Wheel spares help!

[dandy1]

I've got a set of mavic cosmics I'm putting on a bike. They needed a bit of a tru but noticed a rattle. It looks like one of the 'whatever they're called' 'thingys' has snapped. I've removed it from the rim, but does anyone know what the technical name is? Do I need a replacement? Does the rim need it? It must serve a purpose?

Thanks

 

[Jonny69]

Spoke ferrule or eyelet. A lot of box-section rims don’t have them at all and it looks like yours aren’t riveted to both sides of the rim, so you can probably do without it

 

[jim haseltine]

I had the same problem a year or so back. The ferrule is supposed to be held in place by the hollow rivet on the other side of the rim but there's not a lot of meat on the return edge so tensioning the spokes during building combined with flexing during years of use can cut through it leaving the ferrule rattling. I looked into getting a replacement ferrule and finding some way to fix it but the costs were prohibitive - especially for a set of wheels that were over 20 years old so I used that as an excuse to rebuild the wheels with new rims.

 

[dandy1]

Ah thanks. Yes that was it, must have been tightening up a spoke and it must have snapped. If it's OK to run without, will just leave it as it is