Introduction: Replace Wheels of a Win&Win Bowcase and Make Them Easily Replaceable

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OK... This is my first 'ible, so please share improvement-ideas in the comments. Thanks!

First off: I am in no way affiliated with Win&Win. I just love their bowcase on my travels from tournament to tournament all over the world.

As an international archer, I participate in WorldCups and other tournaments all over the world. Often, the way from the hotel/bus to the shooting line is all but clean pavement: Often you have to drag your bowcase over gravel, dirt and other grime... Basically no problem, but this dust and dirt is the fast and violent death of your wheels on the bowcase.

So did my bowcase from Win&Win suffer quite fast and started to refuse to roll completely... The thin soft-plastic of the wheels was ground down to the rim quite fast and the ball bearing didn't work anymore --> The wheels blocked regularly.
I had to replace these non-replaceable wheels somehow.

Find in the steps how to repair and convert your Win&Win ABS bowcase to replaceable and silent wheels for only a few bucks and in a short time.

The summary on materials and tools needed are located in the last step.

Step 1: Remove the Wheel-parts

The wheels including the axle are bolted to the plastic parts. These in turn are secured with 6 simple screws.

Unscrew and remove the parts.

Now you see, how they bolted the axle into the parts: Not intended to replace.

Step 2: Drill Out the Fixation of the Axle...

With a 8mm drill, drill out the brim at the axle-end. With a screwdriver or other tool, pry loose the whee&axle from the plastic-part.

Step 3: Assess the Damage... Whoa!

It is always a bad sign if your ball bearings have so much clearance, that you can wiggle the axle by around 15° and se the balls in the bearing... One wheel even spilled out the balls when i pushed the axle around... Jikes!

Also: The complete ball bearing was partially coming out of the wheel...

See the remnants of what was once a complete ball bearing: an axle with ground track (Should be flat!) and a casing which was ground in 2 ring-pieces. No wonder the wheel refused to work and just blocked...

Step 4: Drill It...

Screw the liberated wheel-less plastic-parts back on. We will use them as a drill guide and can leave them on the bowcase.

With a 8mm-Drill, drill a hole on both sides of the bowcase where the two axles were in the past.

Step 5: Measure and Cut a Sleeve...

We want to protect the delicate items in the case from the threads on the threaded rod we will push thru there soon.

Measure the inner width of the bowcase. Cut the metal tube to length.

Step 6: Insert Threaded Rod and Sleeve...

Insert the threaded rod (M8) thru the drilled holes and inside thru the sleeve...

Step 7: Mount First Wheel, Unmount, Measure and Remount...

Now the first tricky step: You have to measure, how much threaded rod has to come out of the bowcase to mount a locking nut, the wheel and the locking headnut.

I did this by simply thread in the locking nut until i thought "more or less OK", put the wheel on the rod and checked it the locking headnut can be threaded all the way in...

With my wheels, i had to add a little shim sawed off the rest of the sleeve-pipe since my locking headnut had a too wide face and would push against the casing of the ball bearings and not only against the inner bearing-sleeve on the axle.

Had to adjust a few times until i got it right. But in the end I had the first side perfect... So i unscrewed the locking headnut and took the wheel off again. I then measured the length from the end of the threaded rod to the face of the locking nut. Remember this distance. It will be different depending what wheels you bought...

You now can remount the wheel on this side again.

Step 8: Cut Other Side to Length... Mount Side 2.

With the required length of the threaded rod still present, cut the other side to length. Maybe add 1-2mm for safety's sake... A few strokes with a file can fix this very fast and precisely...

Now add the locking nut, the wheel, in my case the little self made shim, and the locking headnut.

Step 9: Admire Your Work and Enjoy a "new" Bowcase

Sit back and admire your work. You just saved over 200$ with a few basic tools and basic materials.

As a added benefit: You will be able to replace the wheels ultrafast: Just unscrew the headnuts, take out the wheel, put the new one on and secure with the headnut again.

Also the new wheels were MUCH more silent than even the original wheels when they were new... Now in more or less even floor, the whispering is so silent, you barely hear it. Also the force required to pull the case dropped significantly even compared to the new condition of the bowcase.

Since the new ball bearings seem (!) to be somewhat sealed and feature 2 ball bearings instead of one, I expect a much longer lifespan from these...

Step 10: Supplys and Materials Needed

Tools:

  • Screwdriver to unscrew the plastic parts and wheels
  • Drill with 8mm drill
  • Adjustable Wrench fot the headnuts and nuts and something to hold the other side (i used pliers)
  • Hacksaw
  • Caliper to measure the required axle-length
  • Something to measure the inner width of the bowcase (I used a flexible ruler)

Materials:

  • a threaded rod in M8-size. Can be chrome plated or inox. Doesn't matter.
  • a pipe with inner diameter of 8mm. Outer diameter of mine was 12mm.
  • 2 locking nuts
  • 2 locking headnuts
  • 2 swheels for inline-scating with ball bearings 608ZZ (Absolute standard ball bearings for those)

Summary:

  • Cost of the materials: around 10$
  • Time for repair and modification: around 1h

Cost of new bowcase would be around 290$ for this particular case and my country... So it REALLY is worth to spend an hour and do this repair and mod.