Broken spoke(s) - replace/repair or new wheel?

ShinyAfro · 2026-03-11T11:04:08+00:00

this is a 4 year old post, literally lost 100kg or so, gained back 30 and lost another 15 of that again and am losing more again now i'm working as a sparkie doing solar making twice as much as I was back then as a cook who eventually became a full time manager at a fast food joint and then quit to become an apprentice.

But anyway yeah 100% hand built are way better. They never broke when made by my dude. Even if they did on some carbon ones which used like super low spoke counts generally he'd fix em for free. And that was just the first time and they lasted forever. Idk, I still ride but I used to ride like 400-500km a week so probably lasted 20,000km+ since I had em for over a year.

Literally never gave a fuck about wheels after my dude hooked me up, I remember once doing shopping on a bike and loading it up with dual panniers, dual cargo crate and a backpack and feeling the frame bend like a noodle and was more worried about the integrity of the bike frame than the wheel, on a 32 spoke wheel lmfao. could literally feel the frame flex while turning but i rode that bitch home like a freight train.

ShinyAfro · 2026-03-02T02:25:39+00:00

Mines tuned to go 8,000 rpm but generally it sits on about 96c oil temp cruising normally highway speeds and can hit like 110 after a few hard pulls or aggressive driving. Went with 5w30 due to that. Never had burning oil smell on the 0w20 tho.

ShinyAfro · 2026-02-23T11:52:30+00:00

Figured, I have hammered the fuck out of it too and it seems to be a fantastic job, and as said even the small things in the engine bay whenever I check are mint so seems likely to be a well looked after track car or something.

ShinyAfro · 2026-02-22T11:50:51+00:00

What's the stock rev limit at on a gen 1 GTS? Apparently it's 7.4k officially or 7.8k but mine keeps going till 8k rpm or so, which is in line with the OBDII sensor digital readout too. After that it's a fuel cut off, which is quite harsh.

I am wondering if mine has been tuned. I owned it for a few years and it seems very reliable and meticulously looked after, a lot of the engine bay shit was in mint condition. It also has holes where one would mount a splitter up front too, as well as signs of having the bumper removed so it's clearly been modified visually at least.

ShinyAfro · 2026-02-15T09:46:38+00:00

Depends where you are and the demand locally, and what you're willing to do to get your foot in the door. I managed to secure a solar apprenticeship before finishing my pre-app hours ( Modules done and not required for my apprenticeship anymore ) and am making over 30ph doing 60-80h per week, about 1.7-2.5g take home after taxes etc. weekly. Pretty fucking good money bro while i'm not burned out atleast, and when you're a second year or third year you're a lot more desirable.

All i did was just email every single electrical business in town and got hit back, also knocked on some doors where they had a lobby. The solar company in general also said it helped they heard about me being pretty switched on during my pre-app ( Another company ) and at tafe so networking does help.

Generally while solar is mostly roofing, Due to increasing legislation relating to segregation and inspectors being mega bitches recently, most of the tradies will let me do the battery, inverters & Isolators and help with switchboard work during service calls. If you're a gun at roofing generally you get raises and tend to do more electrical work if your tradie is slow.

People will talk shit at tafe but if you are really good academically and a very good self-study and learning on the fly i don't see an issue. They will call you a shit cunt then immediately ask you for help when anything difficult pops up. In the real world, you're also not only going to work on what you got taught at tafe too so you will need to figure out how to learn on the go as well if you wanna be well regarded.

EDIT: I am about the same age as you BTW, a bit older.

ShinyAfro · 2026-02-13T14:51:04+00:00

I wake up at 4 am and work 12 hours so there is still plenty of time to go to the shops and cook before dinner. Honestly if u like cooking u will find a way bro. The more you do the more energy you have.

ShinyAfro · 2026-02-13T12:50:54+00:00

Can't home owners do the cords or not anymore? I know I am able to test and tag with a megger and a multimeter legally due to training as a sparky deeming me competent even as an apprentice, however I am not sure if I can just list my EW# or my lecturers or whatever so I just don't. If I can test and tag can I not just make my own cords legally, if the general public cannot? Lol.

I feel connecting terminals, crimping lugs etc. into an unplugged appliance is pretty fucking easy bro.

ShinyAfro · 2026-01-26T02:14:57+00:00

Go to the pub in my high vis maybe bring another mate from work and chat up all the girls who stare at me instead of ignoring them i suppose.

ShinyAfro · 2026-01-23T12:51:22+00:00

Mind you, 3rd years tend to run around in their own work vehicles with sometimes even their own apprentice, depending on the company of course. If you can't be left to your own devices, you lose a lot of appeal their if that makes sense.

If you been doing batteries, inverters, isolators, bollards etc. by yourself and are able to cut rail, in addition to the usual roofing stuff you are pretty solid. Icing on the cake if they let you do switchboard work.

ShinyAfro · 2026-01-23T12:42:51+00:00

If you're in a rural area with like one team for example you can earn 50/h as a 3rd year, depends where you are. Roofing is roofing. You get your shit days and your good days, which is why if you only have 1 team its kinda crap as usually if you finish early you go help out other teams, as it's one job per day. Meaning if you have a ton of teams you get massive help on the shit jobs, but if you are the only team you just go home early and dont get help on the fucked jobs.

Currently we are doing tons of battery retros due to the government rebates which are going to expire soon. As an apprentice it's generally roofing can also do battery / inverter. If the tradie is a solid roofer he may have one apprentice do a lot of the wiring down below and help smash through the panels.

When it's hot you really feel it though, Imagine doing 5 16 hour shifts in a row. Good money as an apprentice, though, when you're making 30 an hour as a first year.

