[Mr. G]

I stumbled across some ads for modern versions of the bubble balancer for tires and was a little curious if these things would actually be any good. I get tired of having to drive 20 miles to a tire place for mounting and balancing and if I could do it at home it would be great. I do have a manual tire mount and dismount thing so a balancer would give me the freedom of trying different wheel and tire combos without the long drive and cost.

[george kujanski]

A static balancer works ok if the tire/wheel combo has an unbalance mass in the center of the tread width. If the unbalance mass is offset, i.e. towards a sidewall, a static balancer will not correct it. A dynamic, i.e. spin balancer detects the off-center mass and corrects for it by putting the weights in the proper location on the wheel rimThe bancer displays the amount of the required weight and rim location to cancel the unbalance mass. i used to typically balance to a final value of .1oz. which amounts to a sheet metal clip weight back in my days at Sun Electric.

george

[Mr. G]

Thanks for the info. Looks like I will still be making the long drive to the tire shop.