Tire balancing with air soft pellets (or similar) (1 Viewer)

[alia176]

Those of you who are balancing your tires using air soft pellets, any negatives to mention? One rumor I heard is that they may not balance well during low speed local driving. Is this accurate?

Also, is there an issue with using the pellets in smaller sized tires, like 31" or 32" A/T tires? I'm thinking of using them with my 315s Nitto Terra Grapplers and on the 4Runner.

I'm kind of done with out of balance tires, all be it not too bad on the fwy.

Thanks.

 

[LFD2037]

Interested in more info on this myself.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I used the same BBs on two sets of 33" BFG Mud Terrains. I just put new ones (8-9 ounces) in my 35s. I haven't noticed any imbalance at lower speeds. The only downside I can think of is when slowing down to a stop you can hear them. Biggest pros that I can think of is that when the tires wear down, traditional weights might no longer correctly balance. With the BBs inside, they always spin until they fix the imbalance...and I saved $50 at the tire shop and spent $10 on BBs instead.

 

[Jason Andrews]

I've run Equal in 33s, 35s, 37s, and 2 sets of 40's. And I've run air soft in a few of them. I could never tell the difference between them in terms of performance. Even used metal bbs which turned to powder eventually. In my experience they can all have the same issue of running out of balance at low speed which seems to be about 37mph for me. Also, for me, this seems to be remedied by rotating the tires if it does start happening.

I wouldn't hesitate to do air soft. I just weigh out the air soft to amount to the ounces recommended by Equal for your tire size.

 

[ChiTown]

Anything under 40" should balance out without any issues. If your tire shop is not able to do it find a shop with a road force balancer. The road force balance will show way more imbalances than a standard spin balance.

 

[tpham32]

I recently experimented with .2 grams airsoft pellets in my 35" kumhos. You are correct about them not balancing out at low speeds. I would have to drive above 40 mph for mine to balance out.

May I ask why you want to make the switch from lead weights to bbs?

I do a majority of driving around town so the bbs didn't really help me out, however when I did get up to speed the worked. I noticed some vibration and asked my local discount to take them out and put back lead weights to find where the vibration was coming from. So I rebuilt my axle and it drives a lot smoother. As of now, I just run lead weights. I haven't experienced a significance advantage of bbs over weights.

Everytime you slow down to a complete stop, you will hear the bbs as well and some people will give you weird looks.

 

[Delancy]

The only benefit to dynamic balancing that I've found, on a street driven vehicle, is if you're constantly knocking off weights or chunking tires and there's better solutions to address both those issues.

It's not a cure all by any stretch, regardless the forum banter and it's only beneficial to keep high speed rotation balanced, if the tire weight changes, ie lost weights or chunked lugs.

Having experience with on KM2S, opted for conventional for 37"
Krawlers on TR bead locks, and they balanced fine, so can't think of a circumstance that any other streetable tire could benefit from bead balancing.

 

[missouriman]

I use 180cc of rv anti freeze in each tire on my 36 super swamper sx's it is cheap, easy to add a bit more, and doesn't seem to rust the inside of the rims. Not sure how it works but it really helps. Also if you air down and do rock crawling you will be shocked at how much your beads leak. they are 12.5 tires mounted on a 8 inch rim, that I welded the edge of the rim for rubbing on the rocks.

here is what I am talking about,,, half way or so down the first page. I hope to learn as much about the 80 on here.. grin.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/ho...-axle-rock-crawler-thread.257685/#post6497297

 

[itbrokeagain]

My 38 inch tsls have I think 12 ounces in each tire (11/2 Styrofoam cups worth). They are ok. I had equal in a set of nittos. Those balanced out much better. I don't know if that's better tires or the balancing method

 

[Rifleman]

I use 180cc of rv anti freeze in each tire on my 36 super swamper sx's it is cheap, easy to add a bit more, and doesn't seem to rust the inside of the rims. Not sure how it works but it really helps. Also if you air down and do rock crawling you will be shocked at how much your beads leak. they are 12.5 tires mounted on a 8 inch rim, that I welded the edge of the rim for rubbing on the rocks.

here is what I am talking about,,, half way or so down the first page. I hope to learn as much about the 80 on here.. grin.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/ho...-axle-rock-crawler-thread.257685/#post6497297

We use to run antifreeze on the super single tires mounted on our M925A2, 5 ton military trucks. With the run flats, and 53 inch tall tires, the whole rim and tire package came in right around 500 pounds, so it was the only way to balance them.

 

[nuclearlemon]

http://www.centramatic.com/balancers.rhtml

 

[alia176]

May I ask why you want to make the switch from lead weights to bbs?

I dunno, just scratching my OCD when it comes to tire balancing I guess. My local DT are good fellas and wheelers so they do their best. Apparently, I want perfection DAMN IT Truthfully, my 315 Terra Grapplers are very civil but somewhere around 75 mph or so I pick up an out of balance from one of the tires. No biggie, I'll just take it back to them for a rotation and balance.

Speaking of using antifreeze for tire balancing, the tractor community uses beet juice for weighing the tires down. Beet juice doesn't rust the rims and is environmentally and dog friendly. I wonder if y'all can use it too for dynamic balancing?[/QUOTE]

 

[Howard705]

Not seeing any mention of tire trueness either concencric or side to side. The bigger tire diameters the more this matters and worse it usually is. Usually that is what you feel at low speeds. It can't be balanced away and I'm sure some brands have to be much better

 

[alia176]

Not seeing any mention of tire trueness either concencric or side to side. The bigger tire diameters the more this matters and worse it usually is. Usually that is what you feel at low speeds. It can't be balanced away and I'm sure some brands have to be much better

Very true indeed. Amazingly enough, all of my OEM rims are darn near perfect, even with 245k miles on the odo. Gotta love OEM quality.

 

[Tools R Us]

My experience with dynamic balancing has been mixed. It can work well on skinny tires, like on semis, where most often the problem is radial imbalance, the type that cause tires to hop vertically. The problem with wider tires that we use, is often lateral imbalance, the type that shakes the steering, beads, powder, liquid, etc don't deal with this well and Centramatic Balancers can't deal with it at all.

Radial imbalance.

Lateral imbalance

 

[AMMO]

I've tried just about everything mentioned above minus the liquids...

I'm going to try golf balls next week and see how those do.

-A

 

[alia176]

I've tried just about everything mentioned above minus the liquids...

I'm going to try golf balls next week and see how those do.

-A

That oughta get some attention at the stoplight, LOL!!

 

[AMMO]

Ha I'll let you know...

I found running the pellets they would "clump" up... Could be the C02 made them wet, or they were attracted to the oil on the "o" rings inside the tire...

Thought bigger might be better this time around...

-A

 

[98 SNAKE EATER]

How are they at high speeds? (85mph+)
I used them on city buses and mud trucks with good results, but never had to take any of them above normal driving speeds

 

[AMMO]

Ha... Now that's funny... Who drives an 80 Series at 85 MPH +...

Not happening in mine... 37's + Beadlocks & 5.29's plus 8" or so in elevation... Ya... Nope it's not built for speed my friend.

But I'll let you know how she rides at 70MPH