Enve nipple corrosion

[sethschmautz]

Every time that I start to talk about this, the thirteen year old boy in me wants to giggle a little.

I bought a used bike with a pair of Enve XC-29 rims. A few weeks ago, I noticed an odd sound - sort of like gravel in the rim - and on further investigation, found that one of the aluminum nipples had corroded and disintegrated. Researching the problem a bit, I found that this has happened quite a bit to Enve rims with their older, aluminum nipples, and they have since gone to brass nipples to resolve this particular issue. They have offered rebuilds for original purchasers of their rims, and while I have an email in to their customer service, I'm preparing for the chance that they say "sorry, this warranty does not apply to you." At which point, I'm hoping that they will at least send me the nipples for free.

First question - Does anybody have any friends an Enve that may be able to pull some strings?

Secondly - if I'm on my own, can I simply replace the nipples (maybe one or two at a time, evenly spaced around the rim) and then just re-true the wheel? I have 0 experience building wheels, and would rather not pay for a wheel re-build if there was a way to avoid it (unless rebuilding is highly recommended).

Thanks in advance,

Seth

[detrusor]

Just rebuild them wheel. Not that big of a deal.

[sethschmautz]

I didn't specify, but this would be both front and rear - easy for a novice to figure out how to dish a rear wheel? My understanding was that wheel building is not easy - especially to do it well. Would love to learn how, though, if there is a good chance of being successful! Where should I start?

Seth

[jono]

I'd start with Jobst Brandt's book "The Bicycle Wheel." Pretty definitive if you're looking to go the full distance.

[detrusor]

Agreed. Spend some money on a trueing stand and dishing tool.

[sethschmautz]

I'll take a look. At this stage in my life, I have little time and too many hobbies, so if I'm being realistic, I probably won't be able to learn this over the winter.

Back to the original question - can I simply replace the nipples a few at a time, and evenly spaced around the wheel without having to rebuild the whole wheel?

If not, what is a cost estimate for a bike shop to build these two wheels?

Seth

[detrusor]

Prob $40 per wheel or so. I would do all the nips at the same time. Just asking for catastrophe riding a wheel with failing nipples or spokes. Unless you like crashes and walking

[sethschmautz]

Prob $40 per wheel or so. I would do all the nips at the same time. Just asking for catastrophe riding a wheel with failing nipples or spokes. Unless you like crashes and walking

That's better than I had thought. My plan was to do all at the same time - I'm obviously communicating poorly, so let me give it another shot. If I get all of the nipples in hand, worst case - I could loosen/remove one nipple at a time and replace that nipple with a new one, working my way around until all were replaced. Best case, I remove 4 nipples evenly spaced around the rim and replace with four new nipples, then remove another 4 . . . etc. until all were replaced.

The wheel would be de-tensioned a little bit on removing the original nipples, but if I do one or several at a time, it would seem like I would only need to true the wheel at the end. However, that may be oversimplifying things, and it may cause bigger problems to do what I'm suggesting requiring a re-build anyway.

Hopefully that makes more sense. Thanks for the feedback.

Seth

[teledad]

This isn't Enve specific - galvanic corrosion of alloy nipples is pretty common, particularly if you ride in the rain or live somewhere wet. Can be avoided (or at least delayed) by using spoke prep but that makes it harder to build wheels by machine. Or use brass nipples which are cheaper anyway (but a bit heavier).

Replacing one or a few nipples at a time (but doing the whole wheel) will work just fine. Make sure you keep the original lacing (how the spokes cross each other). Get a good spoke wrench, I like the "spokey" ones that grab on all 4 sides of the nipple. Clean and lube the spoke threads as you go. When you re-tension the spokes try to get them to the same tension as the old ones, if you don't want to buy a tensiometer you can pluck them and listen to the tone. At the end you're probably going to still need to do a final tension/true/dish to make things right.

I like and use the Brandt book but now that we have the interwebs there's no need to buy a book to learn how to build a wheel, look here:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html
http://www.jimlangley.net/wrench/wheelbuildfull.html

If you do the above you can skip all the lacing stuff and jump right to truing.

[detrusor]

The carbon alloy interface plays very poorly together as far as galvanic corrosion goes.

One at a time is fine when doing the whole thing.

Park spoke wrench for size specific imho. Way better and easier to use than multi

[sethschmautz]

Thanks a ton, guys.

Enve won't warranty the wheels for me as they would have for an original owner, but they ARE willing to send me out the nipples. Saves me ~$40.

The old aluminum nipples are 5mm hex, and the new ones are 3.2mm square, so I was thinking of going with a Park SW-15. Detrusor, is this what you were recommending against, or were you thinking about the circular multi-size wrenches?

