Topic: Offset???

[stingray]

I took apart my front and rear wheels, cleaned and polished rims and front spokes and bought new spokes for rear.  Put everything back together and now ready for wheel truing.
Okay, I read our archives on the topic and ran across a thing called wheel offset.  For the life of me, I can't see how you can alter the position of the front or rear hub. Once the spokes are fitted tightened and trued, that's all she wrote!  Right?

[Kevin400F]

You can create a considerable amount of offset by loosening all the spokes that attach to one side of the hub and tightening all the spokes on the opposite side.  I would guess you could move the rim centerline by nearly an inch, if the hub is pretty narrow and the spokes are long (as on a front wheel with disc brake).

Kevin

[Steve F]

Just get the spokes equal length when you assemble them into the nipples hand tight, and you should be fine.  I believe the Honda wheels do not have any offset required, since all the spokes come in the same length.

[bryanj]

Steve is right Honds wheels that i know of run central to the hub, offset creeps in on old British iron where parts from old models were used in new ones iven if they only just fit so as to save cash

[eurban]

If one very carefully measures the position of the wheels in relationship to the frames centerline  you may find that the front wheel hub and or the rear wheel hub are not exactly centered on frame.  For instance the front wheel hub on my 78750K with its GL1000 front end is actually about 1/8th" closer to the left fork leg than the right when installed correctly using stock GL spacers and with the rotors properly positioned in the caliper carriers. The stock rear wheel (on my 78k) hub is also somewhere between an 1/8" and 1/16" shifted to the left  of the bikes centerline.  For a typical street bike application this is probably no big deal and with a proper front to rear wheel alignment using stringlines etc (instead of trusting Honda's marks on the swingarm) I have found that my bike handles very nicely.  . . Hondaman brought up the option of correcting these slight offsets that seem to be inevitable in our stock bikes by actually "truing" the wheels with a built in offset. The hub would still be in the same position using stock spacers but the wheel rim would be shifted to the centerline of the frame.  Personally, I wasn't particularly excited about correcting offsets using this method but it was mentioned as an option.  It would infact allow me to correct my GL front end offset whithout upseting the rotor's relationship with the fork mounted caliper/carrier which has very little room for clearance.  I would not need to grind/shim etc. . . .Still,  for some reason I don' t like the idea of putting the wheel load off center of the hub and I just had my wheels professionaly trued!  Hope this helps.

[stingray]

Thanks guys for the information.  I'm encouraged to hear that there may be no offset  required on my Honda.  I'm taking my wheels to my local Honda shop tomorrow to get them trued.  I wanted to be ready with an offset dimension in case the shop asked.  Maybe he will know and automatically just set it correctly.  If there is an offset, would it be mentioned in a shop manual?

[eurban]

There is no offset specced.  For our bikes a true wheel has its rim exactly centered over its hubs spoke flanges.