Wheel balance

I recently (1500 miles) used my balancing stand on my new tire and have uneven wear right where I put the weights.Is this from too much weight or not enough?Putting it back on the stand now it is showing that I should put the weights back on right where the problem is.What are the suggestions as to what I should do now?
Thanks,
Mike

YING said:

I recently (1500 miles) used my balancing stand on my new tire and have uneven wear right where I put the weights.Is this from too much weight or not enough?Putting it back on the stand now it is showing that I should put the weights back on right where the problem is.What are the suggestions as to what I should do now?
Thanks,
Mike

Click to expand...

Can you post pics of the setup?
The wear?

I have done away with weights - now use Counteract beads (2oz per tube)
Work brilliantly, The tyres stay "in balance" for their whole life, not just when the lead weights are applied.
I thoroughly recommend them.
Cheers

Car people usually get the balancing right by spinning the wheel in a machine. If you are using a rim lock, the wheel can be difficult to balance - but it usually only happens with the rear wheel, where engine torque can pull the valve out of the tube, if the tyre moves on the rim.

Regarding balance beads..... The are not as good as an actual computer balanced tire..

As the tire spins, the force of the out of balance tire causes the beads to move around the inside of the tire. Once the tire is balanced by the moving beads, they cancel the out of balance force so they remain in place, BUT every time the tire receives an external bump which upsets the rolling force of the tire, the beads react to the bump exactly the same way as they would if the tire suddenly had a different weight distribution. They move because of the bump force, then the beads move to re stabilize the tire again and again. Whenever you come to a stop, the beads drop to the bottom of the tire and the process also begins again when you start moving...

In the case of fixed weights balanced on a computerized balancer, the tire is permanently balanced. I doesn't need to rebalance itself every time it hits a bump. By being actually balanced, the suspension does the minimum amount of compensation for bumps in the road. With balance beads, you have to add the force of balancing extra out of balance mass every time the tire hits a bump or comes to a stop and starts spinning again...

And now story time,.. yeah again...

I had 2 sets of tires for my truck. One set was 9 years old but had very little use. I found some new alloy rims for the second set of tires so I bought them to have both sets of tires mounted on rims. Unfortunately no tire place would mount a tire older than 8 years old. They claim it's a liability thing, but it's really to try to force people to buy new tires from them... I ended up mounting them by hand and I had to use balance beads because no place would mount them, nor balance them for me... It sucked! I tried to use that second set of tires with the balance beads, but sometimes the tires felt like they were wickedly out of balance, so I eventually changed to the other set which were newer tires and were actually high speed balanced. The balanced tires ran smoothly so I suspected the balance beads were not doing their job as well as a computerized balanced tires.

Long story short, I found a guy who advertises that he balances motorcycle tires on a computerized balancer from his garage. He has a really nice tire changing machine and a computerized balancing machine. I called him up to see if he would do my truck tires and explained that I wanted to break the tire off the rim, suck out the balance beads and then remount the tire and high speed balance them on his machine... He said " Truck tires are No Problem" so I went to meet him and get it done.

Once the balance beads were sucked out of the tires, my worst tire was 2.5 ounces out of balance, as measured by the computerized machine. He added the weights, spun that tire again and it was still out by .25 of an ounce in the same spot. So one tire was 2.75 ounces out of balance. The other tires were all well under 2 ounces out of balance so really not badly out of balance. My theory is that the balance beads only worked intermittently on the tire that was so badly out of balance, so I every time I hit a bump, that tire took a while to readjust the beads to put that tire back in balance... which showed up as the beads having trouble getting back to balance the tire for every bump in the road.

Now, after I had the guy computer balance those tires which were previously balance bead tires, they run perfectly and both sets are good... Balance beads are better than nothing, but not better than a computer balancing...

I hope you didn't inflate the tire to recommended pressure .
You need to overinflate a lot to get the bead to sit on the rim properly . .
Then once it does that , deflate to recommended tire pressure .

Torontonian said:

I hope you didn't inflate the tire to recommended pressure .
You need to overinflate a lot to get the bead to sit on the rim properly . .
Then once it does that , deflate to recommended tire pressure .

Click to expand...

Torontonian,
With the Borrani rims that I have,there is a safety bead on the inside that you have to over-inflate to get the tire to seat properly. I thought that might be my problem and double checked that again last night and everything looked correct. I just don’t know how to correct this problem now that my wear is uneven.Did I put too much or too little weight when first balanced.
Mike

How much overinflation ? Take a look at the tire and how it sits on the rim . Overinflate a lot and physically bounce it ( on the wheel a few times , all around too . ) Just fitted an Avon Road rider MK 11 this way , never used wheel weights ever on modern rubber . Just did 1000 kms. on it to the upper Bruce Pen. and back , perfect tire for the Norton .

Modern rubber is much closer to balanced than the tires made when I started riding. I have had tires on cast wheels be well within 5-6 grams from complete balance. But built wheels, particularly with older rims are less accurate. I always balance wheels, the last wheel I built from scratch needed nearly an ounce in one spot. Even static balancing using the bearings gets a wheel pretty close and improves the function of the system.

In the 1950s most bike tires from new were not balanced. Even recently, small bikes did not always have weights added to improve balance. But removing imbalance always improves the efficiency of the wheel.

At least in my experience, the cupping you describe is not likely due to imbalance. More likely it is from an out of round condition, often from the tire not being properly seated on the rim, or possibly due to a kick in the rim.

ilikevelos said:

Modern rubber is much closer to balanced than the tires made when I started riding. I have had tires on cast wheels be well within 5-6 grams from complete balance. But built wheels, particularly with older rims are less accurate. I always balance wheels, the last wheel I built from scratch needed nearly an ounce in one spot. Even static balancing using the bearings gets a wheel pretty close and improves the function of the system.

In the 1950s most bike tires from new were not balanced. Even recently, small bikes did not always have weights added to improve balance. But removing imbalance always improves the efficiency of the wheel.

At least in my experience, the cupping you describe is not likely due to imbalance. More likely it is from an out of round condition, often from the tire not being properly seated on the rim, or possibly due to a kick in the rim.

Click to expand...

Over inflate . A lot . Seat it .

Torontonian said:

Over inflate . A lot . Seat it .

Click to expand...

But don't inflate too much. I try not to take over about 60psi for safety reasons.

Seat the bead . 60 lb. should do it .
No safety reasons , pop onto the rim , then deflate to recommended tire pressure .

I use the balance beads in my Commando and my BMW and have been very happy with them. I use the ones from Dynabeads. www.dynabeads.co.uk

I find it interesting that this appears to be an issue for some folks. I have had zero wheel balancing issues over the years. I typically balance the wheel on its own bearings and axle, with brakes, chain etc out of the equation. I use acid free solder for weight. I spend a bit more time on the front than the rear, just cause it is more critical. And once the wheel is balanced, I never touch it again until the tire wears out. I leave out the rim locks, which probably helps.