Wheel Balancing

fred-houston

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I just mounted a new rear tire, and when I when to balance it to my surprise it took 4 oz of weight. This is the first time I mounted and balanced a tire on the ST, but that seem like a lot of weight. My front tire only took 1/2 oz.

I am using a static balancer, and have done a number of tires before without any issues.

So my question is, is 4oz unreasonable on these spoke wheels? No missing spokes.

Thanks
 

OldRider

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Three oz is usually the max you want to use. Was the tire fully seated on the bead? If not then the balance point will really be wrong. If it was fully seated, break it down and rotate the tire 180* and balance again. I've had tires that wanted 3-4 oz. to balance and when turned 180* only took 1 oz or less.
 

fred-houston

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Three oz is usually the max you want to use. Was the tire fully seated on the bead? If not then the balance point will really be wrong. If it was fully seated, break it down and rotate the tire 180* and balance again. I've had tires that wanted 3-4 oz. to balance and when turned 180* only took 1 oz or less.
Thanks, I will give that a try
 

RCinNC

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I don't know what kind of balancer you're using, but if it's like a Marc Parnes (the kind with cones that fit into the wheel in place of the axle), make sure the cones are inserted all the way into the wheel and tight. If the cones aren't completely inserted, it's going to drag a little on the cones as it rotates, and you'd need more weight to influence the tire's balance than you would if it rotated smoothly. Check the bearings on the balancer too, and make sure one of them isn't dragging.
 

Squibb

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If the tyre balancer is running smoothly & the dot is adjacent to the valve, my bet is that the bead hasn't 'popped' out somewhere, so isn't seated correctly. The strange thing is sometimes the bead line looks about right at a glance. My suggestion is to blow the tyre up to it's prescribed max pressure, normally around 60psi (see sidewall) & see what happens - if nothing, then I would look to breaking the beads gently, apply some tyre lube & take it back up to max pressure. Then try a re-balance & see where we are.
 

EricV

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I have only had one tire that took that kind of weight to balance. After checking everything, it was mounted correctly and just took that much weight to balance. If I had been doing my own tires at the time, I would have spun it 180 and tried again. Because I wasn't, and the shop didn't charge me for the mount/balance, I just ran the tire as is. It ran fine to end of life, around 12k, (Heidenau K60 Scout). This was on the Super Tenere. I'd guess it wasn't the best level of quality control. The next tire, another K60 from the same date range, took zero weights to balance, so go figure.
 

fred-houston

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Thanks for all the responses.

Turns out I have a local guy that is experienced in truing wheels., he is going to check it out and see if it is out of true, and if so true it. Then I am going to mount it 180 degrees and try it again.

I am sure it is not an issue with my balancer, but if it turns out the same, I think I will run it down to a shop and see what it does on a machine.
 

OldRider

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I think if you had an issue with the balancer it would error on the side of not enough weight. Too much friction would keep the heavy side from going to the bottom.
 
Last edited:

jeckyll

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I have only had one tire that took that kind of weight to balance. After checking everything, it was mounted correctly and just took that much weight to balance. If I had been doing my own tires at the time, I would have spun it 180 and tried again. Because I wasn't, and the shop didn't charge me for the mount/balance, I just ran the tire as is. It ran fine to end of life, around 12k, (Heidenau K60 Scout). This was on the Super Tenere. I'd guess it wasn't the best level of quality control. The next tire, another K60 from the same date range, took zero weights to balance, so go figure.
I've had 2 k60 front tires that needed zero weight to balance
 

fred-houston

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**UPDATE**

Again thanks, for all the responses and suggestions.

My guy called today and stated the tire was ready, so I went and picked it up. He told me I did have a lot of loose spokes and the rim of course, needed truing. I did tell him to rotate the tire 180 degrees when he remounted it, but to be honest I really don't know if he did.

When I got back home, I balanced it and it only took one ounce to balance.
 
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