Krazy George's Wheel balancing tips.
Beginning of Part 2....
How do we do it....?
After you have determined the approximate amount of weight to start with, start at the valve stem,
to give you a point of reference easy to find, and apply the weight to the rim. I need (and prefer) to
use stick on or tape weights, as the Lowrider's wheels are chrome, and do not have a lip designed
for clip on weights. Your baskets and slicers have clearcoating, which will be damaged by clip ons,
so I'd use stickons for them, too. You can put a stickon exactly where you want it, in addition....clip
ons sometimes need to be stacked or jammed together, which is impossible without creating
dynamic imbalance. Also, they don't show. There are good stick ons and bad stick ons, so make
sure yours, if you use them, have the proper durable adhesive backing, and also make sure the rim is
clean....REALLY clean, where you want to put it. A tapeweight with a bad backing will allow the
backing to peel off the weight really easily. If it comes off there, it will come off the car. Use brake
cleaner or carb cleaner on a rag to clean the dirt and brake dust off the spot prior to sticking the
weight in place. Make sure the spot is clean and dry. Now....you have determined, for example, that
you need 1/2 ounce to try to remove the imbalance. Stickon weights come in strips of 2.5 to 4
ounces, marked in 1/4 or 1/2 ounce graduations. Break off the proper amount by bending it back
and forth, or use diagonal pliers, then remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the paper that protects the adhesive
backing. This piece of weight will be the sacrificial weight...used only to find the heavy spot, then
thrown away when you apply a fresh section from the weight strip. If you only take a portion of the
paper off the back, you can use it several times before it won't stick to the rim. Touch the sticky part
of the backing once with a clean finger. You want to decrease the strength of the adhesive, because
you are not placing this piece of weight permanently, and you want to be able to remove it from the
rim without leaving adhesive behind, which is a pain to clean up, and you want to use the weight 3
or 4 times before you need to remove more paper and do the whole thing again. Place the weight on
the rim in the vicinity of the valve stem, as close to its azimuth from the center as possible....azimuth
is a geometrical dimension, and is a straight line from the center of the wheel to the
edge...theoretically there are 360 of them, like in degrees in a circle. Try to locate the weight in a
horizontal part of the wheel, so that centrifugal force will help hold it in place. (Not down by the
bead) Someplace on the horizontal part of the rim between the spokes or wires would be good.
What you are doing now is locating the lightest part of the wheel. After placing the weight on the
rim and making sure it is secure, spin up the wheel with the engine. If the weight is in the proper
place, balancing out the heavy spot that is opposite the valve stem, the shaking should decrease in
intensity from what it was before, at the same speed. (About 1 out of 10 times, I don't need to move
the weight from the first place I apply it....just luck!) If it is not in the proper place, the shaking will
be more intense, and you know you need to move the weight. Take note of the amount of shaking,
as changes will indicate how close you are to the proper spot. If you need to move the weight,
move it 1/4 of the way around the wheel, either direction. We'll call this spot 2. Keep track of where
you move it...use the crayon and mark numbers of locations, so you won't repeat yourself if you
forget where it was two tries ago. If it gets worse at spot 2, move it to spot 3, which is 1/4 of the
way the OTHER way, or HALF way around from spot 2. If the shaking is the same as spot 2, then
move it to spot 4, which is half way around from the valve stem. In one of these locations, the
shaking should have improved. Remove all your spot marks from the tire using brake or tire cleaner,
and start over, from the spot where the shaking was least. Mark it as spot 1. (You are narrowing
down the area of your search for the sweet spot.) Go 3 or 4 inches in either direction and try it
again, marking this as spot 2. Using this technique, you can narrow down the location of the heavy
(actually the light spot, which is what you are correcting with the weight) spot, and when it doesn't
get any better moving the weight an inch or so either direction, prepare a new section of stickon by
removing all the backing paper, cleaning the wheel, and permanently mount the weight. A weight as
small as this one does not need to be split front and rear, but to decrease any further dynamic
imbalance, it should be mounted in the center of the rim, behind the spokes or wires. Make sure you
clean the spot for it with cleaner. When you are finding the light spot, it will be temporarily
mounted towards the front of the wheel, but at weights this small, dynamic errors introduced will be
slight, and eliminated when you mount the weight in the center. If there is a LARGE static error to
be found, you cannot spin the tire fast enough to start the dynamic shaking before the static error is
corrected or it will shake off the car. It is not impossible for a tire to be grossly dynamically out of
balance....if it is more than 2 ounces or so, it should be returned as defective and replaced. After
you have mounted the permanent weight, spin the tire up to 40 mph indicated, and see how it feels.
If it still slightly shakes, do the same thing over again, except you do not need to find the
heavy/light spot, you just need to adjust the amount you applied to that spot. Use another 1/4
ounce stickon, (depending on the amount of shaking/vibrating) temporarily applied to the rim next
to the permanent stickon....the temp one can be outside, where you can reach it, but it needs to be in
line with the permanent one. Spin the tire again, and check the difference. If if goes down half as
much, use a 1/2 ounce piece of temporary stick on, remove the 1/4 ounce piece, and try again. If
with the 1/4 ounce piece it got worse, try that same 1/4 ounce piece opposite the valve stem, to
easily remove half the weight you applied permanently. Whichever of these procedures decreases
the shake, you are getting closer and closer to a perfect balance. After each successful application
of a permanent weight, spin the tire up 10 or 15 more actual mph, to see how good it really is. After
you get the hang of this, you can balance your wheels up to 140 mph, 70 on the speedo, with no
shimmy at all in the fronts....depending, of course, on the quality of your tires and wheels.
End of Part 2
Created: Sept 09, 2000
Updated: Sept 09, 2000