Wheel balance (not as simple as you think!)

[SpiderHead]

To start, I'll tell you that my car is old.

Your car is old too; if it isn't, you are on the wrong forum.

We don't buy these cars to make a quick profit.

Nor, do we buy them as a sole means of transport (though it certainly can be done, and has by many of us in the past).

We buy these cars because we want to have fun with them.

ok.. that said.

I got my wheels actually balanced today, and let me tell you that the experience was incredible.

I had had the wheels balanced after I bought it, but there was some vibration at freeway speeds. I thought, "old car, deal with it".

I was later corrected by a member of the Austin Healey club. He directed me to a really cool guy named Nate Jones, who happens to live in Long Beach! My Town! sweet!... anyway. What This Austin Healey guy told me is that off the car his wheels were balanced just fine, (by tire shop standards) but tire shop standards are quite low, and if I wanted a great ride, and long lasting suspension components, I needed to take my car to a fella that could make everything run smooth at salt-flat speeds.

Holy Crap! was he right!

now anyone here that has met me, or ridden with me knows that I am not the fastest driver... a bit of a grandpa really when it comes to MY ability... but I'm all for a smooth running machine. What I was hearing made sence... so I thought I would give it a shot. I'm telling you now, that it was fantastic that I did!

Like my buddy George, (with the Austin Healey) I had my wheels balanced at a regular tire shop. I'm telling you right now, that this is not enough. I just today paid $300.00 to have my tires balanced. Best money I have spent so far on any car.

This all sounds silly to most of you... but please hear me out.

There is more than just your tire and rim turning, so if you just balance those two bits, you aren't balancing everything. You need to balance the tire, wheel, brake disk, spacer, lug nuts, part of the bearings... etc. because the rotating momentum is effected by everything that turns. (edit, on the back you need to add shafts to that list)

You may have significant vibration that you don't feel as a driver, and it may be shortening the life of your wheel bearings, shocks, suspension bushings, ball joints, steering box, Idler,and tie rod ends. Did I miss anything in the front end?

But do not for a second think that the vibrations end there, basically anything attached to your car is rattled by vibrations that you might not even feel until you hit a certain harmonic. This harmonic resonance is either achived at speed or by amplification of vibration by more than one source through the car body. You all know what I mean, and when you feel it.. you go get your wheels balanced.

Sometimes, especially on newer machines, getting your balancing done by the local tire shop is sufficient. I'm glad I was convinced otherwise.

I don't know how many guys like Nate are left out there, but I'd wager that there are a few.

Let me walk you through what he did on my car. First, I had to make an appointment about a week out. Then when I showed up, my car got jacked into the air on 3 floor jacks. I started getting a bit worried, as I didn't see any sophisticated equipment. Nate rolled a little electric motor driven wheel on a dolley up to my drivers side front wheel. Turned it on, and rolled my wheel up to speed. My car was shaking with such ferocity that I thought the car would fall off of the floor jacks. I could feel the vibration in the asphalt under my feet from 20 feet out. He started by making some chalk marks on the tire sidewall, then held some chalk to the tire perimeter while the wheel was spinning... this made it plain that the wheel/tire was out of round.

He then took the wheel/tire off of the car and put it on an electronic balancing machine like you see at every tire store in the country. he made a few more marks on the side walls.

Then he put the wheel/tire on a giant lathe, and much to my surprise he started shaving my tire treds. Here I admit, I'm thinking what the hell?!!! but I kept my mouth shut, and watched.

After shaving, he put the tire/wheel back on the elctronic balancer, took some readings and added some weights, erased all previous marks, added some new ones,

and put the wheel/tire back on the car.

Then he got out a different peice of equipment. The only way I have to describe it is to call it a strobe accelerometer. He placed a device in contact with the underside of the lower control arm that read vibration, and this reading operated a strobe that was shone at the outter wall of the tire.

Then he started up his little electric motor driven wheel spinner again.

By watching the marks made on the side wall, and making adjustments to the placement of weights, on the perfectly round wheel/tire... Nate was able to not just reduce vibration, but eliminate it. Granted it takes time, but through this process on each wheel... He solved a major problem with my car, that I recognized but didn't fully understand.

