Making Wheel Progress Now

Triumph Cub Wheel
Originally uploaded by Gym_x

One Triumph Tiger Cub wheel mostly restored. I've still to get the brakes installed but I've painted the hub, polished the rims, cleaned up the spokes and nipples, and relaced the wheel. It still needs to be trued up, and for that I must build a truing stand for the bench, but I'm very pleased. There is still one missing spoke because I couldn't find a replacement and wouldn't spend the money for an entire set for just one spoke. Yes, the new spokes would be shiny and new looking but my goal is to use as much of the old bike as possible. Once I find a replacement spoke I can get it fit by only removing two of the other spokes, not too bad.

The next step is to get the brake outer plate painted so I can get the brake and speedometer gear in place. I'm going with colors as close to original as Dupli-color can get me. I think I'll stop at the shop tonight and might do some painting after work.

The First Refinished Part

One done, two actually, many many... many left to go.
The hubs are done and ready to be made back into round rolling wheels. I'm a bit excited about having something ready for reassembly. I've finally decided to rebuild the old wheels with the old spokes minus two. The way the spoke holes in the hubs are I can add the missing spokes when I find them without having to do much disassembly. So that's the plan.

Next will come the lacing of the rim back onto the spoke. I took a lot of pictures and measurements. These, along with my sketches and notes, should make the process fairly smooth. I've laced bicycle wheels in the past and the process is no different here. Frankly the Cub's wheels aren't much heavier than a mountain bike's anyway.

Here are a couple of pictures of the finished hubs. I hope to post pictures of at least one finished wheel after this weekend.

Front Hub	Rear Hub	A lovely pair

Wow! No posts for quite a while.

What have I been doing? Well... nothing on the cub. To be honest I have done a couple of small things but nothing 'blog-worthy'. I primed the frame. Now everything that I've prepped has at least one coat of primer and some are ready for the color coats.
I've been busy with other things lately and haven't spent any time in the garage. I'm planning to fix that this weekend by getting the hubs painted and the wheels rebuilt. I've got a bicycle to take care of for my dauther this week or I'd start sooner. That is the way it's been going lately. I think I'm ready to move ahead on the cub then something else comes up. It's going to get hot soon here in Phoenix and then it'll be very hard to get anything done. When it's over 100F outside it's over 100F inside my garage too. I may look into a small evaporative cooler this year. We'll see.
Since I haven't done anything I don't have any pictures to post either. I hope to be back to blogging more regularly - at least weekly - starting this weekend.