Wheel Balancing??

[SicMonte]

How do you all balance your custom wheels? I had mine static balanced...with the sticky weights on the inside...and im getting a mad shimmy/vibration at 60-70 mph. any ideas??

the steering wheel doesnt seem to vibrate too much...but the front of the car definatelly shakes...big time.

[SicMonte]

14 views...and no opinions or anything???

[BonzoHansen]

Static means there are only weights on the inside lip/edge. That is next to a worthless, especially with big tires. A dynamic balance places weights on the inside and outside edges of the wheel in order to properly balance the assembly.

Now, people with nice wheels don’t like seeing wheel weights, tape or clip on. Plus, some wheels don’t have lips on the outside edge, so you must use tape weights (some rims need them on the inside too, due to rim design, but that not important right now). So they compromise by putting tape weights further inboard, possibly behind the ‘spokes’ of the rim. The farther from the outer lip, the less effective it is.

It’s a battle of form vs. function. I’m a function guy.

Now, these new balancers that simulate road force/pressure appear to work nice. They offer a more precise dynamic balance. They also make it easier to ID bad rims & tires. Pretty slick

Does that make sense?

Also, no steering wheel shake means it may be the rear wheels/tires (or not the tires at all).

Edit: You said "the steering wheel doesnt seem to vibrate too much" - That is probably front wheel balance. You may have a few things going on. Go get the wheels balanced properly and go from there.

[SicMonte]

thank you for your advise. I had them balanced at my shop...with the stick on weights on the inside only...far in by the spokes. Im gonna go trey to find a place to do a road force balance.

[Blown353]

Only way to go IMO nowadays is with a dynamic road force balancer. If a shop doesn't have one or has one and doesn't know how to use it I take my business elsewhere.

Make sure they run the "in depth" routine which often requires you to first mount up and spin all 4 wheels/tires; the machine then tells you which tires to swap onto which wheels and how to clock the tire onto the wheels for the least amount of weights. Most shops don't like doing this because it's time consuming (several trips to the mounting machine are required) but it's the best way to do it and results in the smoothest running wheel/tire assembly with the least amount of balancing weight required.

Hunter GSP9700 balancers = awesome.

The machines will also detect force variations during the road force measurements which will let you know if you have wheel runout issues or a bad tire.

[tumper93]

We have a hunter 9700 machine and it is nice, but there is no need to do a road force to get a balance job. Road force and balance are two seperate functions but balance does show up when doing a rf check. If you first did a dynamic balance check then did a rf check the imbalance of the tire and wheel would be the same. The rf just checks to see if there is a hard spot on the tire that can cause a shake or vibration--usually is evedent about 68-77 mph and then disappears. As it was said previously, have them road forced and just see what the number (lbs) is. The limit is 24 lbs but here at the cadillac dealership I work at GM recommends 18 lbs or less on devilles and 12 lbs and less for sevilles. If the rf is within specs than there is no need to do anything but balance them and the stick on weights can be placed as far forward on the inside of the wheel as the spokes. The thing is that even with the weights placed as far forward as possible a shimmy is going to be felt at some speed regardless becasue of how they are balanced. The alternative is weights on the outside of the wheel if possible---but a little shake is okay with me for the ride and handling of the car not to mention looks

[Tom Welch]

One other thing that is often overlooked. Rim slip. I worked for Goodyear for about 2 years and they made a big fuss over rim slip and the sudden imbalance of new tires. If a car accelerates quickly or stops quickly the tires can slip several inches on the rim and throw off balance easily. Something to check out.