Spin, adjust, spin, adjust, spin, adjust... etc

He did this for all four wheels.

So now, zero vibration up to 105mph... I may be Captain Slow in the Southern California Fiat group... but yes I did take it to 105mph by my speedometer.. you won't catch me going that fast again lol, but it was smooth as silk. The real improvement is that is just "feels right" at ALL speeds.

Nate might be the best tire guy in the country, or the first one I met that could have done anything in the world but seems to have chosen tires.

I'm a FAN!

-Ryan

ok, edit. upon reading what I wrote.. it reads like a commercial, but I can't stress enough how much of an improvement he made to my car.

so, I'll commercialize it a bit more. Nate Jones Cowboy tires in Long Beach.

[mdrburchette]

Interesting read, Spiderhead. That's a chunk of change to pay for balancing tires but will this make it easier to balance them by normal means next time it needs done?
What you said about everything having to be balance on the car makes sense. When I had my 78 Chevy dually there was a vibration so bad around 50 mph, the front end felt like it was going to bounce off. I had the wheels balanced and checked for trueness, checked suspension components, and even checked the clutch. It ended up being the chrome wheel simulator on one of the front wheels. We repositioned it and the truck ran smooth again.

[mbouse]

hmm. that was a great description of the procedure. at first i thought.. $300 ?? yeah, prolly was worth all that for the time it took and the equipment. I have never seen that done. I cannot even recall seeing anyone balance tires ON the car around here in the past 20 years or so.

my question is: What do you do when it is time to rotate the tires?

[Europa]

This is a very interesting post Ryan. The only time I heard of this type of balancing was in an article several years ago (Car & Driver?) on Bonneville high speed runs; over 200+ mph.

[ROOK1]

That is a lot of time and money spent on tire balancing that will not allow you to rotate the tires and you will have to make sure you are installing the wheel back on the same lugs if this is truly balancing the whole assembly. Here is a solution that balances the whole assembly and allows you to rotate and will even compensate for rocks stuck in the treads. http://www.innovativebalancing.com/HowItWorks.htm This meathod is widely used in the offroad community and from what I have heard it works very well. I have also heard of this meathod being used for motorcycles and a similar meathod used for big rigs. Here is a wrtie up from one of my friends did on his site. http://www.myxj.net/blog/?p=72

[racydave]

[mdrburchette]

Dave, that's sounds basically like the old school way of turning the tire on the wheel to get it as balanced as possible and fine balancing with weights added. You can't go to a regular tire shop and expect them to waste time doing that.

[baltobernie]

Nate rolled a little electric motor driven wheel on a dolley up to my drivers side front wheel. Turned it on, and rolled my wheel up to speed.

First and foremost, if it works for you, I say "fine".

Tire/wheel/brake assembly balance has been around longer than Spiders. When you were a lad, the mechanic attached what resembled a wheel cover with friction/expansion cams to the wheel, then spun it up with that same type of dolly. He would then grasp, with his fingers, slip rings on the device protruding from the center of the assembly. By applying pressure to several of these rings, he would nullify vibration, then stop the process, afix wheel weights where indicated, and repeat as necessary. Every once in a while, the assembly would come undone during the process. This resulted in a lot of mechanics getting the nickname "Lefty".

The drum/strobe method is still used today, I believe, on large truck/bus tires.

[racydave]

[GOPAPA]

I have heard of this before ,,but not in such detail as you have discribed it Spiderhead,,thank for your time a telling it all..

Every one listen to this,,and then give me your opinion why it wouldnt work ,,now that I read how about how Spiderheads balance man did his wheels and tires..I have a sugestion

Why couldnt the guy put the tire and wheel on the shaver and shave it to perfcected roundness,,,along with balancing at the same time ?

then put the wheel and tire on the car and balance the rest of the front end and rear end until it quit shimmying and call it good..

So, then that way when you rotate wheels and tires they should be balanced already to perfection no matter what corner of the car you put them on.. Where am I going wrong here ,,if I am ?

