The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Balancing tires.

When you balance tires does the weight have to be on a certain side of the wheel?

Good question. Like to know what the prevailing forum wisdom is. For my purposes, max wheel width would be 5 to 6 inches on a 16 diameter. The answer might be different for a super wide rim.

I always tell them put weights on the inside because it really destroys the look and the paint when on the outside.

The balance machine should tell the tech on which side the weight is needed.

My issue is that I want to put wheel covers on the wheels but I think the weights will interfere.

I would think with the slower speed of the older vehicle, you could swap the weights to the back side of the wheel and still be fine. All of the newer vehicles with aluminum wheels are balanced with stick-on weights on the back side of the wheel. Even when I had tires and balance on my '78 Vette with factory aluminum wheels that is how it was done.

Please let me "weigh" in. I was always taught some wheels/tires (and while many think only of balancing tires, it is important to remember you're balancing both) will need weights on front and back to achieve proper results. Using weights on both sides of the wheel is known as dynamic balancing. Normally wheel covers will not interfere with wheel weights although if you use baby moons without trim rings, you'll see the weights. As buckshot mentioned, the machine will let you know. If you want the smoothest ride, the highest fuel economy and the longest life out of your tires, it is mandatory that you get your wheels/tires balanced as perfectly as possible and it is important to have them re-balanced every 10,000 miles or so. I was also taught to take the assembly off, mount it again in a different orientation and spin it another time to see what happens. Almost no shop does that today. These machines are not always exact and if the wheel/tire assembly is cocked just a bit when mounted on the balancer it can throw the results off. Is it really that important? Well, out of balance wheels/tires require a lot more effort to turn, especially at speeds over 40 mph. That will reduce your gas mileage. And out of balance wheels/tires will wear out a lot faster. One more thing: if when buying tires you see criticism that they pick up and hold pieces of gravel, don't buy those. They won't last as long and they'll cost you more in gas spending...because they'll forever be running out of balance. Any weight at the outside edge of your tire will cause a more dramatic out of balance effect. If you want a really dramatic example of this, on your lawnmower blade there probably is a hole drilled very near the ends...most of them have these although I don't know why (usually it is about 1/8 inch or so). Put a small screw and nut in one of those holes and start your mower.

If you're looking to pit a single weight inside the wheel, that would be a static balance. Easily accomplished with an old bubble balancer. Not the best tire balance, read Jon's response, but better than nothing.


One thing I did see one shop owner do, which could make some sense, was to inflate the tire to set the beads. Then, let the air out of the tire until relaxed. Then final inflate. The idea is to get a full even seat of the beads against the rims. I asked one of my techs to do that on a job. He reported back that all four tires required minimal weights for dynamic balance. Almost out of normal for us. Of course, it was only one vehicle and they could've been close to balance already.

Back in the sixes when I was a kid working at a DX station, I was taught like John G said. Equal weights on the front and rear to balance the wheel and tire, using a bubble balancer.

Try to find a shop that can balance the wheel with a lug centric adapter (“fingers”) as well- it made a difference on my truck. I had a popular tire chain shop mount and balance new tires a few years back using their hub-centric equipment, and the balance was horrible. Drove it to a local shop who had the fingers adapter and they rebalanced and it was so much better. It didn’t help that the Goodyear tires I bought were horribly unbalanced and required a ridiculous amount of weight.

The Diamond Back tires I just replaced them with require only a fraction of the weight the Goodyear tires required, and the Diamonds are considerably larger tires.

I had a big truck tire shop mount my 22.5" tires, the steering tires are Michelin metric radials and balanced on their machine, no complaints. On my 2011 2500Hd I have them "road force" balanced, it's a little more money but a better balance job.

Generals in the 80's and 90's were like that. Liked to separate, too. I guess the tire + labor (body work, whatever) was cheaper than buying quality tires. Or, we were locked in to a contract we had to wait to expire.

My tire man will let me stay in shop and watch. If a tire takes a lot of weight we reject it....for mine anyway. Also be aware a disc brake bad rotor can wreck havoc too.

Has anyone used one of the cheap wheel balancers you can get on Amazon? Do they work? All the local tire shops want $25-$35 per wheel to balance. I buy a balancer for $65.

I mounted an 11R 24.5 tire the other day (steer). I just used balancing beads. I see etrailer.com has them for little trucks, too.

Anyone used beads for little trucks? It would eliminate Ron's issue...

Mark -- What do you say about this?

