Wheel Balancers

[dale farley]

Can I assume that any Centramatic Wheel Balancers that are 22.5" will fit my bus? Does it make any difference that they came off a truck? They appear to have many holes for the lugs, so I assume the bus lug pattern would match some of the holes.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Wrong. There is two different lug patterns. New style has 8 old has 10.

[Orren Zook]

Wrong. There is two different lug patterns. New style has 8 old has 10.

and the new ones are metric.....

[BrianE]

Dale,

Assuming you are still doing research, suggest you check out Balance Masters: http://www.balancemasters.com/home.html. We are having a set installed in Orlando tomorrow. Instead of steel balls, Balance Masters use mercury in a teflon tube and a steel mounting assembly similar to Centramatics. They have a 10 year warranty and cost about the same as Centramatics. If you phone them, ask for Chris.

[dale farley]

Joe/Orren, I'm glad I asked. I was looking at several sets on eBay, but they came off trucks. I went to the website and really got confused trying to compare those to the ones on eBay.

Brian, I am looking at the Balance Masters also. I see they have been in business for eight years and have sold a large number in the U.S. I was thinking you told me (when you were here) that you found them at a better deal than listed on the website, but I have not found any other source for them.

[Ray Davis]

I'm hoping Ken Z will chime in here. I remember a recent conversation with him. He was planning on adding balancers (not sure which brand), and was talked out of it by someone (may have been a tire dealer, not sure).

Hopefully Ken will get in here with details. He was concerned enough to not add them.

Ray

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I'm not sure if there is any best way to balance tires, except I do know external wheel weights are a lousy way to do it.

I once considered Centrimatics or their equivalent but I have found Equal is significantly more cost effective.

At $10 per axle per side it takes a long time and a lot of tire replacements before I can justify the expenditure for Centrimatics. I would guess a commercial bus or entertainer bus would be ideal candidates for those type balancers, but with our limited usage I couldn't make the numbers justifiable.

[dale farley]

Jon, I agree about the cost of Equal compared to the external balancers, but I don't think I can use any of the internal compound because of the tire monitors I just installed. Don't know this for sure. I noticed my local tire store sells a liquid that is supposed to be superior to Equal, but here again, I don't know if it will work. It is $25 per tire.

[bluevost]

Good morning POGgers,

Like Ray mentioned, I spent a good deal of time with the owner of Balance Masters at Quartzite. He had me convinced that his product was the way to go. When I got a new set of tires just last month I told the distributor I was going to bring along some wheel balancers for installation at the same time. The tire guy tells me they "take those things off when trucks come in for new tires, save your money". Now this guy had no ax to grind. He did not try to sell me another product. So now being completely confused, I have a new set of tires, with external weights. Interesting too, they did not balance the duals at all!!

Reminds me of the time I had my tranny serviced at Mira Loma, they put in Dexron III "never use Transend(SP?)" they said. Then had the tranny rebuilt at Valley Power and they put in Transend, "never use Dexron III" they said. Go figure!!

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Good morning POGgers,

Like Ray mentioned, I spent a good deal of time with the owner of Balance Masters at Quartzite. He had me convinced that his product was the way to go. When I got a new set of tires just last month I told the distributor I was going to bring along some wheel balancers for installation at the same time. The tire guy tells me they "take those things off when trucks come in for new tires, save your money". Now this guy had no ax to grind. He did not try to sell me another product. So now being completely confused, I have a new set of tires, with external weights. Interesting too, they did not balance the duals at all!!

Reminds me of the time I had my tranny serviced at Mira Loma, they put in Dexron III "never use Transend(SP?)" they said. Then had the tranny rebuilt at Valley Power and they put in Transend, "never use Dexron III" they said. Go figure!!

Hi Ken, long time no talky. Good to hear you're around and fine.

Did the tire man give you any specific reasons for removing the device for truckers?
What made you decide to believe him?
It seems he sold you the weighted balancing job