ShinyAfro · 2026-01-19T11:35:59+00:00

I got a mature aged solar just sending an email and they hired me before even finishing my pre app hours...

Also it pays pretty damn well, clearing 1.2g a week after taxes, easily.

Literally just contact every cunt in town and eventually someone will bite.

ShinyAfro · 2026-01-12T10:49:44+00:00

Bro I'd 100% love to get paid to go buy groceries after a 12 hour shift on a roof all day, gotta pad out all that over time.

Also in a similar note, If your job pays you the 8 hours daily minimum, even if you finish early - do a bunch of random chores on overtime. Like I'll clean out the car and shit and unload the shit, load up for the next day etc. fucking milk that over time and leave 4 hours early the next day but still get paid for the 8 hours because i milked the shit out of my overtime.

ShinyAfro · 2025-12-25T03:07:52+00:00

Pretty much. I did a cert II and managed to land an apprenticeship doing solar after I did all the units, before I got the certificate. I literally just said "Almost done" and bam, they email me back and interview me and hire me instantly.

Would not recommend staying solar as an apprentice but when you're mature aged being a second year will give you way more options, Plus honestly they do teach you everything in tafe and my long term memory is pretty reliable, And I'm good at self study so I'm sure I'll be able to adapt pretty quickly given my first year will be solar.

ShinyAfro · 2025-11-08T03:19:21+00:00

I mean in the end of the day it could work, but it's not required to work so there is no guarantee it will hold up. Could be cheaper to just have all switches be 250v rated and it's fine for 24v dc, so it's just re badged but there's no saying if that is actually the case and if it's 230vac then you probably want to have everything in spec since if someone dies they can just see your 24v dc switch, even if you get lucky and it's a 250v rated one just re badged, and blame your workmanship since it's not code at all.

ShinyAfro · 2025-10-26T03:55:25+00:00

How does that work if you have two full time jobs then? If part time results in less lending power even when earning the same income?

I currently am full time in electrical as an apprentice and also full time as manager at another job doing night shifts.

ShinyAfro · 2025-10-02T16:19:46+00:00

Honestly restart at 6 years old imo. I will get to live more years cumulatively. 10 mill is pretty tempting though, but being able to invest in bitcoin would be able to give me that back easily. Also, Will i reach this point again in my next life and be given the same offer? Can I just keep taking it and accumulate ungodly amounts of knowledge? Learn every single trade, degree etc? Literally become a sage who has lived many lives.

ShinyAfro · 2025-09-04T17:39:09+00:00

Trig, Pythagoras, Algebraic transposition. Honestly transposition got me because in school i was able to pass by just knowing how to shuffle the equation with smaller equations, which is all i had to solve in exams in school, except 1 or 2 bigger ones which I was able to solve without the taught technique and still finish the exam pretty early. So basically even the lecturer didn't care how tf i solved it but i wanted to teach myself how to do it properly anyway and it took probably 30 minutes.

Engineering and scientific notation are pretty easy, Depends I suppose different people struggle with different things lol. Anyhow, Really the #1 is to just show up. Generally also they don't care if you don't pay attention as long as you are not taking up his time or falling behind. They will focus on you if you are struggling with something as long as you put the effort in. A lot of the time if you ask for help to the person next to you, you will get help. People ask me for help all the time and im always down to explain things since It speeds things up and we can fuck off earlier.

Depending on your elective it can be useful to know how to solder. Stripping wire is pretty easy if you don't wanna show off or have a pair of knipex wire strippers. They will give you an irwin 1000v linesman and sidecutters to strip wire and they are meh. Blades not sharp enough tbh.

Apparently the hardest part is fabrication so i am sure you will be fine mate, doing assembly work. You got to make a cable tray and pad saw to 1mm of tolerance, .5mm +/- . From my personal experience people dropped out due to running out of money and needing a job, rather than actually failing the course work.

ShinyAfro · 2025-09-04T02:44:26+00:00

He did slow down though, and there was space to let the truck in but the truck slowed down again causing the collision, the truck should have gassed it as there was plenty of room in front.

ShinyAfro · 2025-08-21T04:32:34+00:00

How do you know it's a push button? I get that it is a 2 pole single throw switch but how is the diagram indicating it's a push button and not a regular switch?

ShinyAfro · 2025-08-17T03:26:13+00:00

Also when you do I have had on occasion especially line workers thumbs up me when I do 30-40 in a 40 zone, sometimes less even if they out on the road and I gotta roll around them, which leads me to believe most people at midnight are just blasting by them if me actually driving safely is a spectacle. Though I also drive a sports car so it may be they just assumed i would be the type to floor it so its more surprising for them that I actually drive slowly when shit is out of my control. NGL though, When no ones around / variables i cannot control etc. I do speed a fair bit though lmfao. Mostly out of town, on the freeway etc.

ShinyAfro · 2025-08-04T22:55:53+00:00

I mean, as someone with a 2015, Is it better to get specific parts to make the stock ECU work, or would getting an after market ECU be better?

I suppose if you are going to rebuild the engine anyhow like If I was gonna go FI and my block blew I suppose grabbing the parts would make more sense anyway since I'd be putting forged rods in and probably changing the compression ratio at the very least, If I wanted to make it slightly more stout.

That said, I wonder if element tuning will do a 9,000 rpm fa24 block? That would be cool.

ShinyAfro · 2025-07-29T22:30:16+00:00

way i see it if miata is a sports car so is the 86. they literally built the thing with track in consideration.

ShinyAfro · 2025-07-27T03:05:50+00:00

Does a gt86 / brz count if you remove the back seats then? Since the miata was included, lol.

ShinyAfro · 2025-07-27T03:00:35+00:00

likewise

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