Balancing Wheels Without The Tires On

thekaz said:

since we are talking a possible wheel issue then if you find the wheel itself needs lots of weight a machinist cab "drill" away weight to balance .....

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Hardly worth the trouble and money since aluminum weighs 1/4 what lead does. you'd have to remove 4 times the area and would be a lot of holes. Just slap a weight on the center of the wheel and leave it forever.

My rear wheel was balanced within a 1 ounce without the tire.

ZIAMON said:

Hardly worth the trouble and money since aluminum weighs 1/4 what lead does. you'd have to remove 4 times the area and would be a lot of holes. Just slap a weight on the center of the wheel and leave it forever.

My rear wheel was balanced within a 1 ounce without the tire.

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ya it really depends of what kind of issue the OP has with his wheel, is it out of balance, out of round , off center ...... he uses the words lots of weight but does not say how much weight. The manual says do not add more that 2oz or so which is really not alot at all

Hi Guys
just trying to sort out a front wheel vibration or shimmer. new tire, wheel bearings, and steering head have been ruled out. could the rim be checked some how for true. The rim and tire are balanced.
Lyle

Maybe come see me, we put a dial indicator on it and check some other stuff. How much weight you have on it to balance?

Uncle Phil said:

But the real secret to balancing the tires is the kind of oil you use ... After all, what's a tire thread without a little oil?

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OK so now we know syn tire oil is better than dino tire oil. What brand is best? Does Rotella serve dual duty?

SMSW said:

OK so now we know syn tire oil is better than dino tire oil. What brand is best? Does Rotella serve dual duty?

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Yes, but you need Rotella air also - which is really hard to find in sufficient quantities ...

Woodchuck said:

Hi Guys
just trying to sort out a front wheel vibration or shimmer. new tire, wheel bearings, and steering head have been ruled out. could the rim be checked some how for true. The rim and tire are balanced.
Lyle

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I have never heard of it on a motorcycle but I know one case where new tires where installed on a car and they tried everything and finally put a different set of tires on and it was gone. I don't know if they ever got back to him with what was wrong with tires.

Gerhard

Uncle Phil said:

Yes, but you need Rotella air also - which is really hard to find in sufficient quantities ...

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Nonsense, Phil. There is enough hot air flowing around that this should be no problem at all.

SMSW said:

Nonsense, Phil. There is enough hot air flowing around that this should be no problem at all.

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Ah, but the air has to be at the right temperature for proper inflation ...

I've done several hundred tire changes over the last few years for members... about 40% of the time, after I remove existing weights, the tire/wheel combo are perfect.

On my own wheels I've had some tires balance perfectly and some not.. so, I disagree with not needing a balance after just doing the wheels... Tires are not created equally and some have spot on them for the 'heavy spot' from the factory so if your wheel is perfect, the wheel/tire combo will still be off.

Just balance once every tire change after the tire is on, that's my suggestion.

Just to update this thread;

At my last tire change I checked the balance of the front wheel assembly with no tire mounted- it did not need any balancing. I rechecked it after the new PR4 tire was installed and it required only 1/4 oz. to balance it. Previous tire change required a lot of balance weight regardless of the tire position. This seems to indicate what I suspected which is that the new tires simply were poorly balanced tires the previous two tire changes.

With no tire installed the rear wheel assembly required no weights either but only after I re-positioned the driven flange several times. After finding the right position it balanced to the point where it would require significantly less than 1/4 oz. to balance it so I did not bother. After installing the new PR4 tire it required only 1/4 oz. to bring the whole assembly in to balance. The previous new rear PR4 tire required 2 1/2 oz to balance it. So again it seems that I had two successive sets of poorly balanced new PR4's.

So it would seem that my previous balance problems were due to the new tires and not due to the wheels being out of whack. Any future balance problems will likely not be due to my wheels which is what I wanted to know and why I did this.