Wheel balancing
 

Just bought a new rear tyre and was comtemplating fitting it myself, Does it matter if you dont have the wheel balanced?? will it give me the wobbles at higher speeds?? Spoke to a few boys who've done track days and they say it never bothers them.
Your views would be gratefully accepted.
Cheers
Cuffy

PS: Tahnks for all the replies about which can too get...have got a CCC coming tomorrow :wink:

You can balance a wheel with a pair of jack stands... You can even do it in the bike. You'll almost certainly get a less good result than a dealership with a dynamic balancer would but this is how it used to be done until quite recently. All you do is stick it on the stands/loosely in teh bike, spin the wheel, mark the spot that ends up at the bottom. Spin it again, is it the same place? Heavy side. Weight the other side. Continue until you get very bored of it.

Actualy, I'm reliably informed that dynamic balancers aren't as accurate as a decent static balancer, they are just quicker to use.

So much so that even MotoGP teams use static balancers.

If you're going to make tyre changes a regular thing, it might be worth buying something like a Metzler wheel balancer, which can be yours for ~£70.

I take it that the moto gp static balancers are used by people who rellay know what they are doing though, how much scope for user error do static balancers allow?

All a static balance will tell you is where the heaviest part of the wheel is - not by how much. Once you know where the heaviest part of the wheel is, you add weight untill it's balanced, but this is a trial and error process.

The advantage of a dynamic dalancer is by spinning the wheel, the machine can work out not only where weight needs to go, but how much needs to go there. This is why tyre retailers use them - they're quick.

The downside of the dynamic balancer is that it has to be calibrated (otherwise it's inacurate) - a static balance doesn't, it's always accurate.

You can't really make an error with the static balance (because you'll know the wheel still isnt balanced if you've done it wrong) it'll just take some time to get it right.

This can happen much quicker than you think. First the tyre and get it balanced for a few quid?

Well in the end i got my brother to do it....lucky ol me he works for dymag and they got all the kit there.....was hoping he was gonna stick it on a nice carbon rim for me by accident :wink: but he didn't :(
Thanks for all the help...all i gotta do now is fit the CCC and remove the baffles :D more than likely i'll get stuck on this too so be prepared for the next set of numpty questions by my good self.
Adios for now
Cuffy

Very true, but a dynamic balancer (or proper static balancer) has easier bearing movement than doing it on the axle. Also taking into account relative skill levels (though tyre balancing usually gets done by the garage monkey in bigger places, so that won't count.

As i understand with car wheels you've static balance which is the simple which side of the wheel is heavest but you've also got dynamic balance which is to do with how the wheel twists when spinning.

Is the same on bike wheels? If so, and this is what's going to confuse people (myself included) would a non-electrical mechanical balancer (which has been refered to as static balaner) be able to balance the rotational balance? (that doesn't make much sense).

The lines i'm thinking of is buying or finding an old fashioned balancer and working out how to do it myself as no one can balance my rather oversized car wheels properly it seems.

Yep, that's true. A proper static balancer like the metzler one has wheels with decent bearings and comes with a perfectly balanced rod to place the wheel.

A cheap static balancer will work just fine for your car wheels (unless there is some weird difference for car wheels im unaware of).

A static balancer does what you need - it shows if the wheel is out of balance and where to put the weight (but not how much).

It's the spinning of the wheel in a dynamic balancer that allows the machine to work out not only where the weight goes, but how much. But you can work this out through trial and error with a static balance.