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Wheel experts Dublin -wh7850CL Dura ace rebuild

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  • 02-09-2014 8:46pm
    #1
    fat bloke
    Registered Users Posts: 5,822 ✭✭✭


    For the last week or so I've been swopping various wheelsets in and out of virtual baskets constantly, all sorts from 180 aksiums to 340 zondas and thought I'd ask on here looking for some advice for an old set of wheels in my shed.

    They came new on a Felt F1 SL, they're dura ace 1380 WH-780-CL's - absolutely stupendous wheels, and hilariously light. Even just now I went out to the shed to check where they were and picking up the front had me smiling from ear to ear. So I'm wondering if there would be any point in spending that couple of hundred quid on refreshing them and eke-ing some more miles out of them.

    The front is fine, and in both of them the rims have plenty of life in them yet. The rear has a "crunchy" hub however, and that's basically what consigned them to the shed, my lbs pronounced them an uneconomical repair.
    I'm wondering if it'd be worth taking them to a wheel builder to see if they could be given a new lease of life.

    Anyone any recommendations? Southside Dublin preferably but not exclusively.


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    #2
    niceonetom
    Registered Users Posts: 4,833 ✭✭✭niceonetom


    I have the RS80 version of those - same rim as far I can tell but built up on Ultegra hubs. They're nice, but I won't be buying Shimano wheels again because of the prohibitive cost of rebuilding... I destroyed the rim of my front RS80 and it's been sitting in the shed because a replacement rim is €200 or something silly like that.

    I'd have a look at the cause of the crunchiness in that rear. There'll be a worn surface somewhere and, because shimano insist on using cup-and-cone bearings, if you're unlucky that worn surface will be part of the hub shell itself. You might be lucky and it'll only be worn on the cones or on the cup of the freehub, but I'm guessing if you're LBS declared them a right off it must be the hub shell. So, whereas with most other manufacturers that'd mean repressing some cartridge bearings, with shimano it means rebuilding the rim onto a new DuraAce C24 hub. And that'll be stupidly expensive. I don't know why shimano parts are often as expensive an an entirely new wheel but they are.

    You're alternative might be to try to just rebuild the rim onto some other 24h rim and use new spokes but that'll be tricky as you'll need to figure out the ERD of the rim and then calculate what spoke lengths you need to mate it to a new hub, and it might actually be impossible as the rim needs those oversize alu nipples and I don't know if they'll can be reused with other spokes... it's the kind of job I can imagine most wheelbuilders declining.

    This is why, lovely as those RS80s were, I've gone back to handbuilts.


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