Published by Tristan on 23 Mar 2009 at 09:54 pm
Mavic Aksium rebuild
Generally Aksiums are a pretty bombproof wheelset so it was surprising to see this rear wheel with a spoke pulling through the rim.
I rebuilt the wheel with new rim and re-used the existing spokes and nipples.
The most frustrating part of rebuilding a Mavic hub is that the straight-pull spokes fall out of the hub shell when the tension is released. To prevent this I cut some cardboard strips, fold them in half and place them between the spokes.
After releasing a couple of turn of tension from each spoke I line the new rim up and tape it to the old rim.
Each spoke is then loosened, the nipple removed, and re-aligned into the new rim. Mavic nipples are quite unique: They’re 16mm long and have a nylock head with both screwdriver flats and hex-head. On a typical DT Swiss, Sapim or Wheelsmith spoke the threads are 10mm long, on most Mavic spokes the threads are 12mm. This extra length in both thread and nipple allows some variance in spoke length presumably to make things easier at the factory.
What was interesting about this rebuild is that the original rim is stockered as being made in Romania while the replacement (which was identical right down to the witness marks left by the extrusion dye) was stickered as French made.
All done – ready for another few thousand kilometers :-)
A few photos of the failed rim:
Driveside view
View from the non-driveside
