Balance beads work great on my F750 with 22.5s. They did not work on my K30 dually with 14 ply 19.5s. The bead manufacturer said that the truck was too light for the medium duty tires and they bounce up faster than the weight of the truck pushes them back down.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
-
Check out our new Group Buy Program! We're kicking it off with Baja Designs! $10 Flat rate shipping no matter how much you order!
Road tires - bead balancing vs traditional weights?
- Thread starter Fuzzydog
- Start date
Kyle
Formerly known as Kyle_T
Oh I met president of that company. He’s a really solid good guy. I asked him Once how it worked and he showed me. Seemed really effective for big truck tires.Centramatics worked fair on my daily 2500, last set of tires went 60k
last set of Toyo open county at for me , no grip in the rain, I'm back on Nitto g2
Wheel Balancers for many trucks, buses, trailers, and motorcycles from Centramatic
Centramatic is an industry leader in wheel balancing technology!www.centramatic.com
billybob_81067
Redneck
I've run the dynamic balancing beads and steel BB's. Hell even had some golf balls in some old bias ply hummer tires.
Here lately with new Chinese tires off e-bay I've just been putting the yellow dot on the valve stem and running no weight. Haven't had any imbalance issues yet.
Here lately with new Chinese tires off e-bay I've just been putting the yellow dot on the valve stem and running no weight. Haven't had any imbalance issues yet.
Fuzzydog
Red Skull Member
I submit exhibit #1. I told no less than 4 people at this tire shop that I want bead balanced. Told them the rims are hard to find now and I don't want any lead weights hammered on to them. And they couldn't even do the job right and line up the weights properly.
Beads can be great for radial imbalance, but can't do shit about axial imbalance (especially on wider tires). Coffee and pasta from the last iteration of this thread:
_________________________________________________________________________________
Here's my experience with beads, ignore it as you see fit
Source: ExWrench's Oddball Mods + Sneaky Stretch
_________________________________________________________________________________
Here's my experience with beads, ignore it as you see fit
12-28-2013, 11:09 PM
The 2007 Tacoma was my first time phookin' around with airsoft balancing, and I went back to traditional balancing when I sold it.
I put 10 oz. of .20 gram airsoft pellets/beads/BBs in each of the 255/85R16 (~33.5x10.5-16) BFG MT KM tires on the Taco.
.
1. 20% of the time, it was PERFECT!
2. 20% of the time, it was HORRIBLE!
3. 60% of the time, it was OK
A little insight into how the BBs act:
The BBs fall down inside the tire until about 25-30 MPH, where they transition to staying spread out against the inside of the tread.
The BBs stay flung out against the inside of the tread until you come to a stop (or close to it).
If I hit the transition speed in the Taco while going through a corner (like a curved freeway on-ramp), I would have a horribly unbalanced tire.
Occasionally, the beads would not redistribute properly after hitting an odd bump on the freeway and I would have a horribly unbalanced tire.
Either of the two scenarios above would require me to pull over and stop to regain good balance, unless I lucked out and hit a bump right to clear it up.
On the Jeep, I put 8 oz. of .20 gram BBs and 6 oz. of propylene glycol inside when I mounted the tires on the beadlocks.
Later, while resolving death wobble and shimmy issues, I added 8 oz. of distilled water through the valve stems.
This brought me up to 22 oz. of dynamic balancing media in each tire, and the last 8 oz. did not make a huge difference.
1. 20% of the time, it is GOOD to perfect
2. 20% of the time, it is BAD (but not horrible)
3. 60% of the time, it is OK to good
The addition of propylene glycol got rid of the Taco's problem of the beads requiring a ridiculous level of intervention on my part to get unfooked sometimes.
I do not worry about the transition point with my current setup, so the glycol is an effective lubricant (and anti-freeze).
However, the BBs have a worse axial imbalance on average in the 12.5" tires on 10" rims on my JK than they did in the 10.5" on 8" rims on the Taco.
In summary:
This coming week, I plan to pull the tires, vacuum and clean out all of the balancing media, and check the rims for axial and radial runout.
- Adding lube to the BBs totally helps them correct for any RADIAL imbalance more quickly and accurately.
- Narrower rims and tires are the only way to minimize AXIAL imbalance - the BBs cannot compensate for that.
