What's new
By:
Ram Heavy Duty Forum

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Swallowing my pride - balancing beads.

Steel weights always look like a ton of weight. Back when they were lead they looked much better. Toyo says it is okay to use 1% of total weight so a 100lb wheel tire combo can have 1lb of weights 1 lb of steel weights looks like a lot compared to a lb of lead.
 
Good point, I didn't realize they weren't lead weights. But now that you mention it, yeah 6oz of lead wouldn't be nearly that much bulk.

Back in my tire days, it was nothing to put 6-8oz or more on a pickup tire. If it went much over that, I usually spun the tire 180 and tried again. Occasionally that was even worse so I spun it back to where it was originally and threw all the weight on it and moved on. I've seen nearly a pound of weight on a pickup tire/wheel at times.
 
I had a set of hankook my tire guy couldn’t get balanced with real weighs so i stripped them off and did beads. Still shook just the same. I have pretty bad luck with tires and vibrations are something that bothers me a lot while driving.
 
im currently struggling with balance beads in my tires, im running some forged 22's on my dually and didnt want stick on weights, i had a hard time finding a tire shop that could even balance the dually outers so decided to try the beads. i started out with 5oz per tire which was my mistake when i read the chart.. they actually should have around 11oz. surprisingly the fonts were butter smooth but i had a very slight vibration in the rear, so i pulled all 4 rears and added 6oz to each, which is a huge pain to do through the valve stems btw. still have the exact same shake and it drives me nuts. debating if i should try to add a couple more oz or abandon beads and see if anyone can do stick ons.
 
jadmt said:
Steel weights always look like a ton of weight. Back when they were lead they looked much better. Toyo says it is okay to use 1% of total weight so a 100lb wheel tire combo can have 1lb of weights 1 lb of steel weights looks like a lot compared to a lb of lead.
Click to expand...
Idk about where you are but they are all still lead weights here
 
Ive had tires in the past that simply would not balance. Sometimes manufactures put out a defective product. Shop I use sent it back and procured a new tire. Balanced out just fine.

Ive never tried the beads.. I'd like to.
 
I've spun tires on the wheels 4 times before to try and find the spot that takes the lowest weight - once at each 90 degree interval. Have had them before where it just doesn't make a difference and then had to just pile the weight on....

I recently put beads in my snow tire set - 1st time using them. They seem ok 95% of the time. Occasionally it seems like if I accelerate to highway speeds from a stop it takes a mile or so for the beads to find the right place and even things out. I don't really notice it anymore but there have been a few times I've been annoyed and thought about breaking the front bead of the tire to vacuum things out and going back to sticky weights.... We will see.

Glad its smooth for you now!
 
Same lesson I've learned over the years with certain tires :p. Now I get them spin balanced to the best they can get them and let the centramatics pick up the rest - Usually a winning combination for me, especially with the OpenCountry M/Ts. I might switch to balance masters in the future since my crappy black paint job on the centramatics is chipping, but performance wise they've been good.
 
joshuaeb09 said:
Same lesson I've learned over the years with certain tires :p. Now I get them spin balanced to the best they can get them and let the centramatics pick up the rest - Usually a winning combination for me, especially with the OpenCountry M/Ts. I might switch to balance masters in the future since my crappy black paint job on the centramatics is chipping, but performance wise they've been good.
Click to expand...
I have balanced masters on my truck. Really happy with the ride. I did have my tires road force balanced to fix a tire/wheel that had a light amount of hop. The tire guy said it's right at the edge of spec that they'd send back. BUT I was about to go on a trip and didn't want to wait for tires again(first set came in Load Range C). After putting almost 6K miles on them in a month(IN to NV to OR back to NV and back to IN), they're smooth as glass now.
 
Many years ago I worked at 4 Wheel Parts. We had a brand of balance beads we used and were having poor results with them doing there job. I sat down and read the instructions and they said to go ahead and balance your tires to the best of your ability with conventional weights, then add the beads and they would fine tune any remaining out of balance issues. At that point we are seeing pretty good results and good customer feedback.

I just read the instructions on a couple of the brands used now days and they say not to pre balance your tires. I wonder why, or what changed?

I am having an issue on my Corvette. The wheels are so wide and have such a heavy offset that you can't get the weights in the proper place or at least where the balancer wants them to be. The spokes of the wheel consume that space. Just like our trucks, I really don't want clamp on weights on the outside of the wheel. But, it seems most OEM's use this method. I'm half tempted to add some beads and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I can just break the bead and suck them back out.
 
joshuaeb09 said:
Same lesson I've learned over the years with certain tires :p. Now I get them spin balanced to the best they can get them and let the centramatics pick up the rest - Usually a winning combination for me, especially with the OpenCountry M/Ts. I might switch to balance masters in the future since my crappy black paint job on the centramatics is chipping, but performance wise they've been good.
Click to expand...
On the way deer hunting this year a vibration started, stopped at a small town tire store that services mainly semis.
Asked if they could rebalance and rotate, all the guys there said no balancing with Centramatics and pulled all existing weights and rotated $20. Smoothed right out.
Didn’t paint mine, they look like rotors unless you really look for calipers or something.
 
Poolmonkey said:
On the way deer hunting this year a vibration started, stopped at a small town tire store that services mainly semis.
Asked if they could rebalance and rotate, all the guys there said no balancing with Centramatics and pulled all existing weights and rotated $20. Smoothed right out.
Didn’t paint mine, they look like rotors unless you really look for calipers or something.
Click to expand...
I've noticed it seems to be a tire by tire thing. If I had less aggressive AT's or HT's on it I'd pull all the weights. When I go up to a 37x12.50 I'm probably going to go less aggressive like AT3Ws or R/T Trails so at that point I'll start with no weights and see if the next set will need weights or not with the centramatics.
 
I have recently installed two sets of Mickey Thompson tires and they took a lot of weight. One set I believe it took 14-16 ounces. I tried to move the tire in a different location on the rim and it didn’t matter. I added what the machine wanted and no vibrations. The other set took anywhere from 6-9 ounces. The tires are wearing perfectly but I really don’t like how much weight they take. Both sets were E rated tires.
 
Rockcrawlindude said:
They say not to but I suppose you could. I’ve never mixed balancing media.
Click to expand...
I've done it once or twice. A couple years ago when the Sears nearby was closing down I scooped up a tire machine and a balance machine. Initially I wasn't going to go for the balance machine since I had heard online and from one of my customers that balance beads are all you need. I'm glad I got the balancer though, I haven't had good luck with the beads. However, I have balanced a tire properly on the machine first, then added 2oz of beads for good measure, with no ill effects.
 
Last edited:
g00fy said:
I've done it once or twice. A couple years ago when the Sears nearby was closing down I scooped up a tire machine and a balance machine. Initially I wasn't going to go for the balance machine since I had heard online and from one of my customers that balance beads are you need. I'm glad I got the balancer though, I haven't had good luck with the beads. However, I have balanced a tire properly on the machine then added 2oz of beads for good measure, with no ill effects.
Click to expand...
Just make sure you add the beads after lol, i had one customer swear to me he never had the beads but i could not get the tires to balance the numbers were all over the place i broke the bead and surprise surprise beads in the tire lol
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
Just make sure you add the beads after lol, i had one customer swear to me he never had the beads but i could not get the tires to balance the numbers were all over the place i broke the bead and surprise surprise beads in the tire lol
Click to expand...
Oh yea, you gotta do a proper balance first THEN add beads for good measure, otherwise the balance machine is not going to be able to figure out the moving target lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top