Any simple tests for determining an out of round spoke wheel/rim ?

My front tire wear is mainly to one side of the tread pattern,the side opposite my front disc brake rotor.(rear tire normal wear pattern) Which could be the cause of the lopsided tread wear going on,and may also be contributing to an imbalance in the front end creating wobble at handlebars when I take my hands off bars to detect it.

Any simple way to check the above? Is my steering adjustment too loose?
Could my front rotor be warped, causing a wobble at any speed?

TIA ALL

If you were to get tire balanced would they be able to tell then?

An out of round wheel could definitely cause the wobble, but not really the wear on one side of the tire.

I would look more into the front shocks. One being stiffer than the other could cause the uneven side to side wear.

Lucky I think you got it Check the fork oil

Ok well I am going to replace my front tire this next week,at that time hopefully I can find someone who can check the rim also.Checking the fluid level in the shocks will be a fairly major piece of work for me,I may even wait till I can get my friend to come over n lend a hand.
Thanks again for the replies !!

If you don't allready own one, get you a bike lift. The lift makes this type of maintenance 100% easier.

Have the bike lift and it helps a lot.
I was thinkin of setting up a crude system to measure if the wheel is out of round while on the bike,a pencil clamped to a level board with the lead tip against the outer rim lip to measure any large variation.

Paula I am not sure if they could detect the rim being out of round at the local shop,none of them are very good with the spoke rims,n I have had to remove the rim stick lead weights with the correct spoke weights every time I had the wheel balanced at any local shop.

Lucky I am leaning towards your idea on the tire wear,it could explain why their is greater pressure on that one side of the tire.And why it was reported by a large number of riders.Tho maybe a combo of these factors now,add weight shift from braking using my front brakes primarily.Its a single side brake rotor.

I'll post what happens as soon as I have a clear idea with a solution.Hopefully before judgement day !!!

Years ago before spokeless rims were invented (I would not own a bike with spokes ever again, they are a pain in the ass) I used to build up a lot of different basket case bikes and made a jig to tune the spokes. Pretty Simple actually. Just make a sturdy wood table with a flat level plywood top. Larger than the largest dia rim you plan on working on.  Take a long bolt ( and old wheel bolt works great) and use it to hold your hub. then lace your spokes to the rims all roughly the same ammount of screw turns. set up a Dial Micrometer at the rims outher edge and mark zero datum point on your rim. 180deg, 90 degree, 270 degree. 

have a second pair dial micrometers set up for hight so that you can get upper and lower rim measurements.

Really handy if you lay out a 360deg protractor onto the plywood if your going to be doing a lot of differnt bikes. 

Then just start at zero and alternate by 180 deg as you slowly tighten all your spokes.  eventually you will get it within a half of a thousandnth if your good and you will also have the same harmonic pitch on all the spokes if they are new and all the same make & material. you can check that with a musical guitar tuner if you want to be anal about it.  also check that all spokes meet whatever touque specs are for your wheels. that will be from the manufacturers data.

I may take you a while before you get good at this and then you will wish you werent as all your buddys will want  you to do their bikes.

Any Scooter Mechanic worth his Salt can and has done thousands of spoked wheels. If they cant tell you how they do it find a Mechanic that can. 

 

PS: Where did the Classifieds go? I have some parts fro a couple bikes that I no longer have that I would practacally give away or Trade for something I could use.  They are just taking up space in my garage.

 

This post was edited by Deleted Member at December 18, 2016 8:24 AM PST

Thank you for the post WickedOutdoor ! My shop manual for my ride has a in-depth write up on how to properly adjust the spokes.Essentially all I have ever done is look for loose ones,and I test the spoke by lightly tapping on it to hear the tonal pitch is similar to each other as I progress around the tire.I have detected a few in the past and corrected them.From my own crude measurement I dont think the wheel is out of round.It is hard to find a reliable mechanic on a shoe string budget haha yet so far most of the work on my ride has been done by me.With mixed results,mostly good !

I currently am replacing & doing some over due maintenance on her.The back wheel is off and I will check the spokes also.The weather has really turned cold in the last couple weeks here so I am not in any hurry to get back on the road yet,. tho that tune will change once we get back to the 50's here.

Have a great Holiday Season !!!

stay safe & enjoy the ride