BB balancing tires

[IsaacCarlson]

I would rather have new tires than regrinding them.

[Cobb]

My tires had some flat spots from sitting and guessing locking up tires and other horsing around from previous owner. The shop said its something they do, so who am I to tell em their job?

[changzuki]

Originally Posted by chumly

Are there any drawbacks to using bb's ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YleZvTSDC6s

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~CrazyJerry

[Cobb]

I guess if you have a blow out the safest place is being inside the vehicle?

Ill never forget the day this guy with a bad cvc joint turned his wheel too far and the balls fell out of the joint on to the street.

[sendler]

I use Dynabeads in my motorcycle tires. Expensive but works good. I might try bb's next time. The Dynabeads site says that balancing beads don't work as well with wide, low profile car tires and work much better in round profile motorcycle tires since they are trying to pile up on each other in the center of the tire.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by Cobb

Ill never forget the day this guy with a bad cvc joint turned his wheel too far and the balls fell out of the joint on to the street.

When I was in high school, a classmate said he made a turn in a neighborhood, the wheel came off, and he ended up in some guy's yard. The homeowner was standing there and said something like "You look like you could use some help there."

Yesterday I went somewhere to get help on my résumé and a fellow walked in and told some story about a wheel flying off of a car on the freeway and rolling up the exit ramp. They knew they had a problem, so they were driving to the mechanic.

Then he told them he was looking for help starting and running a bakery and they had him talk to me.

I never finished my résumé. I never filled out an application. I just talked to him and he felt that I could follow directions.

[ncs]

I've seen bbs, buckshot, airsoft bbs, golfballs, and get this, anti-freeze, used to balance tires. There are even sand filled balancing rings available that go between the wheel and brake. I'm using off-road dynabeads which are too big to go through, or get stuck in the valve stem. At one time I had a wheel with half the rim covered in lead trying to balance a 37" swamper. The dynabeads took care of that problem.

Tire shaving is pretty interesting. It would really help in some cases, like really big tires which aren't very round from the factory. Most shops don't have the equipment though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGMNl_xdW8

[Cobb]

In my case the service was free. They said they already balanced the tires and the truck was supercharged and parked for a few years, so it seemed plausible the tires had flat spots.

When I got wheels and tires from tirerack, the website said when they mount them they match the rim and tire run out so they are pretty much dead on to eliminate the wobble between the 2 as the tire can be mounted off center.

When I use to use a wheelchair I would take the time to center the tire on the rim before inflating it to further ensure a smooth ride.

[roosterk0031]

Replaced the ecopia's on the from of my cobalt yesterday, wore great less than 1/32 tread left any were They have some ribs on the inside, Nokian WRG2 I installed nice and smoothing on the inside, no shaking at all in first 80 miles. I did buy a $5 kitchen scale so I could weigh how much beads I installed vs just guessing before. Went with 4 oz and already had 1.5 oz of lead stick on opposite the valve stem/tpms.

MPG definitely down this morning with 44 psi, but safety level way up. I could break them loose on wet pavement in 3rd gear.

[dustyfirewalker]

i just wanted to add my .02 to this thread

for dynamics i chose to do this as a demonstration project.

i had two large tops both decently balanced, and one had bb's and a hole to stick a large bolt. between both of them the one with out the dynamic balancing media couldnt even spin right it was so out of balance, while the one with dynamic media was able to spin PERFECTLY.

this is the only way to get as close to perfect balance as possible for the life of the tire. when mass like mud or snow or other junk get on your tires this will automatically compensate. centrifugal forces are equal at fixed distances around the axis of rotation. every thing in a perfect circle around the axis of rotation sees the exact same acceleration since its speed and distance from the origin is the same. this is how once spun up the media distributes itself to perfectly balance, and when there is a weight added that mass adds extra pull on the rotating body in a vector parallel from it to the origin outwards. this causes the axis to wobble, and applying newtons 3rd law we see that the extra pull on the axis in that vector causes the dynamic media to find the exact opposite vector and collect.

if you had a bucket of water and you pull it to the right, all the water goes to the left. exact same thing here but were spinning around too...

this is exactly how everyones washing machine works on spin cycle, mass will equally distribute based on applied forces if you let it, but if your clothes are clumped up it will dance lol

you dont need bb's you just need mass. all the cheap guys on pirate4x4 use antifreeze in their massive tires that they want to hit the street with but cant get anyone to balance or cant add enough weight. you can use slime as mass, and get some puncture resistance aswell. the antifreeze generally will not affect rubber or most wheel alloys.



so i personally think this is a great idea and everyone could benefit from a little dynamic media in their tires. this is how im going to get my 200ish lb run flats to 80mph+


also the speed needed to get the media spinning is higher than the lower thresh hold where they fall, most of the time you can feel slight vibration until 10mph but after it stops you wont feel it until you slow down to 5mph. just run the math on your tire size and speed, acceleration is equal to v^2 / R just plug in 9.8 and youll see anything above 10mph except on the most massive tires will keep the media perfectly distributed. you also need more mass than regular balancing for this to work.