Tire Balancing

Custom Search

[ayoung]

Just thought I would share my experiences from the last two weeks here:

Rotated my tires and started getting a real bad shake in the steering wheel, and the rear end felt like it was gonna shake apart.  My tsl's had not been balanced but had been driving decent for the last few months. 

I put 8 oz of air soft bb's in them to balance them (this is the amount recommended by innovative balancing for 33x12.5 tires).  No dice.  As soon as i hit 45 it felt like the jeep was gonna shake apart and it did not get better with speed. 

I put another 6.5 oz of bb's in (thinking that 8 must not have been enough).  Again, no dice.  Tried varying the tire pressure from 28 up to 40 psi, nothing worked.

Looked on the intraweb and found this:

"My vehicle has a [shimmy, shake, wobble]. Will your beads fix this?
No. There are three terms commonly used to describe lateral (back and forth) movement of the steering wheel, wobble, shimmy and shake.

Weight-related Imbalance - This is lateral movement at normal driving speeds commonly characterized as "shimmy" or "shake" resulting from unequal weight on both sides of the tire and wheel circumferential centerline. The wider the tire, the lower the aspect ratio, the more likely this is to occur."

Got in touch with Bob down at Baystate Offroad, went down there yesterday, and we spent a while sucking out bb's and remounting/balancing my tires.  He used these lead truck weights that help to concentrate the weight right where the machine wants it vs spreading out the weight around half the rim with the normal passenger car weights.

And as I suspected, most of my tires wanted 8 to 9 oz on one side, and 2 oz on the other side...this was causing that "lateral imbalance" that no amount of bb's could correct and hence my horrific ride.

With the new weights, the tires ride absolutely perfect and jeep drives smooth as he!! even up at highway speeds. Bob was awesome to work with and I cant imagine having brought these down to the local tire shop and having them attempt to balance them or dismount them and spill bb's everywhere, etc.

So moral of the story is, airsoft bb's may not be the solution to balancing your tires if they have a lateral imbalance, and Bob at Baystate Offroad rules 

[Mitch]

how much does it cost for 4 or 5 tires?

[ayoung]

he quoted me 45 bucks...but then i went and messed with them and filled them up with bb's that we had to spend a while taking them out, remounting the tires, etc, so it was a little more (he gave me a very good price for the amount of time we spend working on them)

A local tire place charged me like 25 bucks to mount/balance my spare tire a year ago when i needed it for a trail ride....

i think it is def worth every penny to deal with someone that wheels and understands big mudtires, some regular tire places ive been told will flat out refuse to attempt to balance big mud tires, or simply any tire that says Interco on the sidewall 

[Casey L]

Would an alloy wheel help out this lateral imbalance or is it mostly in the tire?

[rockdaletj]

Id say tire. Esp in a heavy bias tire like a TSL.
I remember my LTBs had a ton of weights on them, on both sides of the rim, like adam said.

[ayoung]

Would an alloy wheel help out this lateral imbalance or is it mostly in the tire?

in my opinion, entirely due to the tire, has nothing to do with the steel rim...big knobby bias ply tsl is a balancing nightmare...steel rims are not

[Krome]

balancing bias ply tires is the biggest joke ive ever heard

[ayoung]

balancing bias ply tires is the biggest joke ive ever heard

yeah?  why dont you come ride in my heap now kromie....rides way better than a certain jeep i can think of that is covered in chrome and has a bent axle shaft 

[RMFJ78]

I balanced toochs front tires for him, his procomps only took i think 4oz at most.  My mtzs took an average of 6 and my truxus took 12.5 on one side.  balancing bigger tires is a pain but can be done, just make sure all the wights are in one spot and not scattered at random around the rim. 

[Bluerocket]

I balanced toochs front tires for him, his procomps only took i think 4oz at most.  My mtzs took an average of 6 and my truxus took 12.5 on one side.  balancing bigger tires is a pain but can be done, just make sure all the wights are in one spot and not scattered at random around the rim. 

want to balance my Q-78's 

[RMFJ78]

if you want to drive to dedham.  Im trying to get more jeeps/trucks to come to my work, im sick of these little imports and minivans

[rockdaletj]

if you want to drive to dedham.  Im trying to get more jeeps/trucks to come to my work, im sick of these little imports and minivans

I think the problem is , with some of there tires, is that you need weights on different places on the rim, which is why the bb's wouldnt fix it.
The centrifugal force on the bb's wold force them all to one spot, much like having weights only on one spot on the rim. You need them on seperate places in order to make up for differences in the mold/layup of the tire.

And yes it can be done. I know when i first had my ltbs done they rode great. And with 32 inch swampers on my 4runner, it goes on the highway with no vibes at all.

[RMFJ78]

I found that with my truxus because it wanted so much weight I had them around half of the tire like adam said.  I ended up using a combination of lip weights and stick on weights to solve the problem.  I also think the brand and model of tire makes a differece, example, my mtzs which have been off road and have some chunks taken out of the tread balance with between 4 and 6 oz on each side while my truxus mt of the same size which has never been driven on takes 12 oz on one side.

[Twisty]

JJ do you work at garage...or do you have a machine.

[Krome]

balancing bias ply tires is the biggest joke ive ever heard

yeah?  why dont you come ride in my heap now kromie....rides way better than a certain jeep i can think of that is covered in chrome and has a bent axle shaft 

yeah sorry been to busy putting in oil pans and exhausts for certain individuals to work on my own jeep