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"No Skateboarder Left Behind"
The Skateboard Equipment Class 101
CHAPTER 3
The Skateboard Trucks
Section Two
Assembling A Skateboard Truck
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In the beginning a lot of skateboarders depend on the workers of skateboard shops to fix and work on their skateboards. It's a great convenience, but it pays to learn how to do it yourself right from the start. If you can figure out how to take a truck completely apart and put it back together, you have learned 90% of everything you have to know when it comes to working on skateboard trucks.
Before I explain this, the most important thing to ask yourself is how tight should you skate your trucks? It all depends on what kind of skateboarding you are going to do and how long you have been skateboarding.
Loose Trucks: They make it super easy to turn, so they are good in small bowls and in a tight skate park setting. Usually the more advanced skater skates with loose trucks. The benefit is you can turn super easy. If you are a beginner trying to learn some new tricks like an Ollie or a Kickflip then loose trucks will make it harder to learn. You would have to focus on balancing as well as doing the trick.
Medium Trucks: A recent skate pole showed that most skateboarders skate medium trucks. They are good if you skate a little bit of everything. It makes it so that you can still turn the board while moving fairly easy as well as having good balance to pull off tricks. Medium skateboard trucks are what I recommend to all beginners. They are right in the middle making it easier for new skateboarders to figure out how they like their trucks. Then they decide whether to tighten or loosen them.
Tight Trucks: Tight trucks are sometimes hard to turn. They are good for a few reasons. The first is if you are skating a vert ramp or places that you are really hauling. They will stop you from getting speed wobble as easily. Speed wobble is when your going down a hill and the trucks start to wobble back and forth out of control. The second reason is for skateboarders who are attempting to learn how to skate down stairs, ledges, and gaps. It stops you from getting wheel bite and sticking. Wheel bite is when the truck bends so much from impact that the wheel touches the deck, causing the board to stop rolling.
So now, how do you adjust your skateboard trucks? It's easy, it just requires turning the bolt on your kingpin to the right to tighten or to the left to loosen. Unless you have done it for a while its very hard to tell how loose or tight the trucks are by your hands. So after every half spin on each truck you should stand on the board to feel the difference.
If after all of your loosening and tightening of the trucks and they still won't skate the way you want them to, maybe you should look into getting a different firmness of bushings. If you are skating new trucks, they need some time to be broken in. So the more you skate everyday, the better they will feel!
Watch This Quick Video On Assembling A Skateboard Truck
Steps To Putting A Skateboard Truck Together
1) Slide the kingpin into the inside of the base plate.
2) Put the first washer which is the bigger one onto the kingpin right side up.
3) Find the bigger bushing out of the two and put it next onto the kingpin.
4) Next goes the hanger. Place it where the pointed part goes into the hole of the baseplate. Then spin it until the hole in the hanger goes on the kingpin.
4) Next goes the hanger. Place it where the pointed part goes into the hole of the baseplate. Then spin it until the hole in the hanger goes on the kingpin.
5) Find the smaller bushing and slide it onto the kingpin.
6) Set the smaller washer on top of the bushing.
7) Then your last step is to just tighten the nut onto the kingpin. Use a skate tool or a wrench to tighten it up. Stand on the board and lean to the right or left to see if the trucks are the way that you like them. Then tighten it more if you want them tighter.
A Fun Fast Video Showing How To Put trucks Onto A Skateboard
How To Tighten And Loosen Skateboard Trucks
Buy Yourself A Skateboard Tool
You can always use regular screw drivers and wrenches to work on your skateboard, but nothing beats having a skateboard tool. They are so cheap and can save you tons of stress and time. It is a pain trying to find the right size wrenches. A skate tool is small and has everything in one place that you will ever need to work on your skateboard. It has a screw driver that comes out of it, and three different size wrenches.
A Skateboard Tool
