It took quite a while but I finally managed to find myself a set of wheels just before xmas and as it turns out, they were almost exactly the same as the last set I bought – Mavic MA40 rims again however NOT totally anodised black this time and with C-Record hubs to match the other components.
The wheels – like many for sale on eBay – were supplied without skewers, however I’d anticipated that and kept the Record skewers from the last wheels.
They were being sold as “For parts or not working” but from talking to the seller, they didn’t sound too bad as no structural problems so I decided to take a chance.
The wheels duly arrived and I set to cleaning and refurbishing them – there was some apparent corrosion around the spoke nipples, but was mostly just surface muck and that was soon cleaned up with the trusty Dremel.
Next – the hubs…
These were looking dull & scratched and were feeling quite stiff so would need to be taken apart & rebuilt – no problem. Oh, wait… …how on earth are you supposed to get those hub caps off?*?!*!?!*!?
One quick search later and – surprise, surprise – Campagnolo have a special tool to do just that – for the best part of £80 !!! As the hub caps were scratched already, I opted to try removing them carefully with a flat bladed screwdriver which worked perfectly. If you are careful, it’s easy enough to remove them with the screwdriver (I didn’t add to the damage already there) however, for future maintenance, I think I may invest in a car battery terminal puller which does exactly the same as the Campag tool but for a tenth of the price!!
Having removed the hub caps, I stripped out the bearings (which looked pristine) & spindles and gave the whole lot a good cleanup, rubbing down the worst of the scratching before polishing up all the exposed aluminium.
Donning my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the now very shiny hubs, I re-greased and replaced the spindles & bearings then tightened them up – they were spinning beautifully, however there was some wobble, so some truing was required.
Luckily, Santa Claus had brought me a truing stand for xmas (apologies to those who were hoping I would build my own stand as I’d suggested in my last post). Fastening each wheel in turn to the stand, it didn’t take too long to have them spinning straight and true.
The wheels were ready and they were the final major component I had to get for the build – I have all the other pieces :
 The Frame ✔ |
 Saddle ✔ |
 Bars ✔ |
 Crankset ✔ |
 Brake Levers ✔ |
 Shifters ✔ |
 Rear Mech ✔ |
 Seat Post ✔ |
 Brakes ✔ |
 Front Mech ✔ |
 Cassette ✔ |
 Stem ✔ |
 Pedals ✔ |
 Wheelset ✔ |
 Tyres ✔ |
 and correct skewers ✔… |
These have all been cleaned up / refurbished where needed over the past few months –
time to stick all this lot together…