OK - I just bought a bunch of small round lead sinkers (fishing weights) and also a box of 3000 steel BBs.

Which would you try inside the tires for balancing, and why?

I'm thinking - lead=soft, good for not beating daylights out of tire / rim at stop / start. bad as it may break up into sharp bit.

BBs - good because they are small and should distribute more evenly - but are they too hard? Might be noisier. Also much cheaper

???

I haven't the slightest, but lets open this up to golf balls, too.

Pete

why not just go to the place that balences tires? jiMMy

putting that stuff inside the tires will only help to balance them above a certain speed that depends on the diameter of the tire. Below that speed it will make the imbalance worse. If you put the weights in a ring on the wheel it will work at lower speeds like the commercial kit.

the lastest SXi bought was square! it wanted like 38oz of Lead :D
and no i do not have beadlocks

Well, let me explain how I arrived hear:

Conventional "weight on the rim" methods....useless... requires way to much lead (40 OZ plus) and they're ripped off or displaced after one trip.

The big patches on the inside are nice - but I can't imagine how patient a person you have
to be to dismount and remount the tire each time you add one as you're
trying to balance them. I believe this may have been the impetus for the
creation of the equal . Also, if you chew up the tread a bit,
or spin the tire on the rim at low psi - it's now useless.

I have dome a lot of research on the equal but rejected if for 3 reasons:

1) Expensive ($20 per wheel)
2) Not deigned for repeated airing up and down, and will be subject to loss,
especially as I have to remove the cores to air down (or start the night
before :-). May also clog valve stems during repeated airing up/down.
3) You have to be fussy about using dry air - not always something I can be
assured of.

Lastly - the trouble with the centramatic's are, they just don;t have enough
capacity to balance a big bias swamper, as the weight is close to the rim,
wheras the imbalance is out by the tread surface. Also WAY too expensive,
and subject to trail damage.

I've heard of the golf balls, but with only 3, and them being rather large,
i would have thought that their ability to conform would be kinda limited??

Understood that any "free floating" methos will only work above a certain speed, but it seems to me that this speed is likely to coincide with the speed above which you care....i.e. One of my TSL's reportedly needed 40 oz per side, which it didn;t get, I banged on abit, but no where near that much...so it can be considered unbalanced by quite a bit, and around town below 60km/h I don't really notice / care.

Who knows if I'm right on this, but I hope it is so.

Don't use the lead. As they bang up against each other, they will make lead dust which would be very bad for you to breath when airing down or removing it from the rim. The steel BBs should be just as good, but not toxic.

Who makes/sells the lead patches? I asked a local NAPA and they looked at me like I had an extra head. (I look back like they didn't have their "initial issue").

Bill,

Here is what to do. Go to your local Goodyear dealer. Ask where the local Goodyear TRUCK TIRE CENTER is.

go to the truck tire center and pay one time to get your tires balanced the right way. They have Weighted Patches that actually are secured to the tire. Like a patch.

Not to the rim. As most rims are within tolarance of being Balanced. One time is all it should take to balance the tire close enough to prevent any severe imbalance you may have.

I know this works. I have done it myself. I used to work for Goodyear. If you already know how much it is out of balance just buy a Patch from the Truck tire center and take the tire to your local tire shop and have them volcanize the patch on the inside of the tire.

No, It wont come off when you airdown your tire and drive without any air in your tire if It was properly volcanized on.

I have repaired sidewalls that are only 1/4 inch from the bead and they hold. (even though all tire manufactures say you cant do it) For safety reasons... But for off road use who cares.

Originally posted by Gordon
putting that stuff inside the tires will only help to balance them above a certain speed that depends on the diameter of the tire. Below that speed it will make the imbalance worse. If you put the weights in a ring on the wheel it will work at lower speeds like the commercial kit.

Umm... why?

Just curious, 'cause I've got a half pound of 3/8" steel shot (slingshot ammo) in each of mine, and at any speed where balance matters, they're smooth, and slow speeds... well... they're Swampers... they're not round, either.

Mostly, I'm wondering how it is that weights in a ring will work, but weights in a tire won't.

If you want them to ride like street tires then get street tires and swap them out for off road.

I was in the service with a guy that told me about a process that shaves the tread to create a perfectly round tire. I've never seen this done before. He claims it didn't really take off very much rubber and worked really well.

He was a redneck from the florida swap though :rolleyes:

Scott, I think what they mean is that in a tube you get a mass of movement. by them selves you may have not all of them moving due to cintrifical forces holding indiviual bb's against the oposite side of the tire. whereas with all the bb's in a tube the hole tube will float to the heavy spot.

Originally posted by BillaVista
The big patches on the inside are nice - but I can't imagine how patient a person you have
to be to dismount and remount the tire each time you add one as you're
trying to balance them. I believe this may have been the impetus for the
creation of the equal . Also, if you chew up the tread a bit,
or spin the tire on the rim at low psi - it's now useless.


If you think about it the big patches actually balance the tire as a whole seperate from the rim, therefore if you spin the tire on the rim the tire would still be balanced because the rim is always going to be balanced. Plus I do believe you would have to chunk out a whole bunch of tread to unbalance the tire.

