Deep dish carbon wheel spoke tightening

[doughavlin]

I have some HED alpine wheels that are deep dish. The spokes are flat, and in the front they tighten at the hub end.

On the rear wheel it appears they tighten near the rim. So, I took off the tire, and wheel tape, and it looks like there's a 4mm nut recessed into the wheel. None of my sockets would fit on it, is there a special tool for that?

The spokes slide through holes in the carbon so, no nut is reachable on the inner side of the rim.
Thanks for any info, i can post a pic later tonight.

[Bill]

Even if I can not help you I am interested to see this type of wheel build. If possible take 2 pics one of the hub end and one of the pat you are having problems with. There are a couple guys here that are pretty good with wheel building that may be able to help .

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Are these the ones?


http://www.alpine-cycles.com/index.php?/page/components/hed_jet4_flamme_rouge

[doughavlin]

Yeah, that's basically them. Mine area a few years old, but in essence they're built the same.

[doughavlin]

Here are the pics...I didn't get a chance to take the tire off so I could take pics of the recessed nut...or what I think is a recessed nut. (trying not to make a joke here)

Thanks for any advice or tips!
Doug

[attachment=840][attachment=841][attachment=842]

[Bill]

(05-11-2010, 10:10 AM)doughavlin Wrote:  Here are the pics...I didn't get a chance to take the tire off so I could take pics of the recessed nut...or what I think is a recessed nut. (trying not to make a joke here)

Thanks for any advice or tips!
Doug

I dont see any pics but it maybe my end.

[doughavlin]

I'm not sure why they're not showing, they showed in the preview...anyway here are the links.

Rear Hub
http://forums.bikeride.com/attachment.php?aid=835

Rear Wheel
http://forums.bikeride.com/attachment.php?aid=836

Front Hub
http://forums.bikeride.com/attachment.php?aid=837

[Joe_W]

I can see the pics. Those are great wheels, want a set of those (cost more than my bike, though).
OK, front wheel: no problem there, spoke nipples accessible at the hub.
Rear wheel: quite probably you can only see the heads of the nipples. You wrote that you can see a hex nut in the spoke holes, this is (quite probably) the nipple's head. You have to find a thin enough tool. In my old lab we had a set of screwdriver-like hex nut tools (whatever you call them in English), those are probably what you want. You might have to ask some metal shop to turn them down a mm or two on the outside if you cannot find one that fits inside the holes.

[doughavlin]

I'll try and take a picture of that, when I broke a spoke last year, nobody even had a spoke to replace it. I call that tool you're talking about a nut driver, but that might not be the proper term. Thanks for the advice, if anyone else has dealt with these wheels, i'd love to hear about it.

I wonder if HED is the only brand that does it this way? How do you tighten the Zipp wheel spokes?

[doughavlin]

[attachment=853]

[Bill]

Wow that quite a concept and definitely different way then the traditional style! Love the wheels too. When I was on HED's website they had this neat comparison graph that I was playing around with. Pretty good information there even if one doesn't purchase their wheels.

[Joe_W]

Nut driver sounds about right and the tool I tried to describe should work judging from the picture. Good luck finding one that fits inside the spoke hole.