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Media balancing

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Shawns84

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Hi all.
I have 38x14.5 toyo m/t's (radials) on 16 inch rims. I put 15 oz of airsoft pellets (about a ziplock bag full) in each tire to try and balance them since they couldnt get it right on the spinner.
Sometimes they shake the **** out of my truck. Sometimes its dead smooth. Cornering and bumps totally effect how the tires are balancing. Seems when im on a washboard type surface at speed the vibes are much smoother.
Anybody have any experience with this?
Should i try something heavier per size like bbs?
Should i put more airsoft pellets in? How bout golf balls?

Thanks
 
theres a whole heap of info on this site, i just searched for this yesterday. i personnaly wouldnt use golfballs because i wouldnt want them wearing on the inner liner. why dont you try "equal" i bet the right amount of that would help too.
 
do you have a double stearing shock stabilzer yet? i had the same problem and the dual shocks fixed it about 60% along with a crap load of weights.
 
im running the EXACT same tire and I have had them balanced twice within the last 7K. The worse tire took about 5 oz, not bad for some much mass.I know that doesnt help, but i would see if they could balance them without the pellets maybe, mine run incredibly smooth for a 38 I think
 
15oz sounds about right for your size of tire according to this Dynabeads chart:

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/BigTirechart.htm

They list 16oz.

You may have something else going on with your front end as the cause. Yours is the first truly bad report I've read on using Airsoft.

I think metal BBs is the wrong way to go. You'd be wearing out your rims (& tires?) from the inside:doah:

I think golf balls, tennis balls, or squirrel balls:eek1:, are just too large. Dynabeads themselves are just a little larger than sand.
 
The front end is all new. I can tell where the shake is coming from also. Steering wheel shakes sometimes, sometimes its from the back. Everything on the truck below the frame is new.
Also, its perfectly smooth up to about 70-80 where the tires weight starts throwing them around. I jacked up my tire and gave em a spin to make sure they were round, they are all round.
Maybe i will try some other media in there also. Like equal. But the tire store doesnt carry that stuff. The stuff he gets is named different, but looks the same (tiny plastic granules)
I think maybe i dont have enough balast in the tire. It wont hurt to add another 15 oz of media will it?

guz71: They had the tires on the balancer, but not one of the road force machines. They could get it close sometimes, but the more they tried, the worse it got it seemed. Their machine hasnt balanced any of my tires that well. I dont think i can put the tire on a machine now that it has media inside it, so maybe ill try the road force machine if the internal media doesnt do me any good...
 
Just because it's new doesn't mean something isn't wrong. With media in a tire you can't balance them on a machine.

I might add several ounces but another pound would definitely be a waste.
 
obijuan said:
theres a whole heap of info on this site, i just searched for this yesterday. i personnaly wouldnt use golfballs because i wouldnt want them wearing on the inner liner. why dont you try "equal" i bet the right amount of that would help too.[/quote
I have ran golf balls in my tires for about 7000 miles and no problems. The sticker is still on the wheels and you can see the writing on the golf balls too. No damage at all.
100_0572.jpg

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http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o221/barneybasher1010/100_0572.jpg?t=1190482959
Click to expand...
 
I just put ~11 ounces of the airsoft pellets in each of my 11.00R16 Michelin XL's. No road reports yet but I've heard good about the pellets in these particular tires.

I've also used the Innovative Balancing beads that BKinzey linked to above before. My Tracker and my wife's XL7 are both balanced with them and they're smooth as silk up to at least 80 (well, the Tracker only does about 75) with not a weight in sight. However they're not cheap. Great product though. I went with the airsoft pellets in the 38's because other folks on here have run them in those tires with good results and the tires have a reputation for being very round and true unlike some Swampers and other large offroad tires.

My thoughts from trends I've seen on other sites and this one:
-You're crap shooting with the tennis balls. Some people say they work great and others have had them blow apart in the tires. One guy on PavementSucks noticed the tires were shaking so he took them apart...picture a bunch of destroyed golf balls and that's what he found. Brand issue maybe?
Also you're dealing with how many ounces per ball? Might not be able to effectively balance a tire that is minorly out of balance and doesn't require 2-lbs of golf balls...just 4 ounces.
-Equal gets a lot of reports of clumping and sticking together or coming out the valve stem when airing down. Never quite understood that as I hear they're the hot things on semi trucks but I see it on different forums a lot.
-BB's rust and fall apart. Also act as an abrasive agent to the tire and wheel...until they rust into nothingness.
-Airsoft pellets seem to work pretty good from all the reviews I've seen but as they're larger than the Innovative Ballancing beads they might not be able to cure all of the vibes. Know a guy on another site who literally poured a few pounds into each of his 39" Boggers before they figured out that the vibe wasn't from not enough weight - just that the beads couldn't disperse enough to the "high points" to stop all of the vibes.
-Innovative Balancing beads. Work great. Expensive. Can't be used if the tire shop uses bead sealer or anything sticky like a grease or glue to mount/keep the wheel on the bead. Most shops don't need to do that anymore so if your shop does that...find a new one. Mine uses water and dish soap.


Also bear in mind that a particular wheel, tire, or wheel/tire combo might have other issues affecting the balance. I had some Unique brand 16x7 steel wheels and 255/85R16 Interco TrXus MT's on the Ranger I had before Big Ugly. When I got the thing the tires were shaking the crap out of the truck. Had to have Discount rebalance the tires twice before they got it right on the third try. Well, not right but close enough to make me stop going back. Went to the shop I normally go to (got the tires elsewhere) and they immediately noticed the problem...two of the wheels weren't true. The centers were in the wheels wrong and so the tires sort of wobbled instead of spinning around a straight path. I ended up with almost a pound of the Innovative beads in those two and they still vibed a bit. The other two balanced perfectly with the 6 ounces or so that Innovative recommended.
Recently I was fighting with the 36" HMMWV tires on Big Ugly. They shook like mad and thumped a lot when cold. Common with bias plies but the shaking never went away at certain speeds while the thumping did after a few miles. Turned out these tires were famous for this thumping and for not being perfectly round. They'd have high spots in the tread and/or carcass and nothing short of shaving the tires could fix it. Even with POUNDS of weight they shook bad. Ended up just giving up and selling them so I could get my Michelin radials.
 
no machine will balance them right with any kind of internal balance. internal balance needs to achieve a certain speed for it to work and stay above that speed.

70-80 mph is fast for a lifted truck. if they are only a problem above that speed I would suggest SLOWING DOWN. internal balance will not work well or at all at those speeds depending on how rough the road is.

equal and dyna beads are much smaller then airsoft pellets and will achieve a better balance. golf balls are useless.
 
70-80 is fast for a big truck, but if the winds arent killing me I cruise 75 on the highway. Ive done a few 500 mile plus trip with no problems going that fast with the same exact tire so it can be done. If theres a good tail winds I can do 80 ish without issues but after 85 its just flat out scary to me, I dont need to go that fast but I had to see it once. I have no idea with internal blancing though, but mine have about 4 oz. each on the inside and they do great so maybe the wheels
 
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