Loose spokes / Wheel alignment - help please :)

Seve OB

So I recently dusted off my old mountain bike (real old, as in I got it maybe 20 years ago) but it is in pretty good nic, and I gave it a good clean and lubed it up, and it is running pretty smoothly. A couple of weeks ago I was giving it a wash and noticed a couple of spokes on the rear wheel were loose (some very loose) so I just tightened them up. Put the bike in the shed and never used it till the other day.

There was a horrible noise, something rubbing on the back wheel somewhere, which I thought might have been the brake pads rubbing against the tyre, but I hadn't done anything to the set up of the bike. So I took off the rear wheel (gave it another clean ) and made sure it went back on lined up properly. It was here I noticed that basically the wheel is buckled, which I figured out was down to the tightening of the spokes. I loosened some up and tightened others but do you think I could get the bloody wheel aligned at all? I can't even see the buckle, but it is very apparant as i spin the wheel around and the noise is actually the tyre rubbing off the chainstay. I have got it so that the rub is now minimal and noiseless, but it still is not right and it has resulted in some quite loose spokes.

The rim is actually in perfect condition, so I don't want the expense of a new wheel if not necessary. Also, the hub is the old variation whereby I have to actually use spanners and stuff to get the bloody thing off, so I would consider buying a new hub with a quick release mechanism if worthwhile or cheap enough. Would buying new spokes be necessary / worthwhile or if I went with a new hub a must?

The bike is a Raleigh Ascender, I think it was a decent bike back in the day, has the cables routed through the inside of the frame. It has 15 gears, 3 front, 5 back, and if it is worth it I might upgrade some stuff here, so maybe buying a new hub will fall into this seperate issue.

For now I suppose, anyone who can help me with aligining the wheel, tightening spokes etc to take out the buckle, I would really appreciate it.

doozerie

Loose spokes are bad, and will likely result in other spokes loosening over time, working you closer to a wheel that'll just pull itself apart. In your shoes I'd tighten all the loose spokes and then try to tackle the buckle(s) from that point, aiming to tighten spokes where possible (but not too tight) and only resorting to loosening a spoke if absolutely necessary (and only if it doesn't result in a spoke that is so loose that there is little or no tension in it). You might not be able to restore the wheel to being true though, either because the rim itself is out of true or because the spokes are in bad shape, or both. But it is worth trying. There are some good online guides to get you started with the process of adjusting spokes, like this one.

If you change the hub you will probably need new spokes as, given the age of the bike, you may have trouble finding a new hub of the same dimensions which would take the same spokes. Likewise if you re-used the same hub and changed to a new rim you might also find that the existing spokes don't fit (assuming they are even in a condition to be re-used in the first place).