On Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 2:06:57 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I bought a set of clincher carbon fiber wheels and they are very good. But I would like to get rid of that heavy saddle pack. So I decided to convert to tubeless tires.

Tubeless wheels are often called "two way" since they can be used with or without tubes. Clincher rims have a semi-circular well with a brake track riser with the lock bead on them. Tubeless rims are quite recognizable since they have a deep center well and steps on the side with the same bead lock.

So I ordered a set if tubeless wheels. Communicating with the Chinese is a little difficult. For one thing their vocabulary is limited and for another their use of nouns and verbs is in a different order than ours. But most of the time you don't have any problems. While ordering the wheels the seller kept referring to the wheels as "rims".

When I got the set of tubeless wheels I pulled out the rim liners which allowed them to be used as tube tires, pulled the rim tubeless tape on the front, installed the tire and used a CO2 cartridge for the sudden shot of air to "POP" the tire on the rim steps. I then let all of the air out again, removed the presta valve guts using the special tool that is provided or the fancy one you can get from Park Tool, blew in 2 ounces of sealant from the sealant bottle and rubber hose mechanism and reinstalled the presta valve head and reinflated the tire. You have to roll the tire around a bit to seal all of the small leaks around the perimeter of the tire bead and the tubeless tire presta insert. I stuck it in my truing stand since this can sometimes cause the wheel to go very slightly out of true. Nope.

I then did the same process with the rear wheel. The "POP" was unusually loud and when I put the wheel on the truing stand the thing was over a centimeter out of true. Releasing the pressure and the wheel came back perfectly in true. It was plain that this was a bad rim. Pulling the wheel apart with that sealant in it is sort of messy. But it's biodegradable and I just dumped it in the garden and wiped it out with the new "mechanics rags" which is a sort of heavy paper towel. I disassembled it and looked carefully for cracks to no avail.

So I contacted the seller through Ebay and went through a couple of days of arguments. They wanted a VIDEO of the wheel going out of true as it was filled! Finally I got fed up and requested Ebay for a return. Then the seller sent a message saying that they would send me a new "rim".

It arrived rather rapidly and much to my chagrin it was a RIM and not a wheel.

Perhaps you remember the argument Jay and I had earlier in the year when I said that I could go from a hub with all of the spokes in it and place all of the spokes in a half hour or so. Since then I did it again and timed it to be sure. I have a spoking screwdriver and all you have to do is place the spoke in its proper location and turn the spoking screwdriver until the nipple is on all the way to the spoking screwdriver limits. This takes the entire wheel to the point where you only have to turn the nipple about two turns apiece to tighten them the remainder of the way. You then "ting" them with a spoke wrench until by tonal definition they are nearly the same tightness and then fine tune the trueness and make sure there's no hop. The whole wheel from start to finish only takes perhaps a little over and hour.

But this COUNTS upon all of the spokes mounting in the nipples in a surface that is almost absolutely the same all the way around. Aluminum wheels are like this.

But the thickness of carbon fiber nipple hole is most assuredly not. It hardly takes any difference in the nipple bed of the carbon wheel to give you plenty of problems.

Firstly the spoking has straight spokes on one side and crossed spokes on the other. These are extremely stiff spokes so spoking the rim doesn't allow you to tighten these spoke to the correct tension. The aero spokes won't "cross" properly. You have to take the entire wheel down to very high tension.

Because the extremely deep rims you are fumbling around to get each nipple started so it takes a real long time. You cannot see down into the spoke well unless you have a VERY bright flashlight and even then the flashlight is in the way.

In any case disassembling the old rim and installing the new rims has so far been more than a nightmare. I have put an entire day in on it and at this point, one of the nipples seized on the spoke and I'm going to have to cut it off and get the nipple out. This is the most micky mouse operation possible. There's no way to thread a spoke into the inside of the bad nipple since it seized from overtightening to get the cross spokes to get into the proper orientation.

This means I have to cut the nipple off and then shake the nipple around the rim to the Presta Valve hole. Since there is a slight semicircle there it won't drop out easily so I have to shake the damn rim up and down for several minutes before the nipple lands in exactly the correct orientation to fall out. Then I take the spare spoke, thread the spare nipple from the back insert it through the proper nipple hole and start the new spoke in the hub onto it.

At this point I have to virtually undo all of the nipples until they are just barely threaded on and tighten them all to some intermediate tension and then slowly work them into alignment and tension. AHHHHHHHHH SHOOT ME!

I should get Jay to do this with his custom wheel service. I won't criticize him again if he's been subjected to these sorts of problems.

I've never built a carbon wheel. I have some Shimano C35s, but I haven't had to replace a rim. I was complaining about the time it took to lace an aluminum aero rim unless you have a nipple driver. Like you say, you have to fish the nipples around in the rim.

I don't know how carbon behaves. I assume that with the rim bed thickness differences you end up with more or less spoke showing above or below the nipple, but the tension is still even when the wheel is built and true. Is that right?

-- Jay Beattie.