On the car wheel balancing

[dean333]

Does anyone still do on-the-car wheel balancing near Joliet Illinois?

[40cpe]

Truck repair shops used to have that equipment if you have one near.

[Clem Clement]

What tools do you need? In the past I have had some luck just by taking the pressure off the front bearing and let the front wheels rotate to their balance point. Add a small weight and rotate the wheel again. A couple of tries and the wheel will not rotate on its own.

Then bring the rear wheel up front and do them.
Clem

[dean333]

Clem, add a weight to the bottom when the wheel stops spinning?

[Lanny]

With my Snap-On balancer, when letting the tire and wheel make a
slow roll, the heaviest will always be at the bottom when it stops.

Experiment with the weight you add (at the top) to offset the heavy
at the bottom. Then rotate the tire and wheel and it should Stay
wherever you stop it, if you have the right amount of weight on it.




.

[Flathead Fever]

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I had a friend that the family owned a Cadillac repair shop in the 60s to 80s, I used to hang out there a lot. They had one of balancers that did wheels on the car, but they were the only in town using one. I didn't see any advantage to it other than you didn't need to pull the wheel off of the vehicle. Unless maybe that you consider it's balancing everything that's spinning like the drum and rear axle. But axles are a perfectly straight part and brake drums have balancing weights on them when they were made so there is no reason they would be out of balance. When I to work at the phone company garage, we had a Coats tire machine and a Snap-On wheel balancer. I would take the wheels I had balanced and for fun I would stick a 1/4-ounce weight on the rim and spin it again and it would ask for a 1/4-ounce weight directly opposite of it. The balancer knows which sides of the tire needs the weight but you could also set it so it would only ask for weights on the back of the wheel in case you didn't want to see them. How much better could you ask for. I bought a used Coats tire machine and a Snap-on balancer to mount tires at home. Hardly ever use it, but they are nice tools to have. Years ago, had taken a set of wheels that I had sand blasted, primed and painted with quality automotive paint to have the tires put on. They scratched them up so bad that nobody but me will be mounting my tires ever again.

[aussie merc]

go for balance beads can be a pain to fit but IT WORKS and you can swap rotate etc to your hearts content and it doesn't matter .

[47topless]

Originally Posted by aussie merc

go for balance beads can be a pain to fit but IT WORKS and you can swap rotate etc to your hearts content and it doesn't matter .

Ditto!!!! I like the idea of applying the wheel weight evenly across the wheel, not just on the inside'
Wheel weights can fall off, plus they look like crap.