Wheel balancing without weights

[rcooled]

Sorry for re-posting if this has been discussed before, but does anyone have any experience with these things? Dynabeads are small (1mm) ceramic beads that you place inside your tires and, once the wheel is in motion, distribute themselves in such a way as to balance the wheel on the fly. The claim is that they work best with relatively narrow, high-profile tires and that they're widely used in tractor-trailer and motorcycle tires with great results.

Dyna Beads

[porsche4life]

We tried something like that in our truck tires. Was this bag of crap that you tossed in and it broke up and balanced. Worked great until the crap started clumping up and threw the tires seriously out of balance. Ended up having to buy new tires to straighten it out.

Oh and our truck mech cussed us up and down for putting that stuff in. Apparently it was no fun to clean up when he pulled the tire off.

[Jeff Higgins]

The guys I know that have tried them in bike tires all went back to normal weights. I'm not sure what their objection was. They don't have that great of a reputation. The beads - not these guys. Er, on second thought...

[afterburn 549]

In theory , it should work.
Sand balance gyroscopes automatically.
I use a liquid balance for my motorcycle tires. ( is puncture cure in it too)
Not sure why it would not work for you.
In my 18 wheelers we used stuff called Equal, which was just dry sand..

[porsche4life]

Equal was the crap we used in the trucks.

[afterburn 549]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Equal was the crap we used in the trucks.

Worked for us in our Low Boy tires real well......17.5 16 ply
But, they were a high wear item no matter what we did......

[on2wheels52]

My Ural came with the beads in two of the tubes, I wasn't impressed with them. But what a pia to try and get out.
I'm something of a motorcycle tire balance curmedgeon but since I have a balancer I usually put some lead on them.
Jim

[rcooled]

Thanks, guys. I thought I might give this stuff a try in my Karmann Ghia, but maybe I'll just stick with tried & true wheel weights instead.

[M.D. Holloway]

prolly a reason why it didnt catch on

[wdfifteen]

There used to be a hollow ring, like a small hoola hoop that you could clip on the inside of your rim. It had some kind of sand or beads in it. This was 40 years ago. I only saw them once and I didn't think to ask the owner how he liked them.

[Mo_Gearhead]

QUOTE: "a hollow ring, like a small hoola hoop..."
_________

Ok, I'm no engineer - so someone needs to chime in and help me.

If you take a perfectly round, smooth, hollow ring (that is slightly unbalanced) - and you place perfectly round, smooth beads inside it and spin it at a high RPM - are you suggesting that the beads will somehow congregate at the unbalanced spot and magically collect there? Rather than just distributing themselves evenly around the fast spinning ring?

I would like to know what physical science term that action would be called.

[vonsmog]

I use it in my Unimog and it works very well. I do know that it is not recommended for low profile tires.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by rcooled

I thought I might give this stuff a try in my Karmann Ghia,

Rcooled, a thought, just a thought... Would you like to start a ultimate Karmann Ghia thread with pics and details of your car?

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Rcooled, a thought, just a thought... Would you like to start a ultimate Karmann Ghia thread with pics and details of your car?

Well, never really thought of doing that, but I'll see if I can find a few suitable pics and maybe get something started.

[McLovin]

Seems like the answer to a question nobody asked.