Wheel Balancing

[dennisb]

I just had radial tires put on my 61 to replace the bias ones. Geez, what a difference !! But that is not my question. The guy who installed them put anywhere from 3 to 5 oz total weights (inside and out) to get them balanced. Some of the outside ones are .5 oz (not too noticable) and some are 2.5 oz (very noticable). How is it that all the pics I see of C1s never show any weights on the outside of the tire? Can they be balanced with just weights on the inside?

And, I just had the rims painted before mounting the tires. On 2 of the 4, paint was scraped off around the outside of the rim. Couldn't this have been done without scrapping paint off? It was on the other two.

[jsinga]

After working in a tire shop I found the higher priced tires usually took less weight. The other factor is the wheel, I saw some aftermarket wheels that were way out of balance by themselves. Usually not a factor with steel wheels unless they are bent. You can have all the weight put on the backside with a static balance. It there is clearance you can use stick on weights inside that won't show. The way clip on weights are designed they will scrape off just about any paint.


JS

[dennisb]

Originally Posted by jsinga

After working in a tire shop I found the higher priced tires usually took less weight. The other factor is the wheel, I saw some aftermarket wheels that were way out of balance by themselves. Usually not a factor with steel wheels unless they are bent. You can have all the weight put on the backside with a static balance. It there is clearance you can use stick on weights inside that won't show. The way clip on weights are designed they will scrape off just about any paint.

JS

Thanks for the info. The wheels are the right GM wheels with the nibs. In fact, the GM part stickers were still on the inside. The same wheels with the bias tires on them had only one 5 oz weight on each wheel. To go from that to what I got was a shock. Those big 2.5oz weights are plain ugly! And the scratching of paint was from mounting the tire, not putting on the weights.

Is a static balance with all the weight on the backside okay for driving at higher speeds? Or is it done mostly for show cars? Even if I wanted to switch to that, it sounds like taking the existing weights off will expose more scratched paint and I'd have to repaint.

[JohnZ]

The solution to the appearance problem is to have your wheels balanced on a Hunter GSP9700 machine - just tell them you don't want any weights on the outside of the rim, and they'll place adhesive weights as far outboard as possible on the inside of the rim, and the machine's computer will determine exactly how much weight is required at that location (the machine measures all the wheel dimensions first, including the alternate weight location, so it knows exactly what it's dealing with before it starts).

The Hunter also measures dynamic radial force variation under applied load that results from both wheel and tire radial runout (part of the initial measurement of the tire and wheel before balancing starts), and shows the operator how to re-orient the tire relative to the wheel to minimize the total radial force variation, which is totally independent of any balance issues.

Go to http://www.GSP9700.com and use the Locator feature to find the shop or dealership closest to you that has one; no other balancing machine comes close to the capability of the Hunter GSP9700. See my complete technical article in next month's issue (November, out in about 2-3 weeks) of "Corvette Enthusiast" magazine on the GSP9700 system, and browse around their website for more details.

[dennisb]

Thank you John. Looks like I went to the wrong place. From now on I'll ask before doing. I just never gave it any thought until I saw the wheels with all the weights on it.

As for the paint, shouldn't they have been able to mount the tire without scaping the paint off the rim?

[froggy47]

Yes,


Touchless mounting machine.