QUESTION REGARDING TIRE BALANCING

[moonbeamerll]

QUESTION REGARDING TIRE BALANCING

I’ve searched the archives (those currently available) and find little on “home-made” tire balancing apparatus. Seems like there were a few threads some time back complete w/ illustrations. Is it my memory or my search skills that are failing me? I understand the concept but I’m sure that I’ve seen postings showing rigs that some of you have made. Any suggestions?

[Deleted User 62]

Here's everything you need to know: http://www.marcparnes.com/

[moonbeamerll]

"Here's everything you need to know" if I want to spend the price of a tire on this tool. Call me cheap but I suspect that there are plenty of back-yard designs that will suffice for the occasional self-performed tire changing routine. Lest I sound ungrateful or too much the curmudgeon, thanks for the speedy reply.

[Deleted User 62]

"Here's everything you need to know" if I want to spend the price of a tire on this tool. Call me cheap but I suspect that there are plenty of back-yard designs that will suffice for the occasional self-performed tire changing routine. Lest I sound ungrateful or too much the curmudgeon, thanks for the speedy reply.

Look at the picture, two fixtures tapered to the diameter of the axle secured with thumb-bolts on a shaft that rides in two sealed precision bearings. What doesn't show is the flat, machined on each bearing holder, to keep it from rolling off the table... Got a lathe? Priced two precision bearings lately? Make your own!

[Duane Ausherman]

"Here's everything you need to know" if I want to spend the price of a tire on this tool. Call me cheap but I suspect that there are plenty of back-yard designs that will suffice for the occasional self-performed tire changing routine. Lest I sound ungrateful or too much the curmudgeon, thanks for the speedy reply.

If you can make this type of balancer, then go for it. However, this one is the best that I have used.
The $4 balancer doesn't work, so don't bother messing with it.

There is far more to balancing a wheel than might at first appear.

I hope that your subject was in error, as we don't balance tires, but whole wheels. Actually, we do it in stages that ends up with the wheel in balance.

Balance the wheel and tube together. Then mount the tire and mark the heavy spot of the tire. Now, put the heavy spot of the tire opposite the heavy spot of the wheel. Mount everything, air it up, now check the balance and add weights as needed.

Some are happy with doing the balance with everything mounted up. It often works OK, but that is a far less than ideal method that sometimes really fails. It is your bike, do it your way.

[Major Softie]

Precision bearings are very easy to find, and pretty affordable, from skate shops. The hard part is making a big enough shaft with little stubs on the end for the skate bearings, or finding the bearings that are big enough for the shaft. Then you need to make the cones.

I would guess that, if you have a lathe, it would probably cost you more than $50 if you went out and bought all the materials to build the Parnes balancer. But, if you have a lathe, then there's a good chance you have a lot of the stuff you need already laying around as scrap.

The reality is, if you don't have a lathe, or access to one, it's damn hard to make something that will work nearly as well as the Parnes balancer, regardless of what you spend. I have a lathe, and I bought one anyway. I plan on making some of my own cones/spacers so I can use it on more bikes, but, for the base unit, it was a lot more practical to buy the Parnes unit. I try not to think of it as being the price of a tire, but as the price of just three or four mount and balance jobs.

[Ken in Oklahoma]

Duane (and others) give out some good advice above. I think Duane forgot to mention that it's a good idea to check the wheel by itself, and "permanently" mark the heavy spot on the rim. That would come just before the balance check of the rim with the tube.

A good balancer can be made for next to nothing, except for the bearings and, I'll wager that a lot of people, like me, have a box of miscellaneous bearings from various sources to choose from. You don't necessarily need a lathe either.

I wish I had pics to show of the balancer I made. If you imagine two small bearings in tandem, almost but not quite touching, then you could lay one end of an axle in the "vee" between the bearings. Do that twice and you've supported the other end of the axle. Now devise a stand or support to hold the two tandem sets of bearings and you can now lay the axle with wheel on top of the bearings and spin the wheel to your delight.

The bike's axle could be used, but that shoulder is awkward and you really need a longer axle. For that I went to a motorcycle salvage yard and found a long 17 mm axle. A piece of 1/2" cold rolled steel with custom bushings to make 17mm sleeves would work, but now you need a lathe to turn the bushings down to 17mm.

That leaves you with one more problem to solve for wheels with the tapered roller bearings (which is almost all airheads before the monolevers) Without something to hold them in place the tapered rollers will want to "squirt" out from the wheel. You need either tapered cones or a way to hold the bearing inner races in place where they belong. I did the latter.

I took some very large nuts and using a drill press bored them out to a diameter just above 17mm. Then sideways, on one of the flats, I bored a hole and tapped it with a 1/4--20 thread and used a pair of short bolts as a set screws. I gently tightened the set screw on one end of the axle, slid the wheel onto the axle, and then used a fairly light spring with an I.D. just over 17mm as a "spacer" before putting on the other nut with its setscrew. By compressing the spring a bit before tightening the second set screw you are now using the bearing inner races themselves to center the wheel to the 17mm shaft.

I forgot to mention about the bearings. They cannot be sealed bearings because that would introduce way too much friction. You can pry the seals out of most bearings. Also the grease in the bearings must be washed out and replaced with light oil for the same reason--reduction of friction.

By the way, when you're balancing the wheel this would be a good time to check the preload of the bearings. The way I do it is analagous to adjusting the tapered roller bearings on the front spindle of many cars. That is, you turn the nut until you feel the bearings just bottom out, and that becomes, in effect, your zero preload point. From there you adjust the preload with wedding bands or shims until you have what you want.

In order to do the above you will use the bike's axle with a spacer of the appropriate inner diameter and length, and tighten the axle nut to check the preload.

This is also a good time to check the wheel bearing grease and replenish or renew it as you see fit. But that check comes pretty much automatically during the balancing process. You're just making yourself specifically aware of the grease's condition.


Ken

[vanzen]

Here's everything you need to know: http://www.marcparnes.com/

I am in with that.

[moonbeamerll]

As always, good sound advice; thanks. I guess I'll just have to bolt the thing on and hope for the best. In a effort to keep insurance costs reasonable, I'm scheduled to take a Motorcycle Safety course this Saturday in OKC. Surely everything won't fly apart from Luther to the City and back. Then I'll have some time to deal with proper balancing. Thanks again for the input.

[Deleted User 287]

I wish I had pics to show of the balancer I made. If you imagine two small bearings in tandem, almost but not quite touching, then you could lay one end of an axle in the "vee" between the bearings. Do that twice and you've supported the other end of the axle. Now devise a stand or support to hold the two tandem sets of bearings and you can now lay the axle with wheel on top of the bearings and spin the wheel to your delight.

You mean like this, Ken? (Randy's archive)


"BILL, DUANE, KEN, STEPHEN DISCUSS WHEEL BALANCING "

click on pic for large image