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Golf Ball Balancing

Kiwi John- Read through this and you will get the idea of internal balancing. But, like some guys have said, the oil and water from the air compressors will gum up the equal sometimes (although they claim it will not), plus it is expensive and hard to air down with it in the tire unless you run the special stems. Here is the link: https://www.expeditionexchange.com/equal/

You guys might know about this, but I used run a balance on the rim first and mark the spot where you needed lead. Then, mount the tire and run it on the machine again. Mark the tire on those spots. Air down and spin the tire on the rim. Run it on the balancer again. Repeat the process and keep spinning the tire on the rim. It takes some time but you can get it pretty close if you have patience. If anything, this process will get rid of some of the weight needed. Now, I used to do it on my car tires. I could get 3 out of 4 almost perfect (no lead or very little needed). But, a 44" bogger would be out of balance much more than the worst car tire!

Eric
 
I have 12 oz. or 16 oz.......I forget.....bit I still have 1 baggie full of the BB's (they are silver from Walmart). I'd like to weigh the remaining baggie just so I know what I did put in there. I don't know if they are the "Airsoft" that has been mentioned, but they are silver, not brass.

I have BB's in the front tires only. They did help, but I believe that I have a slightly bent wheel in the rear.....around 40-45 mph the truck has a little "wobble" to it.....not bad, and only at this speed.
 
Alos, I believe that I looked into the Centramatic balancers, but they were not designed to handle the "out of balance" amount that a 40"+ Swamper can provide.
 
78Buford, the BBs you have are regular BBs, airsoft BBs are plastic and usually yellow, but I am sure you can get them any color, they also make paintball airsoft BBs so watch out when you go to buy them.
 
Something else I forgot to mention regarding issues with the typical lead rim weights, besides the fact they usually get knocked off when off-roading.

The real area that needs to be balanced is tread surface of the tire, however the outer edge of the rim is the closest you can get to that and still have a place to attach weights. On a small car tire it's not that big of any issue, but when you start talking about 40-44" tall tires there is a relatively large distance between the outer tread surface and the edge of the rim and therefore requires much more weight to compensate because of the increased lever arm.
 
I also have a problem of spinning my wheels inside the tires while in the rocks. The BB's are a much more sane way of dealing with the problem. The airsoft are bigger than a valve so I don't have to worry about airing down.


How it works.

The heavy spot on the tire throws harder when spinning, this makes the medium (equal, bb's, golf balls, ect) gravitate to the heavy spot. Once that spot is nutralized the remaining medium goes to the next heavy spot. This is proven by running tires under a special infered x-ray machine that shows the movement of the medium aroung the tire.
 
just a question

what would happen if you were to use regular sand or lead shot #8 or #6 for reloading shotgun shells? I understand the theory behind internal balancing but don't see why the medium used for doing it causes such a debate

By the way if you have never cut open a golf ball my dog likes to chew them up, they are far from solid, inside the cover is one hell of a rubber band wrapped around a hollow rubber ball a little bigger than a marble
 
az-k5 said:
The heavy spot on the tire throws harder when spinning, this makes the medium (equal, bb's, golf balls, ect) gravitate to the heavy spot.
Click to expand...

Ummm, don't you want the weight to move to the opposite side as the heavy spot...if it added weight to the heavy spot than it would be counter productive and throw things even farther off ballance.....
 
BigCountryx said:
I heard mouse balls (the computer kind) work really good. Think I'm gonna try it. Here's a link to buy them online. Anybody wanna be the guinnee pig?

Mouse Balls
Click to expand...

I came up with that idea after reading about the golf ball thing 3 or 4 years ago. I had a virtually endless supply of them at the time so I put 15 in each tire, they were as smooth as one could reasonably expect from plate recentered Hummer wheels with 42s on them. I went all the way to Pismo and back, about 400 miles round trip, which is the only driving they got on the street. No complaints from me, they seemed to work well.
 
gone huntin said:
Is this for bigger tires only or could I use this method on my 33's?
Click to expand...


You should be able to do it with no problem.. The main reason your hear about this type of balancing in bigger tires is they tend to have more issues then smaller ones.. Most tires 35 and under can be balanced at any tire shop with good results.. A lot of places can't/won't balance bigger tires so this method is the only way people can do it themselves.. If you don't like the the lead wheel weights then it might be a option for you too..
 
resurrected_jimmy said:
what would happen if you were to use regular sand or lead shot #8 or #6 for reloading shotgun shells? I understand the theory behind internal balancing but don't see why the medium used for doing it causes such a debate

By the way if you have never cut open a golf ball my dog likes to chew them up, they are far from solid, inside the cover is one hell of a rubber band wrapped around a hollow rubber ball a little bigger than a marble
Click to expand...
The sand will clump with moisture in the air = bad and the lead will turn to powder, bad thing?, I don't know :laugh:
 
Tire Failure & Golf Balls

So, what happens if a tire fails at speed. Not only do you have to deal with keeping the truck under control, but you also have golf ball projectiles loose @ speed. Could be a real liability worst case.
 
Who would ever believe the golf balls came from your tire?? :)

Rene
 
Only if the tire disentegrated or left the wheel, and either way if that happened "at speed" with a 42" tire you would have other things to worry about.
 
I don't know what you are running, but my 35" BFG AT's balanced with no problem. May be a better option with smaller tires.
 
There is another type of powder similar to equal that is different in two respects. Its made from recycled plastic and its edges are square so it won't clump. I'm running it in the steer tires on my semi and have no complaints so far after 130,000 miles. I think the brand name is React.
George.
Called my tire guy...the brand name is Counteract......my bad
 
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