balancing wide 5's

Alaska Jim

Alaska Jim

Well-known member
may be a stupid question, but how do you guys running the wide 5 wheels balance them? so far I have not been able to find anyone here that can do it. will Have to check in Anchorage, and if I can't find anyone there I may have to find a new wheel and tire combination. the wheels and tire's on the car have been balanced, and the weights are on the back side only ( which I prefer ). they were on the car when I bought it. I don't know if you could do this with an old bubble balancer, and I don't know of anyone who has one if it could be done. thanks for any advise.----Jim
 
I know of three options for balancing wide 5 wheels.

1. Buy the adapter plate that will mount to modern balancing machines. I remember this being advertised in the V8 Times for a while. Update, also think you could use one of the small bolt patter to wide five adapters that are sold to hot rodders. Speedway Motors lists these on their website. You need to balance the adapter before attaching a wheel with five lug nuts.

2. Find a shop that can do on the car balancing.

3. Get a good set of tires. Drive the car while figuring out which of the previous two options you are going to do. Discover that the car has no wheel vibration and continue driving it without any wheel weights (going on ten years now, I'll be sad when I have to replace those tires).
 
Last edited:
Go to a truck outfit. Most of them balance wheels/tires on the vehicle. SB plenty in Alaska
 
How about removing a front brake drum, mount it on the wheel balancer, balance the drum then install a wheel on the drum and balance it, do all 4 wheels on that drum. Walt
 
the tire will not be properly balanced if all the weights are on one side, i have a bubble balancer and it does alright to around 50 to 60mph, that seems to be the limit of that type of balancer, weights have to be installeded on both sides of the dinamically and staticly balanced to not bounce at speed, it will help if you put half of the weight on each side of tire
 
I took an extra front drum and knocked the race out and balanced my wheels with the drum mounted to the balancer. Worked great, weights on both sides.
 
Bubble balancer on Ebay last night; inexpensive. Used them and the old electric wheel on-the-car spinner motors with flasher in the 50's. Bubbler should be good to at least 60 mph. Drive wheels essentially a non-issue.
 
unless I could find one locally, buying a bubble balancer is not feasible because of the cost of shipping to Alaska. I will probably use a spare drum, balance it, then put the wheel and tire on it and then balance it, unless I can find an adapter to bolt to the wheel that will allow me to use a regular spin balancer. Thanks to everyone for the ideas.-----Jim
 
Jim,
I've got one of the old Bear bubble balancers.
Your welcome to borrow It. Course it will mean figuring a way to get it down south. I'm running wide fives on my 30 coupe and no balancing issues at all.

Ralph
P.S. I'd love to see your 30 coupe. Sounds like yours is very similar to mine.
 
Ralph
P.S. I'd love to see your 30 coupe. Sounds like yours is very similar to mine.[/QUOTE]

Ralph, I'm the guy you bought your 30 coupe body from. Jim is my brother, he plans to have it here for the winter, so if you are down, stop in.
 
Jim, I have a bubble ballancer. I picked it up last winter. It has a couple of different adapters. I'm not sure what wheels they are for as I havn't used it yet. You are welcome to borrow it.any time you'd like. Bill
 
flatrod,
Sounds good,
Only bad part is Ill just bring pictures of mine, we've already got snow!

BTW, did you every get your 50 woody completed?
 
Last edited:
Ralph Moore said:
flatrod,
Sounds good,
Only bad part is Ill just bring pictures of mine, we've already got snow!

BTW, did you every get your 50 woody completed?
Click to expand...


I seen you got snow, none here yet. Stop in anytime you are down this way. Got screwed on the wood for the woody, so sold it, bought a 57 Ranch Wagon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top