Replacing broken spoke on tubeless wheel/tyre without replacing rim tape etc

As per title – got a broken spoke on tubeless tyre. Any tricks to avoid having to fully replace the rim tape and losing all the sealant, ie can you poke a small hole in the rim tape and seal it with glue or a tyre patch or the likes or is it just not worth the hassle? Bit of a pain for just one spoke!

Alternatively has anyone got any ideas on how to remove the last few mm’s of the spoke thread out of the nipple, then I could avoid opening up the tyre.

Cheers

I’ve done it when the spoke has snapped at the hub. Just use a nipple clamp (of the bicycle sort) and twiddle the spoke out then bend the new one till it goes in.

If there’s no remaining spoke to grip then it’s a matter of bodging through the rim tape and making a patch of Gorilla tape to seal it.

There’s no way I know of to get the stump of the spoke out of a nipple. But, you also don’t need to replace the whole tape, you can just cut a hole or X and replace the spoke, then patch it over with tape.

(tbh I tend to replace the tape, it’s usually picked up wee bits of damage and lost a bit of stick over time anyway)

You definitely don’t need to lose all the sealant, no matter what approach you use. Just take teh tyre off, wipe the rim down and catch what you can in the tyre, your actual loss should be fairly small.

Glue a piece of thread to the old nipple, push it inside the rim then curse at it until it goes out the valve hole. Use the thread to guide a new nipple to the hole.

I’ve replaced a spoke by cutting a small cross in the rim tape then patched it with a bit of electrical tape on several occasions, always works and is less faff that trying to re thread a spoke into a nipples without being able to hold the nipples from inside the rim

otsdr – Member

Glue a piece of thread to the old nipple, push it inside the rim then curse at it until it goes out the valve hole. Use the thread to guide a new nipple to the hole.

You are a masochist tbh

I’ve done it a couple of ways before.

I’ve replaced a nipple using fishing wire so I didn’t ruin the tape before. Got the old nipple out with random shaking, fed fishing wire through rim hole then valve hole, put nipple on wire and tied a knot at the correct end and pulled it through (bit of jiggling and luck too), a very narrow bit of electrical tape on the spoke key end of the nipple so it doesn’t drop back into the rim and pull the wire out, refit spoke.

Or, the easy way as mentioned above. Cut a cross on the tape where the nipple hole is and use a spoke thread into the wrong end of the nipple to poke it through\hold it in place. I normally have a spare roll of Stans tape to stick a new bit over the top, couple of inches worth.

Bend the bit of spoke that protrudes from the nipple . Hold nipple with spoke key if there is space or pliers if there isn’t and unscrew the spoke . Fit new spoke .