wheel balancing beads

What do you guys think of this? Someone with tire mounting equipment should test this out. http://aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/balancing_beads/

This is interesting, why would it work/not work?

I am not sure how this is effective please explain it to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-XHfrIGvoI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq263AYgyYg

People on the bike forums use them with success.

The cool thing is they balance everything. This includes your brake rotor, wheel bearing, lug nuts, studs etc.

website said: Many tire shops do not have separate charges for mounting/balancing, so of they don't have to balance the tires they'll mount them for free

lol, mounting the tire is the part that's hard, not balancing it.

skruffy wrote:

website said: Many tire shops do not have separate charges for mounting/balancing, so of they don't have to balance the tires they'll mount them for free

lol, mounting the tire is the part that's hard, not balancing it.

you wouldn't know that based on how often they screw it up.

didn't we have this thread a few months back?... I like the idea...

also from what i've read the bead balancing will maintain balance though out the life of the tire... which is a reason truckers use them.

Only problem is they don't work that well & if you get water in your tires they don't work at all.

purplepeopleeater wrote: Only problem is they don't work that well & if you get water in your tires they don't work at all.

True.

On that note, I always wondered if you could use silica gel to balance tires.

Always the skeptic, I put them in the same catagory as torque sticks.

purplepeopleeater wrote: Only problem is they don't work that well & if you get water in your tires they don't work at all.

They don't work that well? How so? I'm just curious, as they do sound too good to be true, but the guy in the first link sure thinks they work well.

I assume that if the tire only needs 2 oz and you put in 3.5, that the extra beads are dispursed correctly to keep the tire balanced? And if the weight needed to balance it out is more than what you put in, then you won't be fully balanced?
In theory, this should work, but I would think there would be some periods of loss of balance, like hitting pot holes or bumps. What happens when the beads hit the flat part of the tire at the surface of the road?

bravenrace wrote: I assume that if the tire only needs 2 oz and you put in 3.5, that the extra beads are dispursed correctly to keep the tire balanced? And if the weight needed to balance it out is more than what you put in, then you won't be fully balanced?

Sounds right to me.

I think I'll try this when I put new tires on the Samurai, I often have imbalances caused by stuck on gravel and mud. I'll just dump a good amount of beads in.

The only thing I'm worried about is wear on the inside of the tire, but the sammy goes through tires too fast for that to be an issue.

It's healthy to be skeptical. I believe that they work and I think it's a fantastic idea. That said, I won't run them on any of my vehicles.

There is a product called equal that some people swear by in class 8 trucks. I prefer the Centramatics that mount between the hub and wheel. I've seen the meSs that the drop in stuff makes when you introduce moisture to the mix. I am not interested in that.

I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether this would or wouldn't work, but there are two differences between some balls in the tire and the centramatic setup that seem like they could be important:

• There is a damping fluid in the Centramatic ring

• The balls in the Centramatic run in a ring with a smooth interior contour, not a tire with a textured carcass interior and a deformation where it hits the road.

If the balls more or less try to distribute themselves to where they are needed, that would have them trying to settle into fixed locations relative to the tire. I have a hard time thinking that they wouldn't "bounce" (maybe the quotes aren't even needed; it might be a plain ol' literal bounce) when they came around to the contact patch and the spot they were sitting on deformed inward. Doesn't seem like it would contribute to consistency.

Or maybe the centrifugal force is enough to keep the weights pinned through the deformation. Just thinking it through...

GRM test?