Wheel not centered

[Billyzee]

http://prntscr.com/oie6ad

As you can see in the picture, the wheel is not centered. This does not affect riding and brakes work just fine but looks wrong to me. I've taken it to a bike shop and the guy said nothing can be done since dropouts are vertical. I've taken the wheel out and tried again trying my best to center it but it ends up in the same position. What can be done? Should I just leave it like this? Thanks.

[Tommycat]

This is remedied using a procedure called "dishing" a wheel. There are several informative websites that will tell you all about it. Generally speaking you loosen one side of the wheel spokes going to one side. And tighten up the other side. To skew the rim twords the center. An example...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZU6pmZKUnw


You can see from this spoke calculator configured for a Magic Pie v5  the differences in spoke lengths due to the "offset" of the wheel.





Regards,
T.C.

[Billyzee]

My wheel is this one https://www.goldenmotor.bike/product/black-pie-5-vector-20-inch-rear-conversion-kit/

[Bikemad]

Unfortunately, the picture you posted does not actually show the offset of the rear wheel at all.  However, it does clearly show that the rack and the rear fender/mudguard are not in alignment with each other, as the rack appears to be a few degrees offset.



Drawing a line through the centre of the frame, shows that the fender/mudguard is lined up reasonably well with the frame, but the rack is not.

It should be possible to realign the rack with a small amount of "gentle persuasion", but as the rack appears to be made from aluminium, it might be better to leave it as it is. 

If GM followed my original suggestion, the rim on the 20" rear cast wheel will probably be ~2mm offset from the centre (check out this post for further details) as this was proposed in order to allow the same rim to be used for front and rear wheels.

My aim was that the front wheel rims should then be perfectly centred, ensuring the correct self centring/castor action of the steering, whilst the slight offset of the rim on rear wheels would not noticeably affect the steering/handling of the bike.

Alan
 

[Billyzee]

The rack is angled because a side of it broke and I have it ziptied so that's why. I see that you're saying the wheel is meant to be off centered so that make's alot sense in my case. The wheel works just fine and have had no issues with it turning etc but the only issue I have is the brakes, as you can see the left side of the brake is way too much on the other side and when I pedal my foot hits it often, what do you recommend me I do? Thanks.

[Bikemad]

The brake arm is further out on the right hand side (left hand side of your picture) for two reasons:

• The cast rim is offset slightly to the right
• The cast rim is also wider than the original rim

To improve the sticking out lever arm I would swap the conical spacer washers so that the thinner one is on the brake pad side as shown in this video.



You will also need to adjust the movement of the lever arms and tighten the cable as shown earlier in the video.

Alan
 

[diverdon]

The rack is angled because a side of it broke and I have it ziptied so that's why. I see that you're saying the wheel is meant to be off centered so that make's alot sense in my case. The wheel works just fine and have had no issues with it turning etc but the only issue I have is the brakes, as you can see the left side of the brake is way too much on the other side and when I pedal my foot hits it often, what do you recommend me I do? Thanks.

       Hello ... Did you ever get this off center wheel fixed ? I have 1 too and cannot figure it out ... Magic Pie 5 ..Front wheel ..Bought in 2019 ... never been right

      UPDATE ...Mine is fine now ..all my fault ...bad install ..still it worked fine for 2 years like this ...once I became "teachable" I took it apart and re-installed it "correctly"..with ALL the proper hardware ..Wheel is in the center now.... It had been "tilted" slipped in 1 of the dropouts a little ..I couldn't even see the "tilt" and thought it was off center  ..2 torque arms and works perfectly ..as it always has