Home Wheel Dish Truing

Long story short – Got a rear MTB wheel back from a service, didn’t use it until a year or so later – Dish is out by 10mm on drive side.

Would it be best practice to loosen all the spokes equally and then focus on fixing the dish??  Just doing this on the bike frame and not a truing stand.  Opinion seems divided so appreciate any thoughts on the best way forward.

Cheers!

10mm is a lot. Dish it on the bike. Carefully as you describe. Watch the park tools wheel building video from a few years ago. Tread on your wheels? as well to bed the spokes in.

I rebuilt a full rear wheel in the frame and it is still running true a few years later (hardly use it tho)!

Thanks, I’ll check out the video.

Long story short – Got a rear MTB wheel back from a service, didn’t use it until a year or so later – Dish is out by 10mm on drive side.

Same frame? I built a new wheel for my commute bike and when I couldn’t get it straight in the drop outs assumed I’d dished it wrong, didn’t own a dishing tool, just turned it round in the jig during building and used the alignment pointer to check. Bought a dishing tool and found out it was bang central but the frame had been designed offset at the back to keep the Gates belt in proper alignment.

No, a different frame. Tried to post an image. May have failed 🙂

You can make a DIY dishing tool with suitably shaped wood (ie to accommodate axle while sat flush on the rim), with a hole in the middle for a bolt to self thread through. You then adjust the dish & the bolt until bolt meets axle on both sides. Be careful not to confuse yourself as to which way the dish of the wheel needs to be adjusted though – I do that every time!

I would do it in the frame with cable ties, it’s marginally more faff and you don’t have a real “centremark”, you end up just centring in the frame and making a call on where the centre should be. But that’s fine really.

Don’t fully unwind it, assuming it’s in good shape (ie has reasonably even tension and is wheel shaped and the nipples are free). Just draw it over a little at a time. The idea is to keep the wheel pretty much the shape and tension it is and not redo all that work, and just move it, like pulling on 16 ropes to pull the whole thing over.

If it’s not already got high tension I would pull it over towards the “centre” first with extra tension, then take tension out of the other side to balance, aiming to finish with adding tension (ie “pull” it to the new centre with the last step). A half turn a time is about right imo but you can go slower if you want (you can often also go faster but it’s more likely to go awry)

10mm is a huge amount though, is it definitely all correct otherwise? Ie spacers in the right place, fully settled in the frame? A couple of mm isn’t uncommon but it’d be actually quite hard to get a wheel 10mm out and not notice. In fact a lot of wheels won’t even allow it, you wouldn’t have the spoke thread available. So it’s all a bit freakish.

In the frame as Northwind said. But also 10mm? Adaptors back on the correct sides? Are they the right adaptors? Seems unusual otherwise.

Thanks for all the replies people!  Finally found an image of the wheel and dishing tool.  Thanks Northwind.  Very helpful!

View post on imgur.com

I don’t bother with one, I just flip the wheel in my homemade jig to check it a few times, built plenty wheels that way for a few people as well as all of my own, 10mm out is ridiculous, I’d be embarrassed about 1mm out, god knows how they managed that.

Yeah, I wont be going back to them 🙂

With that size error, I’d be worried that they’d got the DS and NDS spokes mixed up when lacing – keep an eye on how much thread you have on the side you’re tightening.

The good news is, of course, that a 10mm difference is only a 5mm offset.

Thanks Philo and everyone else who provided valuable help!  Greatly appreciated.

You can make a dishing tool very easily with a couple of long screws and a bit of wood. Mine’s made from a spare bit of skirting. Stand the edge on the spacer where it contacts the frame, extend or drive your screws in so they just contact the rim, then flip the rim over and check the other side. Adjust dish and screws until you no longer need to adjust either when you flip the wheel over.