JM

Hi John,
I don't know what others think, but I can pass this along. About 40 years ago a company had a booth at the Texas State Fair where they sold these and they had a demonstration using a small (maybe 10 inch) wheel and tire that was spun with and without the beads so you could see how effective they were. The beads were in a clear plastic tube with some clear oil in it which was attached to the front of the wheel rim so you could watch the things re-orienting themselves as the wheel spun. As it spun (fast, I'll add) the machine spinning it became smoother until finally it was almost perfectly smooth. After a year or two the company had to stop selling them. The Fair investigators from what I was told concluded it was a bunko game. What I remember was (a) these work best on large wheels/tires (which aren't easy to balance and require special equipment) and also on pretty small wheels/tires. They weren't always effective on common size wheels and tires...hence the complaints to the State Fair folks. (b) at slow speeds they do nothing...they must be spun above a certain speed in order to work at all. (c) once you install them if you want to remove them it isn't always that easy to get them all out and all of them must be removed or the wheel/tire can't be balanced using common equipment and ordinary weights...that being the beads will work against common weights and spin balancing systems will be given the wrong input while the beads are moving so you'll only achieve balance at one speed...the speed of the spin balancer. Any other speed will be out of balance until the beads are all gone. Whether these are the same as the things being sold today or not I can't say but in the early 80s they were pretty much of a mess down here. Hopefully things have improved.

I have a friend that uses them in his 2003 2500HD. He had a booger of a time getting the tires he likes to balance got a set of these (same idea, at least. Not sure on brand).

He really likes them with the caveat that you have to go over a few bumps at speed before they settle in after every stop. He is used to it now, but it does feel really weird to drive his truck.

Our fleet tested them for a while. Haven't heard much since. Could be because of cost. But I wasn't part of that team or the test, so I don't know what the final outcome was. I see the product still available on our approved lists. But it still says "For Testing Only."

The Air Force has been using balance beads for over a decade, we used them on everything from a 225/75R 16 and up. Attached is a calculator for commercially available balance beads that determines how may ounces to use for a specific size tire. This in no way an endorsement of this product, it is only shown here as a reference.

www.magnumbalance.com/en-us/calculator/

PS: I used a product sold by NAPA while mounting the new steer tires on " Thor" (8R/19.5), no issues what so ever.

Maybe if you're racing a vehicle the beads would be worthwhile. I seriously doubt you'll see any benifit or performance improvement on an AD truck or any other vehicle used for occasional driving under normal conditions.

I put this right up there with nitrogen in the tires.

Back in the mid-1950s my father's shop had an old Bear wheel balancer that was so sensitive that they could start shaving a little lead at a time off a 1/4 ounce wheel weight with a pocketknife before the machine was satisfied the wheel was balanced. It was possible to stand a nickel up on edge on the top of that machine with the wheel spinning at around 100 MPH. Wheel balancing has always been more about the skill of the operator than the type of machine being used. Balance beads have always seemed to be a P.T.Barnum gimmick to me.
Jerry

Witch craft or Smoke and Mirrors, don't know ..
I do know they work.

I've got them in one form or another on three different sets of tires. My 55, 2018 and a horse trailer. No ill effects to speak of, they seem to work, the only exception being they have to be spun to find their balance. I wouldn't describe any of the vehicles as weird to drive as a result of it.

Question...if stick-on weights are used instead of edge crimpers, and if they were placed inside the rim around the center line of the wheel (equidistant between outer and inner edges), could it be considered a dynamic or proper balance?

Trying to get a better understanding the whole concept.

Those used to be called Cadillac Weights because the full rim wheel covers (hubcaps) on Cadillacs interfere with the clip on edge weights. They've been around for decades and work very well.

That as I understand your question would be static balancing. There is a word doc you can open to see this...hopefully it will open.

Yep opens fine. Thanks Jon.

What about tires with tubes. Can you install beads in an inner tube?

Yes, but you need patience to insert the beads through the valve stem. It is used quite a lot on motorcycles and trailer tires.

Cadillac weights require Cadillac rims. As the owner of multiple (now old) Cadis, I can verify that the stock wheels have a rim flange on the outside which sticks straight out, so the crimp on the Cadillac wheel weights can grab it. They move the weights inward about 3//8" (IIRC) so that the Cadillac hubcaps, whose fingers grab that straight out rim flange, can grab hold. Cadi wheel weights typically won't stay on a regular wheel, whose rim flange is curved inward to hod regular weights. If they're not too heavy, you can put regular weights on a Cadi rim, however the hubcap won't go on anymore.

I used to work as a tire buster, back in the day. Also, the Cadi hubcap fingers were super easy to bend and it seems like every time you put one on, at least one of those suckers would bend and crimp and then the hubcap had a gap where it met the wheel. And would probably fall off in about 50 miles.

Tron, I confused the peel and stick weights with the extended tab Cadillac weights.

You're right about the hubcaps. Whenever I have new tires installed, I remove the caps at my house and then go to the tire place. I take needle nose pliers to re-bend all the tangs to make sure they grab tightly.

So, in regards to AD Trucks, the peel and stick weights are nice because they can be put anywhere on either side of the rim and don't detract from the look of the wheel.