Should Rally II wheels be lug balanced?
 

I have just finished blasting, masking and painting some Rally II wheels for my 68 Bonneville. I have read that Rally II wheels are lug centric and not hub centric. Is that really the case?

In the past I was unaware of any difference and just let the tire shop have at it with the central balancing cone. Before I have the tires swapped to the freshly repainted set of wheels, do the Rally II really need to be lug centered? I have called around and while the local shops are familiar with the terms hub centric and lug centric, none of them perform pin balancing and don't have a 5 x 5 pin plate. How is everyone out there approaching this?

I have also read about buying a 5x5 wheel spacer and asking the tire shop to try using the spacer as an adaptor. Again, is this really necessary?

Thank in advance for any help!

Watching-

Because of the forming tools used to make the rally II wheels, the "best possible" balance would be achieved with a lug-centric adapter. Is it necessary? That's strictly up to the end user IMO. I recently balanced a set of 15X7 ralley II wheels for my 73 TA with a cone. I have had it up to 80 MPH a couple times so far, smooth as silk. I make sure the radial and lateral runnout is within specs. with the cone before balancing. If you can get it within .030" lateral and .060" absolute max radial, measured on the tire near the outside of the sidewall, it should balance just fine.

My guess is if lug-centric balancing was critical, no-one would have Rally IIs. It might be a technically better way to balance these but I speculate the odds of NEEDING lug-centric is low enough for most to get by without it.

I did call around, though, and found 2 shops within a 20 minute radius that had adapters and were familiar with the difference. I will go this way just because I can.

My situation is a little different because I have 14" rally IIs. I plan to get the wheels themselves checked out before I buy tires. If the wheels balance and check out OK, I'll buy tires. If not, I will be looking for 15" wheels or maybe larger to have more tire options.

been running them since 91 and only ever noticed any issues when i had two or fewer lug nuts!

They definitely should be balanced lug centric. I got two RII wheels balanced and one came out right and one was out of balance after being hub centrically balanced. Just my POV.

thank you for the responses. It looks a little mixed, with do lug centric if possible. I will call around to a few more shops to see if they can do pin balancing.

Any thoughts on the idea of using a wheel spacer for the purpose of adapting to the balancing machine? An Atlas Universal Adaptor runs at least $500 brand new, so not looking to purchase that.

Ive been balancing them hub centric for decades, never any issues.

I use to pine for Rally IIs with a Hub-entering disk welded-on. But, never really needed that.

The dominant issues are bent rim and flattened lug seats. All mechanical things wear, then wear out.

That sounds like a good approach. Old steel wheels are often bent. They can be bent from curbing or deep pot holes and really show no damage until checked on a balancer.

You didn't mention what car you were working on. But on old full size Pontiacs, I have balanced the wheels using the brake drum and bearing races to center the lug-centric wheels on the balancer perfectly. Produces great results but pretty involved removing the bearing cones, grease and so forth. No commercial tire store would go through the time and effort involved. But when you have time and little money, there are ways to get excellent results. (front drums)

I have converted to 69/70 front disk, but may still have a front drum somewhere, but I agree, I just dont see a busy tire store taking the time to try that out. Spent some more time calling around this morning and none of the shops I've contacted so far provide lug centric balancing. I would have thought the offroad or ricer places would do it. Nothing so far. Anyone know of a shop in the Nashville area that does

Just about ready to throw in the towel and hope for the best with hub centric.

All your shops are going to be hub centric with maybe a select small percentage that might even have a lug adapter if you're lucky.

Hub is fine, you're over thinking it. If the wheel is bent then the wheel is bent. It's a plentiful wheel and easy to replace.

If you want to get down to it and eliminate all possibilities you really need the balancer that spins it on the car, does the drum, rotor, axle, all of it. I have a snap on that does this, quite entertaining to use lol.
You would be hard pressed to find a shop with that equipment thanks to OSHA. Most are just going to use a hub centric and 99.9 percent of the time that's perfectly fine and has been for 60-70 years. Hell before that shops had a bubble balancer that actually worked half way decent. When I was a teenager there were still a couple shops I grew up around using those. Based on the crowd here you guys would be appalled LOL

To double check hub centric balancing procedure here is what you do .After wheel is balanced to 0 or as close to 0 as possible ,have mechanic rotate wheel on shaft 90° then rebalance,most of the time it will need more weight or it wasn't correctly done the 1st time.I purchased my own tire balancer to get my rallys done right.Oem ralleys are harder to spin true than the reproduction rallys like Vintique.Ive got some stock Honeycomb and these things are almost a must to have lug centric adapter

Adapter I use instead of an old disk rotor
 

Adapter I use vs an old disk rotor

Depends on the balancer used as well. If you want a road force balance, you need to be lug centric, period. Most of the regular balancers will do ok on a hub centric setup.

I bought some tires at my local Walmart and asked about this when I had the tires balanced. They had an adapter there that had 5 pins and was adjustable for different bolt circle diameters. It had a hole in the center that their machine located off of. The guy there said that they never use it but they did have it. I had them use it and the tires seem to be balanced ok. I did this with Ralley II wheels.

Posted a reply that did not show up. I bought and adapter like Joe posted to balance my Weld ProStars. They are actually 3 piece the outer and inner squeeze on a center portion as lug nuts tightened. The center can rattle around untightened. Hard to fine a lug centric balancer here in Houston!