[Shotimes] (4) Wheel Balancing Instructions.....Out of Round Wheels

[George Fourchy]

OUT OF ROUND WHEELS

One thing I'll add to this issuance of balancing instructions is what to do with
out-of- round wheels.  

How do you know if you have out of round wheels?  (After you check a few and find a
couple bad ones, you will automatically without thinking check them the first time
you spin them...you need to fix the roundness first.)  First, you spin balance the
HECK out of your tires, and the darn thing still dances down the road at 70 mph.  It
is smooth until about 55, then starts to shake, but there is a slight difference
between balance and roundness.....balance varies (comes and goes in intensity), and
roundness stays the same.  If you suspect you have this problem, jack the car up,
and spin the tire fast enough to have the rim go by so that you can't see the valve
stem....25 or so mph is fast enough.   If the rim bounces up and down, but the car
doesn't shake (after a balance), you have an out of round wheel.  You can also
eyeball the casting marks on the tire...there are a couple where the tread joins the
sidewall....if these bounce up and down but the rim is even, the tire is bad, and
you should take it back and get another....they're guaranteed against that.  If the
rim and tire fluctuate the same amount, or at least close to it in the same place,
your problem most likely is the wheel.

My fix for my wheels is sort of un-orthodox (some of you purists will scream bloody
murder), but hey, that's why they call me Krazy George!  I found I had caused my
MHTs to become out-of-round when I had used standard (non-SHO) lug nuts on them for
a long time....since I had originally installed the Konis, actually, about 7 years
ago.  I had swapped struts with a particular '91 Sable that a friend had (it's still
on the road, with Lowrider's original struts!) and just mixed the lug nuts between
the two cars.  SHO nuts are different....they have a larger diameter, and they have
shoulders on the taper end, to match the large tapers in the wheel bolt holes.  So,
over time, these smaller nuts with no shoulders had eaten out the tapers in the
wheels, causing them to tighten slightly out of round.  I had the wheel holes
redrilled and retapered, with inserts, but even though the place that did it said
there was no way they could be wrong, three of the four wheels are still out of
round.  The worst one is about 1/16 of an inch out, and the other two are a bit
less.   On the road this condition is easily felt as a vibration similar to a
balance problem, with the worst wheel being about an ounce out....bearable to some,
but not for me.

The Fix

You know what they say about an old vehicle being held together with bailing wire
and chewing gum?  Well, the Lowrider is held together in places by double-sided body
tape and sheetrock screws.  Among the places sheetrock screws are used is to center
the wheels.  A long time ago I said I'd fixed my wheels by using them, and a couple
of folks (Marcus Bechtel comes to mind) asked how I did it....I said if I told him
I'd have to kill him!!  Well, now the secret is out.

Find the high (or low) point of the wheel.  Mark it with the tire crayon.  My wheels
have center-caps that cover the lugs.  I mark the center of the wheel adjacent to
the holes, and the mark will stay there and always be correct, since the high point
stays the same.   Also mark the tire so you can see where the high spot is after you
fix it, so you can see how well you did centering it.  Loosen the lug nuts (car is
jacked up) until they are just finger tight....actually the best tightness is to
take the socket you use on the impact or ratchet, and add an extension so you can
grab it, then tighten the lugs as tight as you can without a ratchet....just the
extension.  Put the high spot of the wheel at the top OR the bottom, one or the
other.  Now, take a sheetrock screw and a good new phillips screwdriver, and screw
the screw into the space between the center of the wheel and the hub exactly
opposite the high side.  On my car there is room for the wheel to move around about
a 16th of an inch any direction from centered on the hub.  You will auger into the
inner edge of the wheel, and the hub will also sustain a scratch where the screw
bites into it.  My logic for accepting this damage is....1a) The car has 260K miles
on it. 1b) The centers are covered, and are not visible unless I am working on them.
 2) I don't want to buy new wheels, and I don't trust this place to fix them right
without totally screwing them up worse.  3) The Most Important thing to me is a
smooth ride.

The screw can be turned about 3 turns before it bottoms out against the hub.  You
should notice the wheel center beginning to move outwards at the spot where the
screw is, as it wedges itself between the hub and the wheel.  Now tighten two lugs,
opposite (as much as possible) and spin the wheel again, up to 25 mph or so.  You
will definitely notice a difference.....you either centered it, or you went too far.
 If it is centered, lower the wheel so it won't turn, and tighten all the
lugs....it's fixed.  If you went too far, unscrew the screw, loosen all the lugs,
then retighten them as mentioned above with the extension, and reinsert the screw
again, in the same place, but don't go in so far..you don't need all the adjustment.
 

If you changed the high centered spot, but didn't eliminate it, you can do one of
two things....start over, in a slightly different place, or use a second screw to
fine tune the adjustment, like you would with a small tuning weight after you
removed most of the imbalance in a tire.  Find the new high spot, and tighten the
second screw a turn or so opposite it, to pull the wheel away from the high spot. 
After you have centered it, tighten the lugs and drive it.

The studs are capable of bending the miniscule amount needed for the wheel to move
off its original center.  The tire is held in place on the hub by the pressure of
the combined lugs pushing the back of the wheel against the rotor, and it against
the hub.  This massive amount of friction overrides the studs' attempt to hold the
tire in a certain spot (the center of the wheels' lug holes).  The studs' secondary
duty is to center the wheel, but the tapers do the major part of that job.  When you
move the wheel, the force on one side of the tapers that is more than the other
sides will slightly bend the studs, but they will not have a problem flexing the
very small amount they bend.  The wheel will stay where you tighten it because the
friction between the wheel, rotor, and hub is more than the tension of the lugs
trying to move it back to their centered position.

If the studs couldn't handle this slight amount of stress, they would break every
time you hit a pothole.

(If the skeptics among you want to forgo this procedure, fine.  I have 50,000 miles
on these wheels since they have been improperly redrilled, and subsequently centered
this way, with Summit Point included.  I have had, and will have, NO problems.  And
my ride, with RE730s, Tokikos, and stiff springs, is as smooth as a baby's bottom.)

I'd be happy to demonstrate this procedure with the Lowrider when you all come to
California in 2004.....I don't want to bugger up anyone else's wheels.  
However....if someone has out of round wheels, and doesn't mind this procedure to
center them, I'd be glad to do it this year.  

The car I drive this year won't have out of round wheels.

George and the recuperating Lowrider