Anyone use tire balancing beads?
 

I'm actually looking for a system that uses beads/bearings in a steel ring attached to the rim. But, there are some products that will have you place loose beads inside the tire casing.

Edit: I found Centramatic as a starting point.

My neighbor uses them on his Harley and has made very good comments about them. I don't know any of the particulars other than that.

I have used them in my BMW motorcycles. Worked great. I have used centramatic style on some trucks as well. Not sure if they worked better than normal balancing in that application.

Be careful of the sand type products. We had some issues with them clumping up with age and throwing the tire wayyyy out of balance

Yes, with great success. That said I'm using a couple inches if Walmart airsoft bb's instead of the products you purchase specific for the job. Work excellent in a fleet of vehicles and cost almost nothing.

Only hiccup is you need to install when mounting tires as they don't fit through the valve stem.



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Beads. I cant see how these can possibly work any better than the Turbo Twister exhaust tip. How can a bead find the light side of an off balance tire? The heavy side of the wheel should be throwing a wider radius than the light side. All the beads will roll down hill.

If someone can explain how they work, Id like to hear it. I just dont get it.

I have never tried them. I am not so sure I buy into them. Wouldn't adding a fluid (leak stop?) do the same thing?

I have used the ceramic beads in my Unimog tires, and on my new tires I am using the liquid tire balancer. Suppose to make the tire run cooler and is way easier to put into the tire.

same here

There are various uniformity parameters that give the feel of a balance problem. Some can be corrected using weights. Not sure how beads compare. Like I said, I am not sold.

Radial - a localized high spot. Say a heavy tread splice. You will feel a bump.
Radial harmonics - at some speeds you will feel the vibrations and you will drive oit of it. You may feel vibration at 30, 45, and 60 but little or no vibration at 40, 50, or 70.
Radial runout - an out orf round tire. A tire cooked off center in a mold.
Lateral - side to side travel during rotation. Snaked belts or tread. Tall and skinny tires are more susceptible. Low profile tires are less susceptible.

None of rhe above can really be"fixed" with beads or weights. All can be felt in the steering wheel or your butt.

Now we get to balance.

Static. Balance the wheel/tire on a pin and add weight to the light side. You can put that weight on the WSW (non serial side) or the BSW side (serial side/DOT info) and you get "balance". A heavy liner splice for example.

Easy peazy. But it sucks. Does not take into account rhe dynamics of tire rotation

Now dynamic balance. Checking for balance at speed. A tire may show perfect static balance but could suck in dynamic. You might have a heavy splice at 12 oclock on the serial side but a heavy (tapered) ply splice at 6 oclock on the non serial side. The two areas balance each other out during static testing but at speed the two cause the tire to shake back and forth. Weights added to both serial and non serial sides.will be needed to correct the imbalance.

Will beads be able to dampen dynamic balance by placing beads on both serial and sides and 180 degrees apart?

Not sure.

One of my customers has me put them in his motorcycle tires when I am installing new tires for him. Just for grins I put his wheels on my computer balancer to see what readings I got. After multiple tries they were never in balance, and the machine called for weight in different locations after each attempt.

^^^ Well there you go. Thank you.

The plausible explanation I found mentioned that the beads only work if an unbalanced tire is rolling down the road. As the heavy spot in the tire causes the tire to move up the beads don't move up as rapidly and un-weight the heavy spot. Something like that - google it. In other words the suspension bouncing up and down due to a bad balance is what makes the beads work. The only way I can think of for an apples to apples test is to use accelerometers on the suspension arm(s) and compare along the same road at the same speed. Not easy to do without funding. I'm not saying that they work or that the explanation I found is correct but it is the best explanation I found.

I don't know how they work but they work well in my 2 914's and I plan to use them in my motorcycle and my 3rd 914. My motorcycle riding neighbor says it's quite common to use in moto tires.

I've heard them used in commercial, and oversized off road tires. no experience. I just had the last set of 37" tires balanced on the machine for my hmmwv.

That video only demos static balance. One heavy spot. No proof of helping dynamic balance where the are varying weight on two planes.

Add a second similar weight near the drill chuck. Place the weight 180 degrees from the first weight and then do the same test.

Prior to rotation it will have good static balance. During rotation it will wobble like a crazy sob. To correct this dynqmicc imbalance half of the beads will need to position themselves opposite each weight.

I use them in my 34" bias ply tires on my Bronco. These tire are notoriously hard to balance and I didn't want a ring of weights to look at on the wheels. They seem to work fine to me. You can feel them fall out of balance when you drive over a rough expansion joint on a bridge or something then they smooth out again in the next 75 feet or so.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1922/...76d124e6_b.jpgIn the Sand by willtel, on Flickr