What to use for tire balancing.

[Carkar]

I need to balance the tires on my truck. What should I use to do this? I have heard of using extra screws and gluing them inside the wheel but I don't really want to do that. Any suggestions? Also how do I balance the rear tires? They don't spin freely on the truck like the fronts.

[Needforspeed368]

Just about anything that allows the tire & wheel to spin freely will do fine for balancing. I bought a Top Flight model airplane propeller balancer for $9 and it works great for tires. It's just a metal rod held between two magnets which creates ZERO friction. Lightly spin the tire and when it stops, the lowest part will be the heaviest, so add ballast to the opposite side. Adhisive Lead weights are available at most hobby shops for balancing airplanes and stuff like that, so pick some of it up and it makes a perfect "temporary" balast. If you want to go ultra cheap, snip one of the bent ends of a coat hanger and slide the tire & wheel on, hold it as level as possible, and lightly spin it. This isn't as accurate as the prop balancer, but it works!


Here's the link for ya:

http://www2.gpmd.com/image/t/topq5710.jpghttp://www2.gpmd.com/image/t/topq5700.jpg
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCVR0&P=7

[dragracer28]

To balance your rear tires you need a piece of steel the size of your axle. You need to make a stand and support it with bearings. As for the wheel weights anything that fits on the wheel will work. Trinity makes a nice wheel balancer and remember to balance your wheels with every set of tires.

[Needforspeed368]

If you look closely at the picture of the tire on the balancer above, you can see it is held in place on the metal rod with two cones, which will hold any size wheel on. Just compress the cones more and they fit inside the hole in the wheel.

Originally posted by dragracer28
To balance your rear tires you need a piece of steel the size of your axle. You need to make a stand and support it with bearings. As for the wheel weights anything that fits on the wheel will work. Trinity makes a nice wheel balancer and remember to balance your wheels with every set of tires.

[SteveK]

I've fiddled with the TopFlight balancer a lot in the shop, and if I were to break down and buy anything for balancing, it would be that. It is not only much cheaper that others, it doesn't use any bearings or anything, and doesn't have to be held by hand or monitored.

Right now I just remove one dogbone and support the car with the wheel in the air. I should buy something anyway, and blance all my tires, not just the big truck tires.