Bubble balancing - unbelieveable results
 

I’ve mounted tires by hand and balanced them with a bubble balancer for my 1950. The car shakes at 65 but it goes away at 80 and is good till I run out of courage at 102.

I NEVER imagined it would be sufficient on a modern car, but I did the two front wheels of my 2002 Lexus tonight as a last-ditch effort before wasting $40 and 1.5 hours of my time at a shop. I spend a good while Stetting up the bubble balancer, then threw the wheel on. Saw where it was off, and added more weight WITHOUT removing the existing weights just in case my additions made things worse. When for a drive and got up to 96 with no vibrations. Then I had to exit the highway. I can’t believe it. I wonder if it would work if all the old weights were removed. Dynamic balance has weights on both sides (12:00 and 6:00, if you will), while static (bubble) only puts weight on one side. I am going to take the spare tire, remove it’s weights and test drive, and probably feel a vibration. I will then bubble balance, and see if it’s gone.


All this testing as mentioned above is done on straight, wide Eisenhower’s with no other cars.



I posted this on my 1950 chevy community forum and got some criticism, but I would LOVE to hear from a ASE master technician... if it works so that there is absolutely NO vibration at over even slightly above any speed which the car will normally travel, is it even possible that there is an undetected imbalance, and if so, could it damage anything? I am able to easily perceive being "out" by 1/2oz. So if at 96MPH, there is nothing I perceive as "out" at all, deductively, that tells me the wheels are balanced.

Ah, memories... I'm no "Master Tech", but fwiw, back in 1974, I worked at a tire shop in Ontario, Calif. We would first "shave" the tire to correct any out-of-roundness, then bubble-balance them. 9 out of 10 tires would be fine with that. A few customers would pay $5 extra for the fancy "on-car" spin balance procedure. LOL!

I'm no master tech either, but after building my hotrod with 0 help and 0 commercially made parts (i built everything including my 4:1 ratio brake pedal assembly to move the MC onto the firewall) and have 4,000 trouble free miles, I kind of trust my gut. I drove the ES home from work shaking at 70. I bubble balanced, then did 96MPH and there is no shake. I DO NOT SEE how that could be wrong.

Thanks for pitching it ;-) now, please explain "on car spin balancing" i am dying to know! and how did you shave the tire

"...please explain "on car spin balancing" i am dying to know! and how did you shave the tire"
I don't remember the name/brand of the machine used, but it looked like an old upright Hoover vacuum you would shove under the tire once that corner of the car was jacked up. It had an exposed "flywheel" spinning wheel on top of it that would make contact with the bottom of said tire, and could spin the tire the equivalent of approx.70-80mph. The tech(not me) would attach a plate to the rim kinda like a hubcap would be attached. This plate had adjustable weights that the tech could manipulate via a center dial while the tire was spinning. While this was happening, he would place his hand on the fender directly above the spinning tire, with his index finger lifted & pointing out. He would watch this finger, while manipulating the weight dial with his other hand until that finger stopped wiggling/vibrating! Then he would stop the whole works, the "weight-plate" would indicate where to attach the lead weights. After attaching on the weights, he would spin it up again to verify smoothness. A true lost art!... Shaving tires? We had machine that we would mount a new tire/wheel into, that would spin the tire slowly, and there was TWO tech-operated, hand-crank wheels. One crank would move a round razor-sharp blade wheel across the tread surface, and the other hand-crank would allow you the vary the distance of the razor-wheel from the tread. So you had to closely watch the edge of the spinning tire, while carefully manipulating the razor wheel across the tread surface, just close enough to shave off any high spots, without taking off too much rubber, hopefully! Afterwards, sometimes you'd have what looked like a handful of thin black fettuchini noodles on the floor!

I'd really hate to burst your bubble, so to speak, but that usually means bad wheel balancing. And most of the time, it's really the tech's thats the problem at wheel balancing. Finding a good tire shop is just like finding a good barber, as I always say. Which is why, I travel 30 miles to Orange County from LA to get any of my tire needs done.

You can spin balance your tires and just have weights on the inside of the rim for mag wheels.

"Dynamic balance has weights on both sides" is correct but it's not 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock, it's inside and outside ... Exactly. I think he meant 3 o'clock & 9 o'clock! LOL.

"By 12:00 and 6:00 I meant opposite sides, which usually the weights are..." I figured that... just on a different plane...

I must agree 1000% I. I never thought that a cheap $40 bubble balancer could get such outstanding results. I did have to modify mine to make the balancing cone extremely sensitive to even a light wind gust, but the result is now just as good if not better than a shop balancer. I used it on my RCF's wheel just to experiment and I was blown away at the results. Laser smooth on the highway.. and it already pays for itself.

Hi! Please elaborate on those modifications!!! I just sold me 4es (very sad but never drive it anymore) a and I think I’d gone over 40,000 miles on the FIRST hand balance of those tires in early 2018. Just rotations every 3k

for the mods, first, completely remove the spring plate assembly because when compressed, it actually offsets the cone. You can test by compressing manually it far enough down and applying tape to hold it down and checking to see if the bubble remains centered. That compression actually created an offset flaw in my unit so I removed it altogether by removing the retaining clips on the bottom just for good measure. Its not needed.

secondly, you may need to drill out the hole in the top of the cone with a 5/16 drill bit about 3 mm deep.. do it slowly to ensure the center point of the hole remains centered You can also try a smaller bit 1st , then go up bigger bits to get to the 5/16 size. Remember the goal is to have an we extremely minimal contact point so that gravity can take its course.

also,