Balancing wheels AND tires

Discussion about deep snow wheeling, vehicle builds, trip reports, etc
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Roger
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Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Roger »

My current tires regularly slip on the rims when I have them aired down. Hopefully my new tires won't slip as much, but they might slip some.

I'm thinking of having the rims balanced without tires on them, and then welding balance weights to them. Then I could have them balanced again with the tires installed. I could then mark and demount the tires, remove the weights from the rims, and glue in interior tire patches to balance the tires. In theory, my tires would always be in balance even if they slip on the rim.

Calculating the correct weight for the tire patches is easy for static balance. Since the inside diameter of the tire is about twice the diameter of the rim, the weight of the patches should be about half of the rim weights. But, since the patches can only have a side-to-side spacing about equal to the rim with, the dynamic balance wouldn't be right. This might not be a problem, but with a bit more thought, I'm sure I can figure out how to get the dynamic balance correct too.

As I write this though, it occurs to me that there might be an issue that will keep this from working. If the mounting bolt holes in the rim aren't exactly centered in the rim, then all this work would be for nothing. If the bolt pattern is off by just 10 thousands of an inch (.020 TIR), then when I balanced with the tire on I would end up adding 1.25 oz of weight (at the rim) just to compensate for the 64 lb tire being off center. In my scheme above, I would unknowingly add this weight into the tire. Then if the tire were spun 180 deg. on the rim, the whole works would be off by 2.5 oz. I'd be surprised if all my cheep steel wheels have less than .020 TIR.

I'd be interested if anyone has tried this before, or if you have any thoughts on the subject.
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Kurtis
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Kurtis »

Your tires are going to wear down and change over time. So I wouldn't weld anything to your wheels or use any patches in your tire. If your problem is balancing then I would try balancing BBs. Check out this chart: http://www.innovativebalancing.com/BigTirechart.htm I personally wouldn't purchase their BBs just for sheer price. I have heard really good result with balancing BBs. It's better to use too much than too little. I currently have issues with balancing my tires and wheels. But I am using conventional weights. When I get the time I am going to go buy airsoft BBs from Wal-Mart and put them in my tires. It should fix my problem. Hope this helps.

P.S. What size wheel are you running?
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n16ht5
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by n16ht5 »

I don't even balance my tires. once you get over 35" they wobble differently depending on temperature and what kind of mood they are in hah
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Nobody
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Nobody »

While it wouldn't hurt to balance the wheels and tires, you can make the imbalance work for you. Back in my tire busting days we had great success with spinning the tires 180° on the wheel. If we still weren't happy, we'd try flipping the tire on the wheel. Usually we'd find a pretty happy spot. Then we'd finish off with tape weights.

This of course doesn't address the issue of the tire spinning on the wheel. I think certain tire and wheel combos are going to be worse than others. I don't believe I'm having this problem, I'll have to make some marks this year and see. If I were concerned about it, I would probably start with some bead glue.

I love a driving on well balanced round tires. However I've pretty much written that off. I've always been pretty happy with my tsl radials. They're pretty smooth even unbalanced. At any given time there are probably several ounces of crud on my wheels which pretty much throws any effort to balance my tires out the window.

Also keep in mind that you are dealing with two issues, out of balance, and out or round. Many times we'd have wheels with a nice little hop or wobble. We could often minimize it with a whack here and there. Same with the tires. Some are just not even close to round. I've heard of machines that remove the high spots on tires, but I've never seen or used one. I can't imagine it would be a cost effective thing to do.

If you still want to balance your tires and wheels, you can use the tape weights to balance the wheel. We used the patch weights pretty frequently on the commercial truck tires.

What you are trying to do certainly wouldn't hurt, I just think it's a lot of effort and expense for little gain. Those beads that Kurtis mentioned might be the best bet. My concern with those however is in the event of blowing a bead.

And of course, you could always get yourself some beadlock wheels. Those clamp the bead of the tire, and I would assume prevent any slippage. Granted I'm sure the beadlocks probably aren't balanced all that great.
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Nobody
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Nobody »

n16ht5 wrote:I don't even balance my tires. once you get over 35" they wobble differently depending on temperature and what kind of mood they are in hah
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EBSTEVE
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by EBSTEVE »

I tried bb's in my TSL SX tires a few years back. I did not use anything fancy just plain old bb's and I don't know if it was bent wheels, or of round tires or the bias tires but it did not make any real noticeable difference. I now have radial stampers and no balance seems 100x better than before. I have given up because even if I had it setup great when I tore the tire off of the wheel I would not know what side was what, I say live with it.
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Nobody »

Didn't you say the bb's rusted together into a big glob?
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EBSTEVE
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by EBSTEVE »

They did clump a bit, but not one huge glob. The guy who pulled the tires off cussed me out because of the "black shit" that got all over him .°-/
Roger
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Re: Balancing wheels AND tires

Post by Roger »

Thanks for the input. Maybe with brand new tires balance won't be a problem. That's really my only complaint about my retreads. They take a lot of weight to balance them. But after being professionally balanced they do not bounce, even at freeway speeds. After nearly every trip where I air down to 5 or 6 psi, they do bounce on the way home. If I do a quick balance on a my cheep bubble-balancer, they usually don't bounce, or at least not too much.

I'm highly skeptical about beads in the tires helping balance. Water in the tires (i.e. melted snow) definitely doesn't work, and I don't see how a bunch of beads is significantly different - they are both weight in the tire that is free to move to where ever the laws of physics dictate.

"While it wouldn't hurt to balance the wheels and tires, you can make the imbalance work for you. Back in my tire busting days we had great success with spinning the tires 180° on the wheel."

I did something like this way back when I had a '78 Honda Civic. When the tires WERE properly balanced, the front end would shake. The brake rotors, axles, or some part of the car was out of balance. I discovered that with no balancing, I could try the wheel in its 4 different orientations (4 lugs on that car), and one of them would work good. I probably just got lucky, but it worked with two different sets of wheels and tires.

"you are dealing with two issues, out of balance, and out or round"

Good point, I will put a dial indicator on the rims and beat on them if necessary.

"And of course, you could always get yourself some beadlock wheels."

I've thought about that, but I'm too cheep. And since I go to Snoqualmie pass a lot (especially when it's snowing hard), I would worry that the cops that are checking cars for chains they might catch my illegal bead locks.

Note to Kurtis, I have 16X8 steel rims.
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