Wheel Weights

petew

petew

Senior Member
Since I won't see my new tires until sometime in March I have plenty of time to obsess on other things like balancing them .
I have read here about all of the different methods used for balancing as well as the different ways of adding weight such as beads and stick on weights but have seen no mention of spoke weights that are used on motorcycles .

Has anyone ever tried them ?
I have used beads and stick on weights in the past with good success but to me the spoke weights seem like a good fit for a model A .

Thoughts ?
You can search them out on Amazon if you would like to see what they look like.

Pete
 
I don't like the looks of weights. I used balancing beads in my last tires, Lucas Olympics, with good results. I was planning to use balancing beads in my new American Classic Radials but when I checked them using my bubble balancer, I was pleasantly surprised how close they were. A couple I just had to rotate the tire on the rim to balance them. Close but not perfect but it is not like I'm driving 65 mph all the time.
 
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I had spoke weights on one car and they worked fine. We changed the 19's to 16 inch V8's, run tubeless, at my wife's request (her tudor) and I used stick-ons then because they were to hand on my wheel balancer.
At anything over about 40 mph balancing is beneficial I find. The speed depends on how bad the imbalance is of course. But we drive at 55 to 60 mph where things will shake if balance is not perfect within 10 or 20 grams (single plane balancing is usually sufficient on narrow tyres, but I think I used a dynamic balance on the wider 16 inchers )
SAJ in NZ
 
SAJ said:
I had spoke weights on one car and they worked fine. We changed the 19's to 16 inch V8's, run tubeless, at my wife's request (her tudor) and I used stick-ons then because they were to hand on my wheel balancer.
At anything over about 40 mph balancing is beneficial I find. The speed depends on how bad the imbalance is of course. But we drive at 55 to 60 mph where things will shake if balance is not perfect within 10 or 20 grams (single plane balancing is usually sufficient on narrow tyres, but I think I used a dynamic balance on the wider 16 inchers )
SAJ in NZ
Click to expand...

Ditto on single plane balancing for original 21 and 19 inch wheels and dynamic balancing on 16 inch ones. I made a stand with an old front hub welded to it and free running bearings to balance the narrow ones.
I also have used spoke weights and found them quite satisfactory though these days, I use stick-on weights and give hem a squirt of paint the same colour as the wheel so they "disappear". I have also done that with the more modern type of weights that go on the edge of the rim. A squirt of paint and they disappear too.
 
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After I mount my tires, I just take them to Discount Tire, and have them spin balanced. They user the peel-n-stick weights (1928)
 
I had some 21" wheels with considerable rust in the rolled edges. Drilled 1/8" holes on the inside edge to let the rust escape then flowed paint into the roll to stabilize the remaining rust. To balance the wheels with the tires I made my own custom weights to fit in the drop center channel. I have a whole box of wheel weights & picked the ones to balance the wheel & tire then melted the lead into a trough made of tin foil to lay flat in the channel, filed the ruff edges & painted them, then glued them in with JB Weld. The pressure of the inflated tube also helped hold the weights in.
 
Here is my technique for balancing Model "A" & V8 wheels. I cruise at 50 to 55 MPH, so this simple technique provides adequate balancing.
 

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I haven´t balanced my wheels at all. They seem to work fine to me. Just tried to find the most straight rims to drive. :)
 
With the exception of taking your wheels to the tire shop to have them balanced, the balance you do at home, with any kind of weight or the beads, is a static balance, not a dynamic balance. This works OK for skinny wheels and tires but not for modern wheels and tires that are not skinny.

I don't know how things are done in the jet engine manufacturing today, but in the 60's, when I was working in this field, the rotors, which are skinny disks, were balanced statically and then assembled into the completed compressor or power spools. The static balance was actually done on a balancing machine but set up to just sense the unbalance in one plane. This worked OK back then.

The beads are a funny mechanism for balancing. They work because when a speed is reached above the natural frequency (critical frequency) the heavy part of the wheel rotates at a smaller radius than the light part. So the beads migrate to the light part of the wheel because of the centrifugal force and balance out the heavy part. This depends on the inside of the tube running true. Below the natural frequency the beads are in the heavy part and add to the unbalance but this is seldom noticed because the car is not going very fast so the forces are lower.

I balance my tires the way Bob Bidonde does. But I balance the drum first with temporary weights because I found that the drums are out of balance. The temporary weights come off when I am done. This unbalance is not great and does not seem to effect the ride. "Modern" drums have weights welded to them so that they are balanced.
 
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I spin balance the drums and wheels separately and then as a unit. Studs are marked so that the wheels are always installed correctly. Used good old clip on rim weights.
 
I use the same procedure to balance the drum first. See post #8. I use the stick on weights on the outside of the drum, which would come off with any driving.
 
Be careful having a tire shop mount your new tires. Most of the employees have not seen a tube before. The tube can get caught between the tire rim and wheel if the tire is not mounted correctly.
 
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