Bill, just a thought but why not put a bit of weld on the inside og the rims? just use some thick rods in a arc welder..... i'm not sure if it'll work but it won't fall off.....
l8r

Thats the hole point. The rim is already within balance.

And when you air down. the tire spins on the rim causing the tire to be out of balance. So you have to have the weights on the tire. not the rim. And the only way is inside.

tape a weights work fine. if you have beadlocks.

Many many thanks for all the great ideas (well....except wild1...what a dope :flipoff2: newbie)

I think I will try the shot, and if it doesn't work for me - I'll go off to the local truck tire center...it's only about 4 minutes from my house :)

Cheers,

quote by Nobody
I was in the service with a guy that told me about a process that shaves the tread to create a perfectly round tire. I've never seen this done before. He claims it didn't really take off very much rubber and worked really well.
Hey Nobody! I know what its called, Its called "TRUEING".

Wouldn't water work fine? There would not be any issues with heat/wear with water. Put about a half gallon of water in each tire and forget about it.

Sean

I can think of one issue with the water - FREEZING. Maybe glycol would work. I know that they use a special fluid in farm tractors to add weight??

A half gallon or so of water in the tires is NOT a good idea. I have had this happen accidentally when I have popped a bead in the snow and got snow inside the tire. When you get up to speed on the road (15-20 mph) the tire wants to come off the ground and take the rest of the rig with it. I don't know why water reacts differently than the BB's do, but it sure does.

Originally posted by EricFJ40
A half gallon or so of water in the tires is NOT a good idea. I have had this happen accidentally when I have popped a bead in the snow and got snow inside the tire. When you get up to speed on the road (15-20 mph) the tire wants to come off the ground and take the rest of the rig with it. I don't know why water reacts differently than the BB's do, but it sure does.

Was the water still in frozen form in your tires?? Water in the tires should not act as you described.

Sounds like the snow/ice got stuck to one part of the inside of your tire.

Sean

ummmm balance? whats that?

water acts wierd in tires. We used to put a little water in old tires during burnout competitions back at school in the auto club. The water would move to the heavy part instead of balancing it out. One guy had a caramo with a 502 crate motor, and could get the tires up to about 120. The whole back end would start bouncing up and leaving the ground. Water is NOT a good idea.

Trueing (sp?) - removing tread rubber to get a perfectly round tire - is not something I recommend for a swamper. You do not want to get the tires back from this process and find out your new swampers are now half to the wear bars on one side. if your tires are really out of balance/round - they gota remove enough rubber to get them into balance.

Also, do not ASSUME your rims are balanced, or in round, or even perfectly centered. If you are having a problem with a set of tires that require some rediculour weight to balance, do yourself a favor and have the rim checked for round, center, and balance by itself. You may be surprised....

I have a friend who purchased some pretty expensive Weld aluminum wheels, and had to send 5 of them back in a row because they were either out of balance, or were out of round(off center), or had a wobble. So don't assume the rims are ok - they may not be.

Interco recommends patches on the inside of the tire for balancing. http://www.intercotire.com/html/tech_info.htm

a guy at a run not to long ago was running 35x15.50 sx's and he said he balanced them with equal. i have no idea how to get intouch with im and i didnt get him to elaborate...anyone know anyhting on the equal method??

Hunter

When I was living in Gualala, a friend of mine bought some 33" boggers for his 4 runner, he bought them from INternational Tire on the road right Trader Joes (Fulton Ave? Santa Rosa guys will know) but he payed $40 a tire, and they laser balanced them. Every time you go into town you can take the tires back and have them done again and rotated for free, he never took them back because it is more rubber being cut off, but those tires lasted at least 8 months and when I moved out here for school they still had about 50% of tire left. Also Papola Off Road in Santa Rosa sells this little packages of these things (hard to explain) but when you rub them together they creat static and float in the bacg, they are supposed to float and stick the the places in the tire were it calls for weight. Has anyone heard of these??

Originally posted by Vermont_Toy
Interco recommends patches on the inside of the tire for balancing. http://www.intercotire.com/html/tech_info.htm

So what your saying is that I was correct... :rolleyes: I know.

And for the water thing .... NO!

some farm tractor tires do use something liquid But I cant remember what its called... It does work though. But as soon as you "air down" your fawked. And that stuff ______ is expensive.

I just got a new set of 38.5 bias tsl's and am thinking about trying either the golf ball method or the bb method. with regards to you guys thinking that they don't weigh enough think about this (any good tire guy will tell you the same) the further out towards the imbalance, the less weight you need, henche you guys needing 40+oz. to balance your tires. so if you put 10-15 oz of weight in the tire (in my case 19.5 or so inches away from the center as apossed to 7.5 inches if weights were mounted to the tire) you should be fine. just my .02 cents, take it for what it's worth

Originally posted by Nobody
I was in the service with a guy that told me about a process that shaves the tread to create a perfectly round tire. I've never seen this done before. He claims it didn't really take off very much rubber and worked really well.

He was a redneck from the florida swap though :rolleyes:

It's called "truing" and just about everybody has heard of it here in the swamp :rolleyes: