Would like to here your experience with the balancing bead's for balancing your steering axle tires... pro's or con's... thanks Grandpa.
I tried it on 1 of 2 tires on a brand new set of 11R/22.5's and it did not work, the tire is still out of balance, I was disappointed and just living with it now.
I tried them in 11R/24.5 steer axle tires, but they were new... so I don't know if they worked very good, or not, grandpa. We bought almost all of our tires from this fellow, and he swore by them... :cool2 Here's a little read... http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/ot-wheel-balancing-beads-192084/ Oh, BTW... they didn't seem to tramp at all, so.....? OCR
I ran them in some Q78r15 TSLs on my Jeep and they didn't work. Actually the tires ran MUCH better with the beads removed and not balanced at all.
Old scol dumptruck guy up town puts a gallon of antifreeze in them. On my service truck I paid $15 to have equal installed in them. Tire place shaves and ballances them all seem to work out alright. Have seen those beads ruin a wheel and a drum from fretting.
I've run the balancing rings from CentraMatic. Seem to work good. Andrew
I agree with Andrew Centramatic's there kind of expensive but the only way to go, yes beads work but Centramatic's work better Pj
I run equal in my steer tires, and it seems to work good. Never tried the rings.
I have never used them but know guys that had a problem and they didnt help. I dont belive in tire balancing crankshafts,driveshafts,jeting engine rotors but not rubber tires. If you have a tire problem its needs more than balancing. I would like a test done were weights were removed form wheels and see if the drivers know it or not.
If you already have a tire problem, balance rings aren't going to help. You need to put them on new tires. Andrew
Equal beads in my Bridgestone floaters works great. The centrimatics work great and are reusable. Have herd of golf balls in the drivers. Chances are if you bought really cheap tires they wont balance out very well.
Yair . . . So me again showing my ignorance . . . how do these things work? Cheers.
I tried the CentraMatic's on some trailer axles as well, but they didn't hold up very well. They make 2 versions (for each tire size). For steer axles, they are dished to mount between the brake drum and the rim. For duals, they mount between the two rims. I had quite a few on the duals that broke. Always in 1 of 2 ways. Either just the tube containing the beads broke off, or the entire balancer broke off and left me with just a small circle with 10 holes in it where it mounted. CentraMatic covered the ones where the bead tube broke off under warranty, but the others they said it was road debris, etc and wouldn't cover it. I've quit running them on the trailers. I was thinking though of trying the ones for the steer axles on duals since the balance rings are kind of protected better. Andrew
Yair . . . Gotcha Andrew . Thanks.
Here's a video from CentraMatic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ullnFQD4F1I Andrew
Its a constant balance at all different speeds. Think of it like a machine spin balancer that would balance the tire at every mph and bump in the road. The Equal is super tiny plastic beads in a paper bag you toss in the tire when mounting. Centrimatics are a steel tube filled with a bunch of ball bearing weight inside. That tube is welded to a piece of sheet steel with the bolt pattern for the rim. It gets sandwiched in between the drum and the rim. Instead of just balancing the tire and rim like on a spin balancer it balances the entire hub, drum, rim and tire. The Centrimatics do actually smooth out the bumps in the road and "heal" a chopped tire.
Yair . . . Thanks fellers that's an interesting concept. Its a bit like the hose clamp trick just nipped with a bit of lube around the drive-shaft . . . the worm works its way around to the out of balance sector and then stops and then you can nip it up to hold it in place. It can work like magic for some of those annoying high-frequency drive train vibrations. Cheers.