http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=155710&&showall=1 This was referred to by Jennings Racing in the above post. Can you really balance tires by putting oil or water in them?
I not sure because I have a leak in my 240 tire, spoke rim on my chopper, and I put the fix a flat in it, leaks around 2 spokes (because no one would remove the tire from the rim) ..believe me it took 3 of us and 30 minutes to mount it, anyways, it somewhat fixed the leak but that back tire has a heavy spot on it when that crap gets slung around in there, and with it being a rigid frame , it spanks my ass after a 2 hour ride!!
I'm not sure what they used but big truck tires used to get a liquid put in them to balance them. We also used to get a liquid to put in off road bike tires (desert racers) that was to make them puncture proof and balance them. I got to guess it may have had some sort of oil and or oil water mixture.
I used to be an active off-roader. We used antifreeze in our tires, when you get over 33" tires they get hard to balance with lead. Works the trick and doesn't hurt the rubber. I would be concerned about using oil. My Gladiator has about a pint in each tire and it works great for 33 x 12.5 tires. You could probably use less in a car tire. Shawn
Is there any way to get it in there with out taking the tire off the rim? This may be a good fix for bias plys which can be hard to balance.
Pull the core out of the valve stem and use a 30cc syringe, works great and doesn't take too long. I suppose you could get a squirt bottle and use that too. I just had a syringe in my shop so I used it. Shawn
Farmers and other heavy equipment owners often put calcium chloride or antifreeze in their tires for weight. There is an adapter that screws onto your valve stem to put the liquid in the tires. Most tractors use innertubes so you couldn't put liquid in them even breaking a tire down. Contact a local tractor and implement company to see about the adapter.
Hey yall, I can hear the gears turning in some of your heads J/K. Me and my dad run offroad race trucks,back when we ran pro areana trucks at the fair grounds we used water/or antifreeze in the tires not just for balancing but also for weight,we also used tennis balls in the front coils to keep from bottoming out,you learn all kinds of cool things when your poor and trying to race the big boys. Plus its hard to balance big tires like on my DD (38" boggers)thats why I use antifreeze. Edit: they have a threaded insert that threads right on to your water hose I can't remember were I seen it but its on the web.
J.C. Whitney used to sell disc shaped pods with sand in them that you slipped over the wheel studs before you installed your wheels that guaranteed "exact balance".
Guess I'm still trying to picture how coating the inside surface of a tire/rim with a liquid results in "balancing"?
some ppl use bb's but they rust,so some ppl use air soft bb's,I've seen ppl use lead bb's in the off road world lead is not good to leave in the dirt if your tire blows a bead.
At our new car (Chevy) dealership a few years ago a really slick outfit came in and sold our sales manager a "tire sealant/balance" package for the new cars in stock. It was touted to never get a nail or small puncture leak and would keep the tires running as if on glass. They signed a deal and this company came in and squirted this crap in every tire on the lot, and the sales department added it to the "sticker" price.....Corvettes, pickups, passenger cars and even all the used cars. Well, to make a long story short, everything was fine for a couple months, then we started getting new cars in the service department with horrible vibration complaints. Our front end guy was going nuts trying to rebalance all these tires to no avail.....it was just impossible. When we broke them down we found that all that sealant crap had wadded up in a ball and would randomly fall around inside causing a massive shake at freeway speeds. For the next several months we spent thousands of dollars getting that goo out of a bunch of recently delivered new cars. For my own stuff, I won't put anything in my tires but compressed gas......no liquids.
Bullhsit... anytime you accelerate or deccelerate it will throw it off until you reach a constant speed again... there is no substitute for doing it the right way. It will have some dampening properties but will not balance the tire or the driveshaft...
