[rcannon409]

I recently started balancing my own tires. Just a cheap stand, but after lubing the bearings, its decent.

Anyway, I had only watched youtube videos to do my motorcycle tires, and really did nto understand what to do. The first step was to get stock on weights and weight the rim. I randomly stuck on two ounces up front, on a shop balanced wheel, just to feel what it was like. There was a slight pulsing feel, but not even close to a loss of control.

I took all the weights off, and the tire, and tossed the rim in the balancer. I needed 1/2 oz to balance this, but it was very near the valve stem area..not what you would expect. Also, it was VERY obvious when this was right vs wrong. I probably spent two hours playing, and ALWAYS ended up with the 1/2 oz right where it was needed. Even an inch out of position was easy to spot. Not so easy was which side of the rim to weight, but the center is probably close enough.

 

[rcannon409]

Check out this pic..its from moto gp, 2009.

If these guys had a better way, they would have to use it as their tires would perform better???

The guy even has the same lost look on his face as I do when I'm working on mine.

The old machines that did car tires, HAD to spin fast to detect any off balance-ness.

 

[rcannon409]

My new michelins had no dots.....Also, if they had one, I would have been off had I matched it with the valve stem. Out back, lets say the valve stem is at 6 o-clock....my light spot is at 3. I've checked and tested it so many times, I coudl go point to it..I even added weight in the wrong places trying to dis-prove it, but no go.

 

[rcannon409]

Balancing the wheel without a tire to determine first the rear heavy spot before mounting the tire saves balancing weight and time.

This sounds reasonable, but would not have worked in my case. Worked is really not fair, as I was fine with no weights as far as feel went. The assembly is either in balance, or its not. If the wheel is off by .5oz, and you balance to that, adding the tire will either add to that figure, stay the same, l or take away. It can only stay the same if the tires perfect.

I think you'd be close enough doing it this way, or skipping it entirely, but not dead on. It could be helpful if you found the light spot of the tire and matched it to the heavy spot on the rim....

 

[rcannon409]

I bought a Pit Possee balancer, and its works very well. Its this one, right here....

http://www.amazon.com/Motorcycle-Ba..._4?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1407422210&sr=1-4

Please play along with my ocd, for a minute. I took the shields out of the bearings..No need to, but it made it more sensitive. Before use, just lube up the bearings with brake cleaner. When the run wet, its almost frictionless..well, you knwo what I mean...

Oh, and it you do some simple mods to it, you can balance the rear with the sprocket-cush drive attached. There was JUST enough clearance to do so.

Its a fun tool to use, though, and definitely get one just for entertainment. This one is sensitive enough, in stock form to a point where you want to cut the 1/4 oz weights info four pieces...

As far as technique, watch the youtube video, and the stand itself will teach you the rest. I'll bet it checked my wheel 20 times, just to be sure. The weather was bad, and I had no confidence in balancing myself. The weights ended up in the same spot, every time.

Just realize, your doing this all for yourself, anyway. I randomly added 2oz just to see what happened, and what it felt like, and noticed nothing.

 

[rcannon409]

That tire above is cool....A question, though..

When you see wear like this, does it wear out because its not in balance, or is it wearing like this in an effort to run balanced?

If you checked its balance , in that state of wear, woudl it be better, or worse than it started in?

You shoudl have stopped by, I could have found something better..oh wait, we did nto knwo each other....Had we, though, I'd have put on a 19 inch rear knobby. We'd have balanced it, too.

 

[rcannon409]

Yea, just havign fun...I dont think it could be done, could it?

I do remember trying to put a 17 on an 18 inch rim. We were kids.....

 

[rcannon409]

I've done enough to where I dont think it takes me 5 min with irons. Breaking the bead is the tough part.

Oh, but mentally, I dont think I'll ever adjust to the sound of a bead seating. That sound sends chills through my arms.

I accidentally exploded a 20 inch bicycle tire. The backside had crept of the rim, and I was not paying attention. I was using the compressor..I saw the tube growing, and that was that. It might have been 20lbs..maybe, but my ears rang for 30 minutes afterwards.

 

[rcannon409]

Oh, we coudl have done great things, that day..had we only known!

I did picture you, motoring away, that worn dunlop 756rr thumping with every rotation....but, we'd have balanced it. I saved oen of those. They were the closest offroad "works" lever tire released to the public. SOFT, but sticky like superglue.

 

[rcannon409]

If you took a new tire, made sure it was off balance, and ran it until worn out....

At the end of its like, I'd expect wear like this....Question, at that point, would it be closer to or further away from balance? Would running it and uneven wear, make it closer to balance?

You guys woudl be proud..I balanced my own lawnmower blade....balanced it on a screwdriver blade. Guess what? It worked like a champ! LOL

 

[rcannon409]

I saw a sentence in one of the British mags. It said to split up the weights, to both sides of the rim, if using over 10g of weight. .35 ounces, then...if using that much, split the dose in half, and go to each side of rim. It must be true, it was in a magazine.

Regarding wobbles...I wish I were smart enough to understand this page. He explains it....But.....click on it and you'll see the issue. Maybe I can hire Manracign to read it for me?

 

[rcannon409]

I had michelin do me one lien that back in 2010. My reply phone call said that was not an acceptable solution to a "potential safety hazard" and asked for their "safety" or "legal liability" department....A new tire was shipped out.

Try again, but use the attitude like, "Hey guys, I'm on your side with this one..just want you to tell me this situation is safe...." They wont do this in a thousand years, and it sort of forces them to either acknowledge and take responsibility for the problem, or ignore it.....It s a little bit of effort, but its fun.

I think they are trained to kiss people off on the first request at all companies.

 

[rcannon409]

You know what happened with this? New technology allowed the imbalance to be detected at lower speed. That's about half of it.

The other half was safety related due to tires flying off balance machines. Thrown rocks, etc.

 

[rcannon409]

I remember them.

Close enough really is good enough. Especially on a part that is constantly wearing,and changing. I balance my own motorcycle tires, just like the video shows. You have to be off by 2 or 3 ounces to feel it. It takes about 5 minutes to balance to the point where you are trimming 10 gram weights. It's fun to try and make the wheel perfect, although it's a waste of time. That's why those balance beads appear to work so well. It's just not as critical as it sounds like it would be.

If you ever get into a situation to where you are using scales, gauges ,balancing equipment, you end up with problem 2. Who says your balancer is accurate? If the balancer is going to be perfect, it would need to be calibrated on a regular basis. The more accurate it is, the more fragile it is, and that men's more calibration.

 

[rcannon409]

At some point, I decided I'm not paying shop priceless for tires. I bought aa cheap bead breaker and a cheap balancer.

The balancer is an axle that iis supported by bearings. I watched YouTube to get some idea of how to use it.

How accurate I needed to be? I had no idea, so I left the front wheel on my bike. It had been shop balanced, when new, but the tire was worn out. Just for fun, I stuck 2 ounces of weight to it, in a random spot and went for a ride.

I took the bike up into the triple digit area, and felt nothing. I do have a Scott's steering damper, but I had it turned to a very low setting .

At that point I knew my balance work was fine. It's really easy to balance to a point where you are trimming 5 gram weights to make them lighter.

Seriously, if a person balanced their bare rim, and bought name brad tires, you could forget balancing them and have no issues.

My Nina 1000 rear rim is interesting. You would expect the valve stem area to be the light spot.....or, maybe the heavy spot because there is extra material there. It's not. The heavy spot is a random spot .