Opinions on rim repair or replacement

[ddk]

had a crash with the trike tipping over on it's right side. I got to play the roll of "the brake"
The fork bent in mysterious ways I've yet to determine, the steering pulls hard to the left.
But for sure the rim is wonky in several places as seen in the spacing between the brake pads.
I've never done much work on rims other than simple truing.
Would I just try to true this thing?
-it's likely the rim walls are bent.

My other option is to replace the rim and in fact, the wheel I took off the trike to replace it with the motored-wheel uses what appears to be the same double wall aluminum rim.

whatcha think?

 

[amberwolf]

You can try to retrue it, but you may wind up having to loosen some spokes so much that they just flop around, while others are so tight you strip out or break the nipples. Depends how bad it is vs how much thread you have left on the spokes.

So far in my experiences with badly bent rims, such as from potholes, side-stresses, etc., I've usually ended up having to replace the rim once I found one that would work, as the retruing either didn't work right or didn't hold up.

 

[dogman dan]

Re true it only as an emergency repair till you can get a new wheel or new rim laced. Once bent, you'll have to have breaking tight spokes on one side, while the other side is loose as hell. Bent a few mm is fixable, more than that, not good.

No time like the present to learn to lace a wheel. Here is the secret. Each group of 4 spokes is a seperate unit, that repeats around the rim. Once you get the first 4 in right, you just repeat it around the rim. Start at the valve stem, so it's going to land between sets of 4 spokes, and you can get to it with a pump.

Time consuming for the first wheel, easier and easier after that. Have a similar wheel nearby to look at, and pay attention to which spoke crosses over, and which under.

 

[ddk]

thanks kids :lol:

it's times like this I wished I hadn't sold off the emoto trike.
Maybe I'll build a new trike before fixing this one

As the trike stands I can still limp to stores (literally limping inside said stores)