[skinny]

I've got a star hub I want to lace to a old D.I.D 185B 19 rim(40 hole shallow drop center).
Do any of you wheel builders foresee a problem mating the two together?
I'm new to wheel building so any help would be appreciated.
I called up Buchanans to order a set of stainless spokes/nipples, and found
I might be able to use a pre-packaged HD spoke set with a swap out of bigger dia. nipples to accommodate the rim. Then I got the "what did the rim come off of originally" question and I couldn't answer that one, cause I don't know (swap meet special,hub cut out of spokes). I'm not sure why that matters (spoke length/nipple angle?). Anyway, I canceled my order to try and find out more info on the rim hub combo.
So if anyone knows what this rim would have been on originally, that would/could help me out as well and hopefully the combo will work together.
Thanks,
skinny

Heres a couple of pics for reference:

 

[notcool]

It looks like the rim would be fine laced to a star hub. The way it's drilled isn't or a conacle hub or large diameter drum as best I can tell.

 

[Rogue79]

Can someone tell me how can you see at the drilling
if it's for a conical or big/small hub or spool?

 

[twowheeledhell]

Easiest way to give it a quick check would be to grab some spokes that are even too long, and either loose lace them through the hub, then into the spoke holes on the rim and see what the angles look like.

Other way is to do the opposite, put some nipples on some spokes, and see where they end up in the center of the rim once related to the angle of the spoke dimple in the rim.

A conical hub would have a larger diameter on one side, compared to the other-the angles are sometimes different coming out of the rim.

It looks to me like it came off of a dirtbike or enduro of some sort-Aluminum, and we know how many of those things came to our country-It's hard to tack down it's whereabouts-

It may have been ordered for a special application as well. But either way, the spoke angles don't look severe as stated before me. I'd try some of my above suggestions-but it looks to me it would work just fine. Best of luck-

Justen

 

[skinny]

Thanks notcool & twowheeled hell,
I would try loose lacing to see where they land, but I don't have a set of spokes lying around to use. I would have to take an existing rim, in use, apart and I don't want to do that.
Looking closely at a couple of pics I snapped awhile back for lacing reference, I noticed that the dimples for the DID rim and an HD 16" rim are set up opposite, if that's the right terminology to use. So, I'm wondering if that would make a difference. My ref. point I use is where the inner tube stem comes through each rim.

skinny

Couple of ref. pics:

Stock 16" HD rim

DID 19" rim

 

[twowheeledhell]

I hate those fucking pictures!!

kidding, kind of-this is where it gets kind of tricky at times-when you're looking at an entirely different wheel/rim. Of course, harley never used this rim, with a star hub, so my point of view-it looks like it'll work-this will be like a hand built wheel, really. There will only really be one way to put it all together-but you need to have the spokes first. It may not sound very positive-but all of us have hit hiccups with certain wheel combos at times-there's usually a way around. Wish I had these in front of me-probably have the spokes too!! Keep at it!

Justen

 

[swooshdave]

If it were me I'd send it to Buchanan's and have them sort it out. Otherwise you are shooting in the dark not knowing what the rim is.

 

[Motozombie]

Swooshdave is right, send it to Buchanans, They will re-drill the rim if necessary and make you the exact length stainless steel spokes needed. p.s. get the stainless nipples also.

 

[abeblinkin]

Why send it to Buchanans when we got Woody's right here in town, it will save you shipping and they use buchanans spokes and nipples. They are near santa fe and evans. Heres the link http://www.woodyswheelworks.com/
They do great work

 

[notcool]

as far as trying to tell what hub a rim is drilled for...imagine the dimple for the spoke in the rim as a bubble. If it were drilled at the top of the bubble it would shoot the spoke straight to the center of the rim if that makes sense. small diameter spool hubs would be the closest thing to straight up center, but even they need the rim to be drilled a little "off center" from straight up. A star hub or HD dual flange hub is again bigger in diameter than a spool so the drilling in the rim needs to move away more from the "center" of the bubble or dimple. A big old sportster drum or old Jap/English drum brakes are way big in diameter and the hole would have to be drilled pretty close to the rim itself. A conacle hub is bigger in diameter on one side than the other like pre-unit triumph, HD 45 flathead fronts, and then like a lot of later model dirt bike stuff. So one side of the rim will be drille differently than the other.
Make sense?
If any of these are mismatched it is not the end of the world but more of a visual thing and once you start thinking about it and looking at other bikes you'll notice that there is an arc or bend in a lot of spokes in wheels from a mis match of how the rim is drilled and the hub used. In fact i almost looks like that spoke in the picture you posted of the 16" wheel has an arc to it like it would be straight if it were going to a larger diameter hub.