[So Cal Mark]

truing the tires will have the biggest effect. You have to realize that the rotor, hub and bearings are all small diameter compared to the tire/wheel combo. The farther away from center, the larger the effect from the imbalance. For instance, I've spun just a wheel on my balancer, and found no weight is required to balance it. Add a tire and now it needs 1-3 ozs of weight.
The method used on Ryans' car is great, but for the most part truing and balancing the tire will cure 99.9% of vibration.

[manoa matt]

I can see the theory and application benefits, especially if you want to go fast, but I think you will only have a balanced assembly if you never rotate your tires, have absolutely no abnormal tire wear, or disturb the brake rotor and spacer disk from the positions they were balanced in.

The Fiat front brake rotors and hubs don't have the fitting tolerances like the rear axle brake rotor and hub. Take your front tire off, spin the hub and watch the brake rotor oscillate up and down as it spins. The use of tapered head wheel locating pins will keep the wheel spacer centered on the hub, but not the brake rotor. If the rotor is made into a friction fit with the hub or the spacer can be eliminated and tapered head screws used in place of the locating pins to center the rotor on the hub then it will keep its balance. Of course hub, rotor, spacer, and wheel will need to be indexed upon reassembily.

I think it would also require ballancing with the actual weight in the car (driver) and on the wheels. The Spider's allignment specs change considerably from an unladen car on the rack to one with a driver sitting in it.

[SpiderHead]

Wow!

I didn't expect so many replies so quick.

Regarding tire rotation, I asked Nate specifially about that. He said don't do it. In normal use, tire rotation is typically only needed for cars that scupper the front tires. This takes the unscuppered drive tires from the back, and puts them on the front so you can then have 4 evenly scuppered tires.. lol. and on a car with no preexisting suspension/steering issues... ugly tire wear is almost always caused by an out of balance condition. (or improper inflation... he inflated my tires when he was done with Nitrogen... Fancy!)

He also told me that he has turned away hundreds of people's cars that need suspension or steering work. If a car is missaligned, or has issues with the suspension, this isn't the best way to spend your money anyway.

The obvious exception is racing. If you are wearing out your front tires because you are racing... You replace them, and your suspension components quite often anyway. So the vibration of a "slightly" out of balance corner will only effect performance, and not wear and maybe not even effect performance greatly depending on your type of racing.

The track day stuff we are likely to do, or the fun mountain runs ocassionally, certainly will have an impact on our cars from a wear perspective, but far more mileage is usually racked up running to the store, driving to a friends house, going to work on a sun-shiney day, cruising on a summers evening.. etc.

So my point... if I really have one.. lol

Is that every wheel of every car that hasn't been balanced in this way is "balanced to within tolerances", and not truly balanced. (and I can't help but point out, that those tolerances differ from shop to shop, and are determined by the guy that is selling you tires... )

If your car "feels" vibration free at all speeds, and your amount of tire wear is perfectly acceptable for the number of miles you drive, then I wouldn't spend the money either.

But mine wasn't, and the money I HAD spent, had been a complete waste. Before I went to see Nate, I had a noticable vibration between 64 and 75 mph, even after I had paid to have them balanced at the local Goodyear store. I was just hoping that Nate would make the car would feel like a normal car. It feels far better than normal. My 1974 Fiat Spider is now by far the smoothest thing I have even been in on a freeway in my life. Though I must admit I've never been in a hovercraft, or a Bonneville prepped machine on a freeway.

-Ryan

p.s. Nate Jones might actually BE the guy you read about in Car & Driver. He goes to Bonneville every year with his equipment, and has for 40 years.

[racydave]

Due to differences in wheel, and tire high spots, and the variations in sidewall stiffness, it sometimes is necessary to match up the wheel-tire under a road simulated load. As far as I know, this is the latest and best way of matching wheel and tires. Please read.http://www.basstire.com/roadforce/index.html I used to perform this myself when I was at a modern dealership, and have had it done on my Fiat as well with great results!

[mbouse]

no offense, ...and i am sure you are really happy with the results...

but

don't accidently hit a curb at +5 m.p.h. at a "bad" angle, or enter a Michigan pot-hole zone.





Michigan pot-hole zone = any paved road in the state of Michigan beginning the day the snow has melted. the pot-hole zones expire the first day snow completely packs the holes.