One crude but effective method that I used on my TC until I found a wire
wheel shop near here( especially if speeds are kept under say 55-60) is to
jack up the front wheel in question. It will naturally spin on its own
until the heaviest part is at the bottom. Now you tape a lead self adhesive
wheel weight strip to the inside of the wheel at the top. Use masking to do
this in a temporary way before peeling and securing the weight with its own
adhesive. Turn the wheel so that the weight and the heavy part of the wheel
are at 3 and 9 o clock. release the wheel and see what happens. If you
are pretty close, the wheel will remain as you released it and not spin of
its own off-weightedness. If it does turn on its own, you will be able to
add or remove weight from either the spot you already identified or in
another spot that's 180 degrees opposite the new bottom. When you are
satisfied with the weight placement, mark the spot(s), peel off the release
paper from the wheel weights and press onto their permanent placement(s).
Rear wheels don't spin freely enough to do this. shake comes from the
front, but some will still be coming from the rear. You can move rear
wheels to the front to balance them and return them to their proper position
after you have balanced them. Anyway, with a little experimentation, you
can get fairly close to a balance state. This assumes that your front hubs
spin friction free enough. If your hubs do not move freely for finer
adjustment you can give the wheel a slight push in either direction to
break the friction just enough to set in motion and see if it wants to keep
on turning in that direction. This way you can see if it has more of a
tendency to keep on going in one direction than the other. When you do find
a place that can do a professional job, make sure they balance the wheels on
the car so that you can balance them to compensate for any out-of-balance of
the brake drum as well. Like I said it's crude, but it will allow you to
tool along with your MG mates on the tour without hopping all over the road.
At 10:45 PM 5/5/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I've called a few of the local tire stores, and they all balked at
>balancing wire wheels. Is there a way to do it your self?
>-Aron Travis-
>"always in a automotive frenzy"
>
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