Tire Balancer

[mikedee]

I just got 8 new tires and was going to spend the +$500 for Centramatics. The shop I got my tires from Ted Wiens in Las Vegas next to ODR, showed me their new balancer a Hunter Road Force and I went with the adhesive weight balance.
http://www.hunter.com/pub/product/balancer/5881T/index.htm

I had seen this machine for car tires and year ago I had a small tire jump in my Vette at about 70 mph. A shop with a Hunter road force re-balance my tires and they were perfect. I was very impressed with the new machine, it checks tire centering, out of round, wheel runout, static and dynamic loads and give the weight amount and location. If the tire would be better rotated and remounted it tell the operator to do that and gives the re-mount locations. They reduced all the parameters on three tires by re-mounting.

The bus drives great and I would look for a shop with this new machine if I needed tires.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

I wonder what the machine would say if you installed Equal or Balance Masters?








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[jack14r]

I have seen that the tires will move on the rims under real hard braking,if you don't believe this mark the wheel and tire with a paint marker and you will be surprised after a panic stop.My point is that a balanced tire and wheel is only right the day it is installed.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

It is only correct until the first stop. I believe Jim Keller had a demonstration of the fact the tires will move on the rim.

I used weight balanced tires on my first bus for a few years and over a relatively short period of time the tires were out of balance and needed to be rebalanced all over. It was upon replacing the set that I began using Equal.

From that time on I have never seen or felt the effects of an imbalanced wheel or tire.

There are three approaches that I know of for balancing. We can use weights, we can use Equal or its equivalent, or we can use Centrimatics or their equivalent. I would probably opt for Centrimatics if the cost differential between them and Equal were closer, but I cannot make the economics work out.

Equal when I first started using it would occasionally cause a Schrader valve to leak which was a PITA to deal with but with the Schrader valves with the filter screens supplied by Equal, and the use of the fill through the cap valve stem caps I haven't had that issue in years.

When I change my tires I can say with confidence the bead separates from the rim with little or no effort so envisioning a tire rotating around the rim on braking is not difficult.

[jack14r]

We have marked the tires and wheels on our Winston cup road race cars and in 4 laps I have seen a tire move 180 degrees.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

For drag racing I used to put screws through the rims to catch the tire bead'












JIM

[mikedee]

The tires came with a yellow dot that is placed next to the valve stem as a reference for the tire installer. I will watch to see how much if any movement takes place during my next trip.

I am still up for the Centramatic's, if the tires move on they go. One great features of the balancer is the other parameters it checks like run out and centering. It also gives a tire re-mount position if the weight can be lowered by this effort.

I agree, if they move at all the balance is junk. Wiens gave me a 1 year refund warranty in writing if I did not like the balance. If it had not worked so well on the Vette, I would have never tried the weights.

[garyde]

I just had two Michelin 365's installed on the front to replace two that were date stamped 4403. So thats about 6 years 6 months. I looked at the inside of the old ones, they still looked in good shape, no signs of cracking or rot.
Anyway, the tech said there wasn't much to balance on the 365's because they are so wide . He spun them and placed some weights on the inside of the rim. Rides great.