- A tall, narrow tire on a narrow rim would probably balance almost perfectly using BBs, glycol, and water.
- Dynamic media balancing is great a lot of the time, but not all of the time, and sometimes it just sucks.
I believe that Trail Ready did a good job but I never checked the rims for machining accuracy, so it's time to verify that TR earned the faith I have in them.
If and when the rims pass my inspection, I will reassemble the tires and static balance them using a bubble balancer and tape weights.
I know that my MTR/Ks have some radial runout, and I changed rims when the tires had 15k on them, so they bring a bit to the shimmy party.
However, I had no major problems before I moved the tires over to my beadlock rims.
I had an immediate onset of death wobble on the shakedown run of my new rim/tire combination.
The death wobble itself was the result of a blown out flex joint in my front lower control arm, but the onset was from the new chassis dynamics.
Specifically, I now had my tires on wider rims with less backspacing. This provided the leverage to bring the shimmy to instigate the wobble.
Shit, it's late - time to bail on this. I'll get into the rest of that crap later.
Source: ExWrench's Oddball Mods + Sneaky Stretch
PAToyota
Red Skull Member
Just throwing this in here if for nothing else that watching what goes on inside a tire is interesting - the sidewall movement alone is fascinating:
Clearly, what people are saying about low speed imbalance is an issue. Below a point, the beads become "unglued" and don't offer any balancing.
Clearly, what people are saying about low speed imbalance is an issue. Below a point, the beads become "unglued" and don't offer any balancing.
SomeGuyFromOlympia
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 31, 2020
- Member Number
- 1706
- Messages
- 992
Yeah, my Airsoft beads don't fall out of suspension until I am rolling to a stop, like less than 5 MPH. You can clearly hear them hitting the rims as they fall with the windows down. Might vary with a smaller, heavier bead like the ceramic ones.
KungFooMASTA
El Stupido
I would rather use no weights than beads or golfballs in anything.
I used to work at a tire shop in college. A guy came in with a clean 93 Cummins Dodge SCLB 4x4 farm truck on 35s. He had some of those beads and wanted them in his tires. He left and came right back and said get them out. He said it was smooth up to 45. Then from 45-65 he said it about shook his truck apsrt he said above 65 it smoothed out but he drives mostly 45-65.
My old semi had a shake that my work couldn’t figure out. Before I came they had the rear ends rebuilt, new driveshafts, new wheels and tires and it still shook. When it came time for new steer tires I put Michelins on and decided to take the balance rings off that they had on it. As you spun the balance rings you could hear them get stuck. That truck drove like a whole new truck after that. Fuck balance rings too.
I used to work at a tire shop in college. A guy came in with a clean 93 Cummins Dodge SCLB 4x4 farm truck on 35s. He had some of those beads and wanted them in his tires. He left and came right back and said get them out. He said it was smooth up to 45. Then from 45-65 he said it about shook his truck apsrt he said above 65 it smoothed out but he drives mostly 45-65.
My old semi had a shake that my work couldn’t figure out. Before I came they had the rear ends rebuilt, new driveshafts, new wheels and tires and it still shook. When it came time for new steer tires I put Michelins on and decided to take the balance rings off that they had on it. As you spun the balance rings you could hear them get stuck. That truck drove like a whole new truck after that. Fuck balance rings too.
![[486]](https://data.irate4x4.com/avatars/m/0/94.jpg?1700178133){kind=avatar}
[486]
ugh, that guy again?
Got a badly ply separated tire with really good tread
it'd shake the car even well balanced, because of the road force variance from the floppy section
I tossed a bag of cheap plastic craft beads in there and they seem to help quite a bit, car shakes about 1/2 as much as it did
several thousand miles on the shit and they're still rattling around in there, I expected them to be ball-milled into dust
it'd shake the car even well balanced, because of the road force variance from the floppy section
I tossed a bag of cheap plastic craft beads in there and they seem to help quite a bit, car shakes about 1/2 as much as it did
several thousand miles on the shit and they're still rattling around in there, I expected them to be ball-milled into dust
DMG
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2020
- Member Number
- 495
- Messages
- 2,377
Because wheel weights balance the tire/wheel assembly and beads only sort of do it, sometimes.
