the nipple gradually
As those who have experience in spoke tensioning may know, the accuracy of spoke wheels varies greatly depending on the tightening of the nipple. Since spokes of the same length are stretched in the same way, the same amount of temporary tightening should be done for all spokes after temporary assembly. Mr. Suzuki told us that the nipples are all tightened in the same way so that two threads remain on the spoke side. He uses an electric screwdriver, but the same work can be done by hand and finger tightening.
Here's a special edition of "All Lining"
When I first consulted with him, I thought that even if I used the hub and offset rotor of the early model Virago 250, I could not install the SDR OEM opposed piston caliper, commonly known as Yamambo "Yamaha Brembo" (because the caliper on the center side of the wheel interferes with the spokes), so I incorporated a spacer into the disc rotor and increased the offset amount. So, we thought of increasing the offset. Then, Mr. Suzuki gave us advice. He said, "In such a case, you can make the spokes on the rotor side all lined up. Since the spokes were custom made, we asked him to make them all lined. That's the way.
Meter gear side is standard tension spoke
One inserts from the inside and goes to the rim from the outside. The other spoke is inserted from the outside and goes to the rim from the inside. This is the standard way of assembling spokes on Japanese motorcyles. There are various know-hows in the standard way. We will not go into it here, but even when two wheels are assembled using the same hub and rim, there is a big difference in the toughness of the complete spoke wheel by "changing the angle of the spokes", or rather "making a difference". It is very profound know-how.
Center alignment of rim width and hub width
However, when a spacer is incorporated into the disc rotor, for example, the rim center must be offset to account for the spacer dimensions, or the front and rear wheels will not rotate on the same track. If you do not offset the rim center, the front and rear wheels will not rotate on the same track. The feature of spoked wheels is that they can be matched to custom situations with such rim offset tension. In the case of cast wheels, it is normal to match the wheel center and deal with the brake side.
It's hidden by the disc rotor ......
The front wheel with the tensioning completed. You can see that the spokes on the disc rotor side are all lined up. In fact, this type of tensioning has been used on Harley-Davidson spoked wheels for a long time. The early Honda Super Cub models, from the 1958 model to the early 1959 model, had this kind of front inner lining specification, but because it required more assembly man-hours, standard inner and outer lining was adopted from the late 1959 model. If the motorcycle has drum brakes, the upholstery is exposed and looks beautiful, but if the motorcycle has disc brakes, the rotors hide the upholstery and it is not noticeable.
The inner spokes are not noticeable because they are hidden by the disc rotor, but the inside of the Yamambo caliper can be mounted without interfering with the spokes without incorporating spacers into the offset rotor.
Refresh by Rotor Polishing
The OEM rotors on the Yamaha SDR are flat, so if you want to do this kind of customization with the OEM rotors, you will have to use thick spacers. On the other hand, with the offset rotors, there are no spacers. The OEM SDR Yamambo "Yamaha Brembo" calipers bolt right on to the bottom case. If the disc rotors are rigid, they can be polished to look beautiful.
- Point 1: The center of the hub and rim of a spoke wheel can be offset depending on how it is stretched.
- Point 2: There is more than one way to tension spokes, and many different applications are possible.
- Point 3: It is possible to aim at the finish like the custom parts by applying even the diversion of the manufacturer's genuine parts.
I've already reported that it's possible to go tubeless when installing aluminum wide rims. The Yamaha SDR was the only motorcycle in the world that could be customized with these wide aluminum rims. In fact, there were many conflicts that arose during the production of the spoked wheels. At the beginning of the project, our main goal was to create a spoked wheel, and the front and rear brake specifications were secondary. They thought it would be enough if they could somehow modify the wheel to fit the spoke wheel. When we consulted with Faith, a spoked wheel specialist, about our custom plan, they were very experienced and gave us some good advice and ideas.
Back in 1978. In the '80s, the trend of the times was to switch to cast wheel models. SR fans were saddened by this change, and there were many examples of SRs that were reupholstered with spoked wheels. These spoked wheels became the norm for the Yamaha SR Custom, and in the 1985 model year Yamaha SR returned to the spoked wheel specification and at the same time adopted a large drum brake for the front wheel. Even though it was a new model, its traditional form inspired many riders, and it grew into a long-lasting model that has been loved for many years.
From the late 80s to the 90s, spoked wheels and wide aluminum rims were the trends, and many racers preferred disc brakes instead of drum brakes. Many of the early series spoked wheel motorcycles were fitted with Yamaha TZR250 OEM calipers, known as Yamambos, and the disc rotor spacers that made this possible were also released as custom parts. Using these custom parts, it is possible to easily offset the disc rotor, but if you are going to change the spokes for wider rims, you can make it even simpler by lining the spokes on the caliper side so that the opposing piston caliper does not interfere with the spokes. It was Face who proposed this idea.
According to Suzuki, the recent boom in out-of-print vehicles has led to many users installing opposed piston calipers on their Kawasaki Z1s, but even with this type of customization, depending on how the spokes are stretched, spacers may not be necessary depending on the caliper used, and even with wide calipers, the thickness of the spacers can be minimized. Even with wide calipers, it is possible to minimize the thickness of the spacers.
The world of spoke tensioning is really deep. We would like to ask all of you to keep in mind that there are some custom examples like this for the custom loving Sunday mechanics.
See Accessories for DACHI
See YAMAHA Moto Index Page
See Accessories for YAMAHA VIRAGO250 (XV250)
See Accessories for YAMAHA SDR200
