Innovative Balance Beads: keep wheel weights or not?

[slickrock]

I am installing an 8 oz. pack of off-road innovative balancing beads into each of my BFG mud 35X12.50 tires because even with balancing done at a tire shop and with weights, they still are not running true (balanced twice at 2 different shops).

My question is and I am still waiting for return from Innovative Balancing but I need to do this ASAP, do I leave on my tire weights and install the beads, or take the weights off and install beads?

I have read both on the net, so personal experience would be helpful.

I plan on pulling the core from my valve stems, us my high lift and my bumper to break the bead, throw the beads in, and reseat the tire. As long as I don’t rotate the tire on the wheel, the weights should still keep their original orientation.

 

[Mace]

take the weights off and let the beads do what they need to.

 

[Tech Tim]

Did you have the wheels balanced first?

I find that alot of tire balance problems can be solved by having the wheel balanced first and then put the tires on and balance the whole package.

BFGs tend to balance in real nice, are the tires new or used?

 

[Bret]

I'm running those beads in my 36's with beadlocks (internal) and just ran the beads. No trouble and they do very well. The only thing I had happen was one of the beads got stuck in the stem when I was airing down once and had to get a shot of air to let it seal again, even with the "RV" beads which are suppose to be bigger. I didn't get the filtered stems but maybe I should have.

 

[rookie54]

out of curiosity what are you experiencing that is leading you to keep addressing this?

 

[slickrock]

Did you have the wheels balanced first?

I thought BFGs balance nicely too, but these tires are way out of balance. They had about 2,000 miles on them and rotated and were from a friend of mine (Blazer and only street driven). There was no strange wear patterns or anything that would casue me to be concerned about balancing.. One tire needed like 6 2 oz weights.

My wheels are good. I had cooper 35" SSTs on them and they balanced with little weight. Can’t figure out why two separate balancing and tires that didn't have a lot of weights on them before swapping to my wheels would be so difficult to balance.

I balanced them (with a machine the first time) and even dismounted two tires to spin them on the wheel to see why they needed so much weight. My wheels are true, even checked them. I drove them about 40 miles and went to another shop. Still lots of weight.

Figured beads would be my best bet now.

 

[slickrock]

I'm running those beads in my 36's with beadlocks (internal) and just ran the beads. No trouble and they do very well. The only thing I had happen was one of the beads got stuck in the stem when I was airing down once and had to get a shot of air to let it seal again, even with the "RV" beads which are suppose to be bigger. I didn't get the filtered stems but maybe I should have.

I ordered the "Off-Road" ones that do not require a filter. We will see if I need to add it later.

 

[smtyblt]

Most likely your problem is not balancing issues. We find here at the shop when you take off tires that have any wear on them from another vehicle and put them on a different vehicle that has different alignment numbers you get a tire that is not happy. It maybe balance perfectly and still vibrate. That is because the wear patter from one truck is different than another. I can tell you that is your problem.

 

[slickrock]

OK so what can I do about it? Do I just wait until they wear a bit more to follow my rigs wear pattern?

If that is the case, why would they take so much weight balancing?

 

[Mace]

You sure the tire carcass's are still good?

 

[BiffS]

i've had good luck running plumber's / RV antifreeze in my beadlocked 35s.

using 12 oz per tire, and no vibes at ALL on the highway doing 120km /hr.

 

[smtyblt]

Is it a hard vibration? and if it is, I would not run it like Mace said the carcass maybe bad but if it is a slight vibration rotate the tires and see if it gets better or goes away.
Again, if it is a slight shimmy it will most likely go away.

 

[Wild West Offroad]

Ooops, wrong post.

 

[Tech Tim]

I've found that the beads work OK in a wheel/tire combo that don't need a bunch of weight, but when you start reaching that 16-20 oz range, you really need to start increasing the amount of beads you run and they never do a good enough job.

I can't think of the name of it, but some of the big industrial tire tire shops have a tire "shaver" (?) that does an on-vehicle tire balance by shaving the tires with a special cutter. I think smtyblt has it right and from another vehicle to your vehicle, the wear patterns could be off a bit if the other guys truck put a weird wear into them.

 

[Bikeman]

The dyna beads in my 35's did nothing to make them run smooth in factory alloy wheels. The beads will not laterally balance a wheel/tire. Don't waste your time putting them in.

 

[boots4]

I ran them in my last rig (33x12.50s) and still had some vibs. I probably had a bent rim so I think they will work fine in a narrower tire but like Bikeman said they won't laterally balance so that style of balancing (whatever media being used, bbs, airsoft pellets, etc.) doesn't help much with a wider tire.

I found the opposite to be true and actually had worse vibs running media inside my current tires. I experimented with bbs and air soft pellets and took them out to go get a traditional wheel weight balance and when I drove it without any media the vibs were significantly reduced. I still have a little vib without any form of balance but for me it's an acceptable amount. Perhaps my vibrating diesel cancels it out . This was done on 38x15.50s.

 

[slickrock]

You sure the tire carcass's are still good?

Yes. THey were brand new and worked fine on the other rig.

 

[seb bigdodge]

Im running 35's on my 98 dodge. all I can say that it does not matter if my rim is full of mud when I come out of the woods and hit the paved road or not BB are all I will run from now on and alot of my friends are using them now and they will not go back to lead weights.

 

[ColoCruiserJeff]

I agree with the rest of the posters saying to leave 'em in and run with 'em.

I've driven 18 wheeler's for over 2 million miles....yeah - 2 MILLION miles (Austin Powers) and had balancing beads in every one of my tires. New and used, virgin and recaps - they all got beads.

I've seen the positive effects of the balancing beads / bbs / golf balls whatever the heck you want to put in them but they all have the same balancing effect.

If you're experiencing vibrations with the beads in place - you really need to inspect the inside tread belts of the tire. Any broken steel belt on the inside that has been weakened will give you a flat-spot and will be unseen until you really press on the treadwall hard (unmounted of course)

This may be a source of your issue. And all tires take weight to balance - some more than others. Hell - who cares how much weight it takes to balance out? Does it really matter as long as the end result is the same?