For the carbon rims, I need to insert from the tape side of the rim as the nipples are not exposed.

Seth

[XXX-er]

A truing stand is nice to have or just put the wheel in the dropouts of the bike and use it with a zip tie for your true reference

I true by loosening on one side and tightening on the other,

I tension wheels by ear hitting the the spoke with a wrench or something and listen for the tone, i try to make all the spokes sound the same

I would hit a spoke listen for the tone/change the nipple/ hit the spoke and make it sound like it did before you changed the nipple and I would change them one at a time

[kidwoo]

Buy this

http://www.parktool.com/product/3-wa...e-wrench-sw-15

[sethschmautz]

Buy this

http://www.parktool.com/product/3-wa...e-wrench-sw-15

Perfect. That was the one I had identified above also.

[detrusor]

^^^^^ that one.

With a truing stand you can see wether to loosen (moves down and away) or tighten ( moves up and towards) on each side for side to side or either loosen or tighten paired spokes to get it round.

Remember it's not just side to side but up and down as well. You want a circle not an oval.

[sethschmautz]

Remember it's not just side to side but up and down as well. You want a circle not an oval.

That makes sense - I've seen rims with an oval to it, but I had never thought how truing would affect it. Thanks for pointing that out.

Seth

[kidwoo]

There's a lot to pay attention to building wheels. I will say this though: building carbon rims is by far the easiest to do. Just don't get overzealous and go in small increments.

[GeezerSteve]

I've seen rims with an oval to it, but I had never thought how truing would affect it.

A proper truing job addresses wobble and concentricity

[sethschmautz]

Clean and lube the spoke threads as you go.

I spoke with Enve, and they state that they don't use any lube on their nipples (yeah, I know) when building them in house, but weren't necessarily against it. Anybody else have other experience?

Seth

[jono]

Something with some electrical resistance might seem too obvious?

I built some really strong wheels using linseed oil once. Had to make sure and get everything stress relieved before it dried, but those things were bomber. Anything with a little resistance to rotation is better than nothing but I would seriously look for a high dielectric constant given the galvanic corrosion issue. Less electrons moving across that interface means slower corrosion.

[XXX-er]

I have heard of linseed oil^^ instead of spoke prep, don't you want something that will lube the threads and then give some thread locking??

[kidwoo]

I spoke with Enve, and they state that they don't use any lube on their nipples (yeah, I know) when building them in house, but weren't necessarily against it. Anybody else have other experience?

Seth

I've built about 5 wheels with enve rims/nipples and didn't use any prep at all, mostly because they told me not to. I can say from experience you certainly don't need it. The nipples don't bind up like when pressed against an aluminum rim.

[teledad]

Not even when the spoke threads are old/dirty? That's why I recommended oil but I haven't built wheels with carbon rims (just a ton of aluminum).

To the OP, I'd suggest trying just wiping the threads clean and threading on the nipple dry. If you get a lot of spoke twist when tensioning, add a drop of oil to each spoke.

If the wheel is properly tensioned at the end you don't need thread lock. I use spoke prep on wheels with alloy nipples and light oil (usually chain lube or similar) for brass nipples and haven't noticed a difference in longevity.

[jono]

I have heard of linseed oil^^ instead of spoke prep, don't you want something that will lube the threads and then give some thread locking??

That's the theory. Linseed oil certainly does that. A better theory is to put as much tension in the spokes as the rim can take, at which point the threads should be quite well locked even dry, but I can't speak for a nice light oil and nothing else.

In this case I'm inclined to say pick whatever you want that will dry (eventually) and isn't conductive. Seriously: the solution to galvanic corrosion is electrical insulation.

[kidwoo]

Not even when the spoke threads are old/dirty?

Not with the new nipples. The older hexagonal aluminum ones would corrode as mentioned and that would cause some binding. But I haven't had any problems with the newer nipple style retruing....not like you have to do it frequently with these rims anyway.

In fact when I ordered the nipples they came with directions which specifically stated that you should not use any kind of prep.


Here's the thing with linseed oil. Yeah it's good and it works, but it is an oil. Some oils don't mix well with plastics. I'd be surprised if a natural oil like that created a problem with an epoxy but still.....if I had it in my head that I absolutely had to use some kind of prep, I'd do the spokes with spoke prep and then make sure they were absolutely dry before bringing them near the rim, for the same reason.

Like I said, the newer nipps don't bind under tension against carbon like a traditional brass nipple would against an aluminum rim. That interface is usually where you get the torsional binding. This ain't like that.