I waited almost a year for just the front rim to come in, and almost 18
months for the rear - thanks to the big deal that's been made about supermotard racing recently, this stuff is hard to find. Everybody seems to be going for complete wheels, but I decided to build my own using a spare set of wheels to donate the hubs because:
I'm cheap
I wanted to keep the rear cush drive, so I don't destroy chains, sprockets and gearbox
When the front rim showed up, I immediately took everything out of the box and laid it out on a towel, so as not to scratch anything. I started lacing up the wheel, as per the old wheel. I soon figured out that it's best to put in the two overlapping spokes, then screw them into the nipples poked through the holes in the rim.
As the spokes and nipples are stainless steel, you need to put some oil on them before you tighten things up, to stop
galling.
Here's the first side, all done, and all laced up. Now I just need to get the spokes all very tight while getting the hub central and straight.
I got Jeff to true the wheels (after we took all the spokes out and relaced 'em - I'd got the spokes crossing over the hole for the air valve), and fitted an EBC race supermotard disc... it's for the KLX650R, but fits just fine after I'd drilled out the mounting holes slightly. The red buttons are supposed to be for while you're running the disc in, then you can swap to silver buttons (and believe me, I will). I've safety wired them, as the instructions make it sound like the circlips fall out by themselves. I'll check that regularly, but when I go to the silver buttons, I'm going to put in some RTV or something to stop the circlips being able to fall out. The kit also comes with a relocating bracket for the caliper. The relocating bracket was for the KLX/R, rather than the KLX/C (276 rather than 296mm), so I ended up getting a set of KLX/R forks with
Eibach springs, and rebuilding those to fit.
I got the bike all back together, but there was a little
interference problem
to be overcome, however.