WaterH
Well-known member
Beads and ceramic rims have not worked for me consistently. Solid weights have. I have givin them every chance to work. I was even involved with an experiment to use them to balance a helicopter. (They didn’t work)
brocolocoli
Red Skull Member
I use RV antifreeze in my tires because I'm cheap. It works well though I've never used beads.
Fuzzydog
Red Skull Member
I got myself a manual tire machine and been doing them myself now and bead balancing.
Been working well, save a few bucks and tires are running smooth
Been working well, save a few bucks and tires are running smooth
Tiha
Red Skull Member
Same experience with centramatics. they have a life span, you have to make sure the beads are spinning inside freely.
Also with air soft or counter act. I could never get them to work right. But i am pickier than most when it comes to vibrations.
Was under the impression on a car tire it spins too fast for them to effectively work at 70 mph where as a Semi truck the tire spins slower at 70 mph and balancing beads will still work.
They do work, we use them in steer tires, have for almost 30 years.
I’ve had tire machines as long as I could drive. Balancing is a waste of time and money. Are you balance snobs familiar with the story of the princess and the pea? Your ass is way to sensitive if balancing makes any difference in your life.
Seriously, nothing on this board annoys me more. Than somebody starting a thread about balancing tires above 35” and on bead locks. Grow up Peter Pan. Are we men with machines or are you a pavement princess with a sensitive ass?
Seriously, nothing on this board annoys me more. Than somebody starting a thread about balancing tires above 35” and on bead locks. Grow up Peter Pan. Are we men with machines or are you a pavement princess with a sensitive ass?
DMG
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2020
- Member Number
- 495
- Messages
- 2,377
A big heavy solid axle mitigates all but the most serious out of balance conditions. You really feel it if it is 2 ounces out in a car. It will prematurely wear out steering and suspension parts.
Tiha
Red Skull Member
And maybe this is why you are a perpetual bachelor, since you won't balance your 37" beadlocks. That is why women don't want you.
LOL just hackin on ya
subybaja
E. Spengler
Yeah, those wimmins hate vibrations...
Manual machine, old bubble balancer, and scrounged lead weights here.
My Maserati does not do 185, so close enough works fine for me.
Fuzzydog
Red Skull Member
Who you trying to kid? You lost your licence, now you don't even drive
[486]
ugh, that guy again?
I run tires bad enough fast enough that they'll make all the oil squirt out of shocks if I don't do something about them
On your car ?
[486]
ugh, that guy again?
car and truck both always got trash tires on them, though I don't drive the truck enough to have a good idea of its tire wear characteristics. Damn things are 20+ years old, cracked bad and really should be thrown away (but they have such good tread)
Still going strong, ain't shed anything in 40k miles which is kinda a record for that car, it is the belt-busterator
or at least I've ply separated more tires than I can remember on the rear of it, something like seven or eight of them so far
It’s been so long since I’ve had a car car I kinda forget people even do that. I haven’t had anything that took P tires in over 15 years. So my throw out the balancing comment doesn’t apply. But for new LT tires on a pickup van or SUV I just don’t care. The Cooper M/T 285/70/17’s on my work truck are not balanced. On days when I haven’t been mud bogging it it cruises nice and smooth.
I get annoyed when people are asking about “what’s the best way” to balance 40’s on beadlocks. Are you f’ing serious? You can’t be serious.
[486]
ugh, that guy again?
well you tend to wheel harder every day than most people do... ever
of course balancing ain't gonna do shit for you, what with the ten pounds of clay packed in each wheel
So not sure how to take this, but I mounted a set of 37" procomps on Trail gear bead locks and full expected a shit show, running them on a 3rd gen 4runner. Well 5k on them a good chunk of freeway miles and they are smother than the damn 285/75/16's on my tow rig. Like smooth as butter up to 80 mph ( cause that's all I'm willing to trust my shit fab skills) no weights no nothing. I wheel it, but it's my daily, so I fully expected having to do some stupid BS to get it freeway driveable, But nope.
Yep. Big Bubble balancer and a couple coffee cans of weights for most of my fleet of beaters tires. Never wanted to add fucking around with beads to how I do things. Had enough weird vibration issues at random speeds to not think unbalanced is just fine either.
Death wobble is fucking scary too. Only time I had something with over 38 inch tires I had to deal with it. Not fun.