Anyway...some valuable info once you start shopping for old rims...

 

[notcool]

ok, this might help. look at how this rim is drilled. It appears that the dimples for the "left" flange are drilled closer to the rim itself and farther from the "center" of the dimple which would be for a larger diameter flange. It also looks like the right side is drilled slightly closer to the center of the dimple. I would guess without seeing this in person that it is drilled for a conacle hub...

 

[skinny]

Thanks everyone for the help.
Abe, thanks for the link.
I've had Woodys build me wheels in the past, just trying to save a little money and have them true it only. I'll probably take it down there and have him look at it now anyways.

notcool, I understand what you're saying about drilling the dimples at various angles for different hubs,smaller, wider, conical etc. I'll try and explain again what I was trying to say in my earlier post. Not that you didn't understand, but for others wondering what the hell am I talkin' about... 'cause maybe it doesn't matter...D'oh!!

Example: Using tube stem hole for starting point on both rims, the HD rims' first dimple going ccw in pic from my last post is on the right side of center drop of the rim.
The DID's first dimple, above the tube stem hole, is on the left side of center drop, using the pic notcool posted . Thats where I came up with the "opposite" term.
Hope that helps a little more with what I was try ing to explain before. If not,
no biggie.

After a little more research, I did find that these rims were used for front rims on Kawasaki Z1's & H2's. As well as a dirt bike wheel for?

I'll let you all know what I find out as things progress, but I think for now it's off to
Woodys Wheel Works.

skinny

 

[twowheeledhell]

Swooshdave is right, send it to Buchanans, They will re-drill the rim if necessary and make you the exact length stainless steel spokes needed. p.s. get the stainless nipples also.

Yeah, they do good work-but they can't 're-drill' a rim that's already done. The holes look to me like they are in the same angular direction on each side-KZ's and such had small diameter hubs on the front-like a Sporty hub, to a degree. So then to me, it'd work fine.

Too bad there isn't an identify p/n on these rims to asure us. But, that's the fun in building-best of luck.

 

[Mark-O]

I'm making a guess here. Could you get your measurements Effective Rim Diameter, Flange diameter, and Flange to center R and L and plug them into a spoke length calculator? A quick google search revealed this one: http://users.senet.com.au/~mitchell/misc/html/spoke.htm

I use this method for bicycle wheels and had no problems. Same for motorcycle wheels?

QBP has a good walk through on how to get accurate measurements.

 

[greasystain]

how about you just chuck that 19 inch japan rim in the garbage. and buy an 18 inch harley wheel that will bolt right on a star hub and all you gotta do is buy the hd spokes..... just sayin....

 

[skinny]

Thanks Mark-O, I'll try anything once... I'll see what I can come up with.

Justen, Woodys has something they call "Superlace". They blueprint,redrill and modify lace patterns to adapt hubs to rims mainly to prevent spoke breakage.But it sure sounds $$$$.
And a buddy is letting me take apart narrow glide 19" wheel, thats ratty, to "borrow" the spokes for a lace (angle)pattern check. It may be next week before I can get to that though.

greasy, I'm about there, but I got this rim, with a really good shape Goodyear 4.00-19 tire on it for $5 bucks, at an auto swap a while back and thought I'd see what I could do with it. Did you ever get your other wheel? 16"/18"?

skinny

 

[greasystain]

greasy, I'm about there, but I got this rim, with a really good shape Goodyear 4.00-19 tire on it for $5 bucks, at an auto swap a while back and thought I'd see what I could do with it. Did you ever get your other wheel? 16"/18"?

skinny

not yet, but things have been hectic. soon tho.