I am getting ready to put a set of painted spoke wheels on my TR3. My
previous experience with wheel balancing at tire shops is not all that good
and I just don't trust the guys with handling my wheels and balancing them.
I live in a small town and we only have two choices.
I've been thinking about balancing my new wheels myself. We have a tire
mounting machine (bead breaker) at work that I can use to get the tires on
and off. A couple of times in the past, I had guys balance tires on my old
Porsche without using a spin balancer. One guy had a setup where he
mechanically spun the tire on the car and had a little trigger plate under
the wheel so that when the out of balance part of the tire came by that it
would trigger a strobe marking where to put the weights. It worked great.
Another guy used two milk crates with a piece of 1" steel rod. He put the
rod throught the center of the wheel, put the ends of the rod on the milk
crates and let the rod roll on the milk crates. The tire would always end up
at the same low point until he put on weights. Again, it seemed to work
well. I never had a complaint.
Another time I had a friend who worked at a garage balance my wheels
using a bubble type balancer. Again, it seemed to work well.
I found an article on the net about balancing wheels at home. It is for
motorcycles, but appears to be a pretty universal method.
http://www.xs11.com/faq/tirefaq.shtml
I also found some inexpensive wheel balancing machines (bubble type) at
harbor freight and Eastwood for about $50.
Do any other listers balance their wheels themselves? Am I crazy for
thinking about doing it myself?
Does anyone have any other links to good websites on balancing wheels
at home?
TIA
Bill Brewer
Tehachapi, CA
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