Golf Ball Balancing

[Kiwi John]

Equal Link

Hi Eric. Thanx for the link to the equal people. I had a good ramble thru the site and FAQ's. I kind of get the gist of it all. It would seem that there is a reliance on a chaos-type theory, the stuff inside goes to the heavy part of tyre which puts it out of balance then the medium, equal, golf balls, air pellets... whatever based on inertia and so it ends up at the lightest part of tyre causing better balance?
This must only work at a higher r.p.m. than you would get at rock crawling speeds? So highway speeds are where it comes into play. I've not seen it for sale over here but will have a look around.
Thanx for the effort to point me to the link site. I'm having a lot of fun putting into conversations that my American buddies put golf balls in their tyres!

 

[Kiwi John]

Confuze - ous

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.[/QUOTE]

Hang-on Matt. Surely if the medium gravitates to the heavy spot... it only makes that spot heavier? So how does it neutralize the heavy spot??

 

[Kiwi John]

4 or 5 ??

Rene. hi, i'm intrigued even more. So i can relate to the problem of lead weights getting knocked off when wheeling thru rocky trails. But how can u be so casual and say you're going to drop 4 or 5 golf balls into your tyres for the trip? I mean how do you decide whether its 4... or 5? presume it's better to have them all the same in each tyre? Would you put say, 4 balls in the front wheels and 5 balls in the rear wheels, or wot??

 

[tRustyK5]

Well, I don't think the number of golf balls is too critical...unless you don't have enough mass to nuetralize the imbalance. An extra ball or two isn't going to settle into a bad spot and ruin the effort.

Usually the larger the tires the more golf balls, however I currently run my 39.5" TSL's without any balancing and they do pretty good. I get a little shake at around 50 mph. So, overall they aren't far off so I 'figured' 4 or 5 would work fine. if they shook really bad I'd put more in, maybe as many as 7 or 8.

Most tires that are badly balanced won't really show any symptoms until well over 40 mph (in my experience anyways) The golf balls or whatever media you choose will have found their 'location' well before that.

Rene

 

[Kiwi John]

Balls

Ok. so they're going to find their 'location' when you start to roll up to speed, sure. when u come to a stop they all fall down to the bottom? then they have to start all over again?
My tyres are pretty stock 33's. Big tyres over here are pretty expensive so they'll do for the time being. and i'll need a ladder to get into truck with any much bigger!When they wear out i'll up-size and try the golf balls. I'm fascinated by this thread!

 

[tRustyK5]

Yes, the golf balls are constantly finding their spot as you start and stop.

The good part is as the tire wears, changes etc the golf balls will compensate. I have an old set of General Grabbers, 35 x 12.5, that I paid to have balanced three times. Each time they'd ride OK for a year or so and then develop unbalanced symptoms as they wore. If I knew about golf balls back then they would have always rode as good as they could...even as they wore.

Rene

 

[FWP]

And the debate rages on You shoulda seen the guy's face at the tire shop mounting the 42's, when I stopped to put my balls in the tire . Put some golf balls in, it will be fine.

And BTW, Evan, you are the man with the Mouse Balls

 

[Kiwi John]

Putting

Thanks Rene. In all seriousness,I bow to your, and everyones experience with this technique. It obviously works else you wouldnt enthuse about so much, and so simple. I just think it's fascinating and something i must try soon.
And FWP, as for the guys face at your tyre shop... You should have seen mine when i started to read this thread last week! As they sang in The Monkees: Now I'm a believer !!!
I'll watch the thread develop with interest.

 

[dieselponyexpress]

5 golf balls in each of my 37/12.5/16.5 goodyear wrangler mt tires (2 used from military H1, 2 rethreaded). Driving 65mph sometimes is very smooth, sometimes however badly shaking.

Tire shop said that the rethreaded ones are that out of balance they even can't do it with weights. Maybe I should put in 2 or 3 more balls in them.

Betting I'm the first one using this method in germany.

Walter