Balancing

[Mark]

Okay heres one for the clever people;

 

I have just swapped my tyres onto another set of rims (jeep this is) and they cannot be balanced, but on the other rims they were balanced with a lot of weight which looked ugly must admit so my questions are,

 

Why can't these rims be balanced

Did they balance wheels on jeeps

 

If they did not balance them then how did they drive them with so much vibration.

[MilitantGraham]

Why can't these rims be balanced

 

At a guess, because you went to a place that only deals in car tyres.

Try a truck tyre fitter's. They should have some heavier weights.

 

[TooTallMike]

I'm about to have 5 new tyres fitted to my MUTT rims. I've ordered them from RSR and they are happy to fit tubes even though they are ostensibly tubeless tyres. They have happily included balancing in their quote and they have seen the rims so they do know what they are dealing with.

 

I guess what I'm saying is you need to find a more helpful tyre shop. :-)

 

Regarding your second question, I don't know whether they would have bothered balancing tyres during the war because the roads were so poor and the speeds relatively low, plus I doubt High Command were overly bothered about troops' comfort! They might have done it to prevent mechanical damage though.

 

[Poptopshed]

Alot of places wont touch bigger than car stuff or 4x4 remoulds simply due to the cost of balance weights now. We have to charge for balancing on remoulds but new tyres we will balance for free.

[Rick W]

Ditto, we can balance anything up to light truck wheels and tyres.

[Mark]

I will go for the truck suggestion as my mate (who could not be more helpful) who owns the tyre shop also said that, he did try to balance them but would have ended up with so many around the rim he probably could not fit them on. So I assume that truck weights are heavier in a smaller size, if that makes sense.

[sirhc]

If to balance a wheel they need to put rims all the way round then this suggests to me it doesn't actualy need balancing? I had my Land Rover wheels balanced with no problems. You can also get stick on weights which they use when people have fancy alloy wheels.

 

Chris

[Mark]

Makes sense I will not really find out until I get it back on the road, which might be this year :dunno:

[sas pinkie]

I had a hell of a job trying to get the wheels of the pinkie balanced. They wouldn't fit in the balancing machine of most places. I eventually went to a place that does lorries, and knows what they are doing. Look in the yellow pages and choose some one from the commercial tyres section.!

[Richard Farrant]

Regarding tyre balancing, there is another option which would be good for the heavier vehicles. Weights have a habit of getting knocked off if going off road. While I was out working on a customer's GMC CCKW last year, he had the local truck tyre specialist out to inject a special product like minute beads in to the tube. Once the wheel starts rotating the beads automatically balance it out. As the tyre wears the balancing continues to correct, whereas weights are only good for a certain period.

 

Going back to weights, when we had the Bedford MK in service, it was found that at a certain speed, there would be a lot of steering shake due to imbalance of tyres. We had a large 3-phase electric motor with a roller on, front wheels jacked up, with the drive flange removed from the hub replaced by a dummy one. The roller was used against the tyre to power it up to speed and an optical instrument, which I cannot remeber details of now, was used to view the tyre, similar to a timing light if memory is correct. This not only balanced the tyre and wheel, but also the hub and brake drum. Lead weights were used on the rim.

 

Richard

[john wheatley (R.I.P.)]

I asked about these beads in the tyre and was told it's not practical as the beads wear through the inner-tube fairly quickly, any body had any feed back using them in inner tubes? :?

John.

[Richard Farrant]

I asked about these beads in the tyre and was told it's not practical as the beads wear through the inner-tube fairly quickly, any body had any feed back using them in inner tubes? :?

John.

 

 

Hello John,

 

This was an IMPS member near Canterbury, his friend had already had his GMC done for some time with no reported problems. I do not think these beads are abrasive.

 

Richard

[john wheatley (R.I.P.)]

Thanks Richard,

Will give it a try.

John. :wave:

[fv1609]

Balancing does seem to be important even for MVs, but a range of other factors can effect wheel wobble as this 1954 EMER shows:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v684/fv1620/WVA08907.jpg[/img]

[Grasshopper]

The easy answer is to rid ones self of wheeled vehicles and move into tracked ones.... 8-)