Quote:
Originally Posted by mgarblik
That Hunter "Mexican Hat" wheel balancer is in mint condition. That's the first balancer I was taught to use. They would work great on 8 lug wheels. A very dangerous tool to use if you were not careful. The motor could easily spin the wheels way over 100 MPH. On top of that, you had to grab the green and red knobs on the hat while the wheel was at speed to add or remove weight and to locate the weight on the wheel. Very ingenious tool. They were especially dangerous on chrome wheels like Oldsmobile Rallye wheels. The adapter and mexican hat could slip off at speed and go flying off the car at dangerous speeds. We had one fly off and break several glass panels out of the shop overhead door, keep going another 100 ft. out into 4 lanes of traffic. OSHA would NEVER allow a tool like that in a shop today! Good times.
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Yeah, we had one in our dealership back in the early 70's. One of the guys didn't lock it down and as you said well over 100mph it came off climbed his workbench, the wall behind the bench, up to the ceiling, half way across the ceiling and down onto the car he was working on. It was like a buzz saw, and all of us guys running for cover! For all it's shortcomings I liked using it better than our Alimite strobe balancer.