Boy, the "fluidampr" harmonic balancer people have been selling a lot of bulltshit then. Look, I know it worked on my truck, I drive the bloody thing every day. I have 33 x 12.5's on it and the tire shop told me they couldn't balance two of the tires because they were about 12oz out and it would take too much lead to fix. I took the truck home and put 2 cups of antifreeze into each tire. It worked great, I have no vibration at highway speeds like I used to. I'm the Mod for the International Truck section on the BC4x4 message board, lots of the guys there covered this topic about 6 months ago. If anyone is going to know how to correct tire balance problems it's probably the guys with the biggest tires. BTW, they put balancing fluids and powders into 18 wheeler tires so call bullshit all you want. Shawn
Haha, sorry this was funny. Think you meant damping properties... but I guess dampening applies too in this case.
For all you calling bullshit look up pirate4x4.com or some other 4x4 places and then come back and try and call bullshit.Or better yet buy some big tires (38",40"42"44"46"52") and try to balance them out with lead,you will end up putting antifreeze in them to get them to balance out.
Found it! Liquid tire balancing... http://www.landlinemag.com/Archives/2003/Jun03/equipment/tires_life.htm
Still complete bullshit... It's a dampner and nothing more... Any acceleration or decceleration will affect the balance, though the vibration associated with it will be dampened.
Thanks man... I typed in a hurry.. One more time... or maybe you do not understand the difference between balancing and damping vibration. The only time those tires are in balance is at a constant rate of speed (i.e. constant rotation with no deviation). Every time you you accelerate or deccelerate the liquid will throw off the balance (unless they are completely full with no air and then they'd still need to be balanced). What you are doing by adding liquid is not balancing the tire. You are damping the vibrations associated with any vibration. Like I said the only time it will be balanced is at a constant rpm. When's the last time you drove at a constant speed and only a constant speed? I've seen what happens when people put crap like that in M/C tires. Maybe you'd be better off understanding what it is you are doing. It's a lot like balancing an engine, you still run a damper.
"Fluid dampeners" are balanced to begin with - their function as th ename implies is to dampen vibration not balance your engine. As far as I can tell the same thing applies to "liquid tire balancing" - you really aren't balancing anything - you are simply dampening the vibrations. My guess (yes I admit it's just a guess) is that the vibration forces are still pounding on your bearings and whatnot but you don't "feel" it happening as a result of the dampening effect of the fluid. Better than nothing but I kinda doubt it's as good as the "real McCoy"
I guess I'm still with Zman and HemiRambler as regards the physics involved. Yet the truck tire folks say that large fixed counterweights get simply too big...in agreement w/the earlier post from a member who does 4 x 4 stuff. Some of the science mentioned in a www.patentsonlinecom site was about rheology...oil film flowing behavior and stresses, and using thixatropic fiber and liquid paste applied to the inside of the tire. If, and this is a big if, in my book, the vibrations that take place from the imbalance condition then cause the liquid to shear and move to a location/thickness that cancels out the vibration, it becomes balanced. Almost by magic in it's simplicity. My intuitive hunch would be that the imbalance would just as likely get worse...as opposed to be "self-leveling" into a balanced state. OK Squirrel...you're up!
I'm sure he can shed some light, but the way I see it, without any scientific mumbo-jumbo, whether they are balanced, damped, dampened, or whatever, if it feels like the vibrations are gone, mission accomplished. To quote Hemirambler " My guess (yes I admit it's just a guess) is that the vibration forces are still pounding on your bearings and whatnot but you don't "feel" it". Bearings can be replaced(as long as you aren't wearing them out at an astronomical rate), the car is a machine, and it's function is to make the human happy and (relatively)comfortable. Whether the vibration is there or not, if you can't feel it, and aren't damaging something, who cares?
Centrifugal force will keep the fluid to the outside of the tire. The only way you may have a problem is if the tire came to a complete stop from a high speed and even then the motion of the water will continue to rotate for a for a small period of time. This is not balancing the tire it is simply removing the out of balancing issues at time of motion. If you would like to learn more about fluid dynamics check out any hydro engineering or fluid motion classes at your local university. You never know you may learn a thing or two. Then come back and talk with an educated tongue.
The Jalopy Journal
