Wheel balancing with Dyna Beads

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It sounds too good to be true, if you use tubes you might get two or three tyres out of one shot. :D

Could be worth a try if the price is right.

Cash.

Merry Christmas you guys.
 
I just read the article, sounded like, well... 'unlikely' is the nicest word I can think of.
 
I, personally, have not run DynaBeads but am running something similar on my Goldwing "sport" bike. I'm running Centramatic balancers (for Goldwings, cars & 18-wheelers....installed this past Friday night) which is similar to the DynaBead but instead of having ceramic beads in the wheels, mine has hard, lead balls (.090" diameter) in a moly-based oil. All of this is housed in a metal tube which is sandwiched between the disc rotors and the wheel on the front and between the wheel and the hub in the back (single-sided swingarm...three balancers total). I've ridden about 700 miles on it since then with new completely un-balanced tires (installed at the same time Bridgestone G709 on the front & Metzler ME880 on the rear). Runs smooth as silk. Put it on the center-stand and ran it up to 80mph on the clock...no vibrations from the back wheel. On the road, it seems firmly planted in the corners....maybe the tire spends more time on the road.

The DynaBeads and the Centramatics are the hot topic over on GL1800Riders forum. Goldwings tend to eat tires (cupped/beat-out) under hard riding of a 950+ lb bike. Most reports I have read on the DynaBeads are good. The DynaBeads are cheap ($15-20 for several tire changings) and the Centramatics are $260...but are permanent. The only bitch I heard on the Dyna Beads was the ability of a bead being sucked up into the valve stem when venting air (checking air pressure). There is probably 100 threads about them on that site. Most of them are positive.

Since tires don't wear evenly, they don't stay balanced for the life of the tire. The beads take care of that. If you end up with a lump of mud or ice on you rim, it will balance that, too, until you have time to clean it.

Personally, I did it for extended tire life....I was cupping the tires long before they were worn out. I'm on my fourth set of tires this year (8,000 to 12,000 per set) on the Wing and should be getting 14K to 16K per set. I ride this thing like a crotch-rocket with bags. Don't ever under-estimate the abiltiy, agility or torque of the Wing...it's not a pawpaw bike anymore. I'm installing a Traxxion suspension system on it after the holiday riding is over. BTW, you don't ever really appreicate what steer-neck bearing go through until you own a Wing. They come stock with ball bearings and once they wear in...so will your tires. A tapered neck bearing upgrade on a Wing is as common as a Boyer upgrade on a Norton.

http://gl1800riders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234132&highlight=dyna+beads

A demo video on the Centramatics for the concept....

http://www.centramatic.com/Page.aspx?page=Demo

Killboy shot at Deal's Gap...600 miles from home with 50lbs of camping gear. Both hi-way pegs have flats ground on them. Listening to Rush Hemispheres (favorite Tail of the Dragon music).

Wheel balancing with Dyna Beads


Killboy shot at Deal's Gap...600 miles from home on my '67 Bonneville...no trailers involved...camping gear is at the campgrounds in North Georgia.

Wheel balancing with Dyna Beads



...and if your really bored, do a YouTube search for "Yellow Wolf" + "Deal's Gap".

It's not what you ride but how you ride it.

Merry Christmas, all.

Z
 
Good thread about these beads, I am going to be trying these for sure. As far as the problem of one getting stuck when letting out air, couldnt you just add air to unstick it,


I know nothing, not even the fact that I know nothing.


cheers.
 
mcns said:
Good thread about these beads, I am going to be trying these for sure. As far as the problem of one getting stuck when letting out air, couldnt you just add air to unstick it,
Click to expand...


I'm thinking the beads sound like they are worth a try.
To reduce the chance of getting a bead into the valve stem the site advizes prior to checking tire pressure to get the valve to 6 o'clock and to squirt some air in to remove any possible beads.
Assumes you are near an air hose.
They also have replacement valve cores witha screen but I haven't checked to see if they would fit my stems.

Thanks all for the feedback.

Bob
 
I tried them a couple of years ago on my airhead. They were extremely smooth up to about 70 mph when the front wheel started bouncing violently. I sent an e-mail to DynaBeads and they said to add another package. I tried that, but all it did was move the vibration up to about 80 mph. Since you can't get them completely out of the tubes, I took the tubes out and later tried the front tube on the rear of my MKIII. That wheel bounced badly at about 50 mph so I gave up on them. I think with some wheels they can work quite well. They've been debated quite a bit on the airheads forum and some folks have great luck with them and some have bad luck with them. I suspect if you don't need to add much weight to balance your wheel they may be fine. My MKIII has always required a fair bit of weight to get balanced and that's probably why they wouldn't work with it. I had changed tires enough for one week at this point at gave up on them.
 
I'm cursed with the need to understand how something works before using it. Doesn't make a bit of sense that the beads would jump over to the light side of the tire so none for me.
 
I had a very out of balance wheel on my Matchless 500 scrambler (had a front rim lock) and used some yellowish-green slimy stuff in it that was supposed to do the same thing. Was pretty popular stuff at the time. It worked great and it is still in there 20 years and a tire or two later. I once had that bike up to 90mph (with huge main jet and no muffler and me trying to be streamlined).
 
Here's an ad. from a 1977 UK motorcycle magazine:

Wheel balancing with Dyna Beads


"Proved by independent press tests and thousands of biking enthusiasts in the UK"?

Who were Read Titan trying to kid?
 
That looks like the bottle for sure. I stand corrected on the puncture sealing ability. I got the Matchless in about 6 boxes in 1980 and it already had a lot of acid core solder wrapped around the front spokes and was corroding them - so that's why I got it. Was probably 1984 or so. This was before people started using the stick-on weights on bikes.
 
There's remarkably little technical information on their website. It even says you cant measure the balance level achieved by putting the wheel on a balancer with the beads in.
Its the perfect product, you can claim what you like with absolutely no way of actually quantifying how effective it is.
 
littlefield said:
I'm cursed with the need to understand how something works before using it. Doesn't make a bit of sense that the beads would jump over to the light side of the tire so none for me.
Click to expand...


Ditto for me. Product claim makes no damned sense... centrifugal force would mandate them going to the HEAVY side of the wheel/tire... hence making it worse???
 
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