The Hodaka Club Forum

This is my first time trying to replace the spokes on my combat wombat rear wheel. I am using the heavy duty Buch. spoke set and following the instructions according to the wombat/combat manual. The inners line up well as far as I can tell, but the outters are giving me a fit! Any one have suggestions?

It is probably already too late to photograph your wheel before taking it apart and mark inner and outer locations on the tube side of the wheel for reference. You need to determine which of the holes in the wheel point to which side of the hub, and in which direction. Lacing a wheel isn't an exercise in the obvious, so I would suggest finding a good video on YouTube and watching it many times until it starts to make sense. You have a 36 hole three cross pattern. If you have one wheel still laced, look at that one for clues. Don't force spokes to tilt or bend to line up. If you have to bend on a spoke, it isn't right, and if you have to take it apart completely and start over, don't be discouraged by that. Done it lots of times.

Make certain you have separated the two types of spoke you should have, the difference being the degree of bend in the neck. I suspect if the outers are giving you fits, you might have them backwards.

I recently laced up the front wheel on my 98 project and it gave me fits until I got the hang of it. Like Jack said, make sure to divide them into two piles. They are a little hard to distinguish one from the other but 18 of them are a little longer at the ends and have a different degree of bend. The shorter ones with 98 degree bend go into the non-chamfered holes in the hub. Do 9 of them on one side and then do 9 of the others on the same side. Then flip it over and do the same. Sort of hard to explain on here, but look at your other wheel for help, that is if you havn't cut all the spokes out already.

Thank you both for the encouragement. I figured if I could rebuild a Hodaka engine, surely I could rebuild a wheel.......not so fast little grasshopper! LOL

heads first on both sides (inners) ...ALL of them in the hub on both sides before you start setting them in the rim...then the tails (outers) one at a time on both sides...the outside spokes have about a 90 degree bend and in insides a little less...make sure you have them separated properly...here is a pic of the spoke pattern. the pattern skips 3 holes..make sure you start in an inside hole...skip 3 spoke the 4th...ship 3 spoke the 4th...let me know when your laced and ready to true... i have a pretty good method

Richard, Give me a call and we can get together and work on it. I still owe you a crankshaft also.

DirtyRat

Thank you for the photo Squid and for your instructions. I have the rim now laced up but the outer spoke are over the flanges of the inner spokes on the hub....not right. I think the problem is following the instructions in the factory manual with a spoke overlap of three which these spokes are designed for an overlap of two spokes. We will find out. Thank you Dirty Rat, I will give call soon.