Balancing wheels

[Ken in Oklahoma]

. . . It's not magic.

Quite so! The natural laws are well known. What is required for good results is thoughtfulness and diligence.

Which is something that can be said about damned near every aspect of human endeavor.


Ken

[jagarra]

Duane's system sounds good to me, it's a process I followed in a fashion when doing car tires. Well I was so miffed about the butt ugly weights that I did some shopping. Amazon seemed to have the best selection and price. Before the dust settled I had ordered a truing/ balancing stand and they also had a selection of assorted spoke weights at a better price , so they went into the cart.
For a brief moment I thought about casting my own weights. I have a bunch of sinker weight molds in my aluminum scrap pile and a lead pot, but I think it would take too much work to make a shape that was usable. I would need a mill, then you would have to drill the weight center with 2 different holes and slice the edge. I think lead wire would be better.

[jagarra]

Received my balancer and weights yesterday, was impressed how fast it got to me considering the UPS label indicated it came from Texas. Set it up last night, has a nice level bubble on the base. Well made, pretty beefy in construction. Read Duane's article on the process. Started my first balance job on the front wheel which had 9 segments of those glue on weights on it. Decided that I would just balance it and not move the tire yet. (more tools coming) Determined where the heavy spot on the rim was and marked it 0. Added a pair of weight opposite till the rim moved down toward the added weight. Then moved the weights out from that point equally until they ended up about 10" apart. Now the stopping point seemed random. Sometimes repeatable, but not consistently. I would position the rim at a point and the rim may move or just stay there. I didn't have a vibrator, so I used a screwdriver handle banging on the upright of the balancer to introduce vibration. It may not be perfect for speeds in excess of 120, but it was a great start in getting rid of the caterpillar weights on the rim.
Biggest issue was keeping the weights in place during the balancing process, had to squeeze one of them a bit and then open it just enough to catch the nipple with a twist and hold it in place.

[Duane Ausherman]

I am confused, you are balancing with the tire on the rim? Is this the old tire?

After you get the rim cleaned of tire and weights and start out. Now that your wheel is balanced, I want to hear how close the tire turns out to be. In my day, those spots of paint were off at least 1/2 of the time. I hope that the are better today, but I have my doubts.

For vibration, you can use a orbital sander too. Just hold the body against the balancer. You will be surprised just how much it improves the sensitivity. I would say that it is 3-4 times better.

[jagarra]

Sorry Duane, but the tire on the rim is new, it was just balanced dynamically with a large amount of stick on weights in one spot that were plain ugly. So I chose to do it the old fashion way after removing those weights. After my MC wheel holder/changer gets here I will break it down and start over from scratch.

[Duane Ausherman]

Good, that is the way to do it. Please report back to us on what you find and how much trouble it was.