"Road Force Ballancer" (1 Viewer)

[azzzuki]

Ive ben chaseing a shake /shimmy for about three months now,all the wile knowing it was a tire ballance problem.
Tryed four different tire stores , not one could get the ballance right.
So i drove an hour and a half to Prescott az. to BigO ,they have a RFB.
After one hour, back on the road home............SMMMMMOOOOOTH...
They r ballanced!, no shake, no shimmy.all good!
The "Road Force Ballancer" is the way to go.

Rob

 

[CodyRx7]

Lucky....

 

[MSGGrunt]

Dyna Beads , IMHO, are the only way to balance off-road tires. Conventional balancing will only last until the tires start to wear. With Dyna Beads they are continuing to balance as tires wear. They made a world of difference on my very heavy Michelin XL's.

 

[GXO]

ditto

 

[kup99]

I had mine Road Forced too, and no more shakey.. I love it.. (33x12.5x15 Trxus MT's)

I too went to a few different shops, but they wouldn't even touch mine!!

 

[daveg]

Don't any a balance issue with my stock tires, but have experience with RFB, it's the only way to go. Had a steering wheel shimmy in my 2000 Honda Odyssey from day one. Had it to dealer many times and independent shops, no cure. Only happened between 65 and 70 and I rarely drive it. Even had dealer tell me that they can't road test at those speeds. Well a month before we were about to take the van to Disney I dove into the honda forums and found this to be a common prob, someone mentioned RFB and said it cured it. I had never heard of this before. Searched their site and turns out my Honda dealer just got one. Now we had been living with this for 3 years. I went in and told the service guy of my prob and history and asked for a RFB, he says he's not sure of price because they only use machine for warrenty work. So as I sat there and starred at him waiting for a better answer he says $65 for all four tires. Problem solved and drove 1000 shimmy free miles to disney.

-Dave G

 

[CodyRx7]

Haha - YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I woke up early today to meet with the "Mobile Balancer" guy at the local semi/construction tires shop with hopes of getting my 38.7" tires finally weight balanced.

He just had an enclosed trailer with some simple looking balancing machine inside where you manually start the tire going with a big crank on one end. He kept trying and trying and trying and his machine kept reading error over and over.

I started getting depressed since I've already been to every tire shop in the area and many times the "they can definately balance them for you" situations would turn into "there's just no way, kid" times.

The mobile balance guy takes the setup apart and starts rolling the tire into the main building towards the same balancer with a hood machine I've seen everywhere. I tell him that every place (including that one) has already told me these tires are too tall to fit and they can't use the machine and close the hood, etc.

We lift the tire up, slap on a few alignment cones, tighten it down and close the hood with plenty of room to spare. (?????)

It worked great. After removing the 4 golfballs in each tire and airing up to 35psi 3 of the tires spun, tested, and needed just over 7 ounces of weight inside. The last tire needed just over 3 ounces.

We mount them back on the truck with the 3 ounce tire up front. Despite all the time we spent there wearing eachother out picking up and moving these heavy bastard tires the guy tells me I just owe him $20 a tire. I hop in the truck to run to an ATM and all is PERFECTLY smooth. I pay the guy, and drive back home hitting speeds up to 65-70 on the hwy, slowing, stopping, turning - all smooth as glass.

I was guessing my death wobbles were definately gonna be the front DS, but nope. All bad balanced tires.

The only thing I'm changing is taking the tires down from 35psi to 25 or 30 as its too stiff on the bumps compared to when I ran 25psi before.

 

[-Spike-]

That's great! Now you're where I'm at- realizing how important the balancing is, then knowing that your tires are gonna wear, lose chunks, and spin on the wheel causing you to have to re-balance them occasionally. I haven't given up on some kind of self-balancing solution, perhaps the Equal.

Don't be suprised if you get the wobble again though- the bad balance was probably triggering it, but you have other problems that allow it to happen.

-Spike

 

[cruiser80]

Haha - YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I woke up early today to meet with the "Mobile Balancer" guy at the local semi/construction tires shop with hopes of getting my 38.7" tires finally weight balanced.

He just had an enclosed trailer with some simple looking balancing machine inside where you manually start the tire going with a big crank on one end. He kept trying and trying and trying and his machine kept reading error over and over.

I started getting depressed since I've already been to every tire shop in the area and many times the "they can definately balance them for you" situations would turn into "there's just no way, kid" times.

The mobile balance guy takes the setup apart and starts rolling the tire into the main building towards the same balancer with a hood machine I've seen everywhere. I tell him that every place (including that one) has already told me these tires are too tall to fit and they can't use the machine and close the hood, etc.

We lift the tire up, slap on a few alignment cones, tighten it down and close the hood with plenty of room to spare. (?????)

