restoring a Up-Tite 87 250 XC...

I just received the rebuilt Ohlins shock.
Looking good compared to before... we had to wait for a new knob from Ohlins in Sweden. Powder coated the spring and it looks nice.

Thanks to Darrel78, I now have a nice condition 87 430 rim. My 250 rim is so bad with sharp corroded edges no inner tube would last.

It surprised me, that the 250 and 430 rims are not the same width. 2.15 vs. 2.50. Makes sense, I just never thought about it.
I'm going the replace the 250 rim with the 430 rim. I'll get some pictures of the lacing procedure.

Shock turned out nice.

Never knew about the wheel widths either. Fit you a big burly one on there .

im guessing the wider one gets better traction and the skinnier one handles a bit better?

250 doesn't have the outright grunt to spin the wheel at will so it has a smaller size to help this. affects turning seriously. its very easy to over tyre small capacity bikes and they then tend to go straight in corners

Thats what I always figured. I got a fat one on here. (el cheapo' "dirt shark") but fat 120/100

lol, i have the 250 wheel on my 430..

yep, you can run bigger tire on the 430. I run the IRC Enduro VE33 in 5.10 on my 430s. About a 140/90 I think.
This 250 will get an IRC MB5 Soft in 130/80 for riding in the desert rock / pumice sand we have here.

Go bigger!

yeah but it turns!

Are we talkin 18" here?

My rims are 18". Although I do have a never mounted 17" gold Sun rim from 1982.

yeah..i just have the narrower 250 rim still on my 430. its getting ok traction and handles awesome at the moment

I wondered how my bike would handle with the narrower rim/tire in the rear.

probably not that big a difference either way..it does seem to turn easier and likes to "drift" or "throttle steer" at higher speeds which i like

Today I laced up the 430 rim to the 250 rear hub. It took about 1 hour. Of course I learned from mis-lacing the 250 rim / hub combo a bunch of times last week.

I still have to tighten and true the wheel. I think I can use my swing arm in a vise to true the wheel.
I took pictures of the lacing process, I'll post them in another thread.

Here's the wheel all laced up:

leave the spokes loose, go flat out down a road then tighten them all up.

I prefer the 'tighten then ride' method!

If you are going to be doing more wheels in the future, and old Yamaha swing arm works well. I had this spare one laying around so......why not, it stands by itself. I had to make the cones and stuff and I have done about 3 sets of wheels with it.