It worked great. After removing the 4 golfballs in each tire and airing up to 35psi 3 of the tires spun, tested, and needed just over 7 ounces of weight inside. The last tire needed just over 3 ounces.

We mount them back on the truck with the 3 ounce tire up front. Despite all the time we spent there wearing eachother out picking up and moving these heavy bastard tires the guy tells me I just owe him $20 a tire. I hop in the truck to run to an ATM and all is PERFECTLY smooth. I pay the guy, and drive back home hitting speeds up to 65-70 on the hwy, slowing, stopping, turning - all smooth as glass.

I was guessing my death wobbles were definately gonna be the front DS, but nope. All bad balanced tires.

The only thing I'm changing is taking the tires down from 35psi to 25 or 30 as its too stiff on the bumps compared to when I ran 25psi before.

golfballs?

 

[-Spike-]

golfballs?

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=141966&highlight=golf+balls+tire+balance

-Spike

 

[cruiser80]

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=141966&highlight=golf+balls+tire+balance

-Spike

very interesting. thanks.

 

[bderks]

Good god - just checked with a local shop here that has a Road Force - it's an exta $24 per tire.

So it would cost $45 to mount and balance EACH of my new Nitto A/T's. Is it really worth it???

 

[SteveH]

Doesn't a road force balance only work until you rotate the tires, or is the tire ok even if you move it to another location on the vehicle?

Steve

 

[Bryan E.]

Couple of thoughts

Doesn't a road force balance only work until you rotate the tires, or is the tire ok even if you move it to another location on the vehicle?

Steve

No Steve, the road force is balancing the wheel and tire. Even when getting the tire removed to patch a tire, as long as they put it back in the same location on the rim, it's still going to be ballanced. Doesn't matter where it rides on the vehicle, it's still ballanced. Now if you spin the tire on a rim, it's going to be out of ballance.

For the other fella with the Nitto's.

"Good god - just checked with a local shop here that has a Road Force - it's an exta $24 per tire.

So it would cost $45 to mount and balance EACH of my new Nitto A/T's. Is it really worth it???"

I wouldn't bother doing it in this application, depending on size. The larger the size, I think more benificial and really helpful the more agressive the tire.

When I got my Goodyear MTR's, I made a bunch of calls to different discount tire shops. I also got a reference from Airlaird who had dealt with a shop manager at local store. That shop dealt with larger tires and ballanced them great, so I had mine sipped and then paid the little extra for RF ballancing which was also a lifetime ballance. I can get them rebalanced on the RF any time.

I probably wouldn't spend the extra money on this unless I had a ballance problem, and then get the lifetime RF ballance. I think it was overkill on a 35" MTR, but had I gotten something like a TRXUS, think it would be absolutely mandatory. Just depends on the tires.

If they offer both systems and are a reputable store, I bet if the regular balance didn't work, they would upgrade you on the RF balance for just the extra cost difference.

A lot of balance depends on who is running the machine, whether it be RF or regular spin balance machine.

 

[MSGGrunt]

Why are people just not getting/using the Dyna Beads and being done with it? Any spin balance is only a temporary balance. A waste of time and money. Dyna beads will balance as the tires wear, as you lose chunks of tread, rotate tires etc... Conventional balancing will not do this. You will be forced to rebalance every month to be on par with what the DynaBead or to a lessor extent, equal, will do... Do it once and be done with it.... IMHO....

 

[CodyRx7]

I didn't use dynabeads because they are a very small material and inside each of my tires was a black greasy looking mess - which was either bead sealant or some sort of lube? (the tire shop I was at had similar looking stuff in a little bucket that was some kind of mounting lubricant?)

With that much goo in there it would be a royal pain to try to clean it completely out and I was worried that small media would stick to the black goo inside the tires and only make balance WORSE.

The golf balls didnt work like I expected/hoped, and the problem with ANY media inside the tire as with the golfballs was that hitting any bump in the road, or turning would upset the dynamic balance and the tires would be out of balance for a bit until the media found it's neutral spot in the tire again.

I'm positive it would be the same for small media as it is for larger media.

 

[chibo]

I'll be needing to try a roadforce or something soon. I had 33's put on today and the balance is pure s***.

They also cut quarter inch gouges in all of my wheels with their machine

 

[Capocaccia]

My BFG A/Ts are balanced out just fine. 285/75

 

[chibo]

My BFG A/Ts are balanced out just fine. 285/75

I'm thinking the person who did my balancing / mounting was new.

 

[MSGGrunt]

I can see where anything in the tire would preclude the use of a media type balancer. Really never thought of that. I guess if the truck is a daily driver that doesn't see all that much off-road use then the road force would be fine. Off-roading chunks tires, wears them quicker and can even spin the tires on the rims, all of which would require a rebalance at the end of the weekend. I guess each method has it merits and downfalls. While chasing shakes and shimmies, don't over look brake rotors and worn bushings.