Power Kite Forum

Balancing Tires on Sysmic wheels

JimSSI - 24-9-2017 at 04:47 AM

Recently upgraded to 4" wide Sysmic wheels using 18x10.50-8 Turfglide tires. The wheels are excellent, but the tires are not running as true as I hoped.

They don't seem to be out of round, but there is a wobble left to right, on all three tires, more noticeable at >30 mph (of course). Relatively high pressure (25 psi?). Their balance seems good - they stop spinning randomly, no 'heavy' sides - so not sure it's a balancing issue.

Is this a flaw with this set of tires, this brand of tire, or golf cart tires in general?

I guess my question is - what can I expect to achieve here?

Windstruck - 24-9-2017 at 07:53 AM

Jim - sorry to hear you're experiencing some wobble. I'm going to make a guess that this is a tire and not a rim issue. There are a ton of folks on PKF that use and love Sysmic rims and I don't recall reading about wobble coming out of the rims.

While I don't have any personal history with 4-ply "golf cart" tires (though I know others have) I and others have had good success with 6-ply "trailer" tires. These beasts are major league overkill in many ways and do come with a distinct weight penalty but otherwise going the 6-ply trailer tire route will get you in the Humvee of tires club. Not sure about the widths and heights trailer tires come in, but I suspect you could find something.

I appreciate that my response is not likely to be overly helpful. Good luck!

BeamerBob - 24-9-2017 at 12:09 PM

Something else to consider is that due to the right bead on the rim, you possibly didn't get the beads fully seated. Maybe not the case but a possibility. Lots of soapy bubbles help.

JimSSI - 24-9-2017 at 08:13 PM

Thanks, guys - yeah, it's tires not wheels. you can see the lateral runout at speed. And they were a bear to get seated properly - will examine that possibility.

Chook - 24-9-2017 at 10:49 PM

I totally agree with Beamer Bob. It would be a bead not seated correctly. Many people blame the tyre casings, but it's usually a seating problem if they are quality tyres.

They need a lot of pure (undiluted) dishwashing fluid smeared around the beads of the tyres and also the edges of the rims bead area. (Of the "safety bead rim" that the Sysmic design has built into it.)

If possible I let the tyres heat soak in the sun for a few hours, or if it's cool weather on the seat of a car in the sun to soften them slightly. They need to well lubed to be fitted, then inflated to 25psi and left at this pressure to creep into position on the rim. Deflate them an hour or so later to a pressure of your personal preference.

I have corrected quite a few mates tyres this way.

To break the beads don't completely deflate them. Leave only 1 or 2psi in them and this will support the tyres wall, so all the pressure of the bead breaker acts near the rim. When you have one off, smear it with dishwashing detergent and reinflate to 1psi and then pop the other side bead. The first side will then be a simple job to remove now.

When inflating them a big supply of high pressure air is required to get "Beach Racers" or "Bigfoots to pop out and seat correctly.

I often use the explosive method to seat tyre beads using underarm deodorant and a lit rag on a stick to be well clear when igniting them. Work your way up carefully with the dosage rate of deodorant.:D

Windstruck - 25-9-2017 at 05:58 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Chook  
I totally agree with Beamer Bob. It would be a bead not seated correctly. Many people blame the tyre casings, but it's usually a seating problem if they are quality tyres.

They need a lot of pure (undiluted) dishwashing fluid smeared around the beads of the tyres and also the edges of the rims bead area. (Of the "safety bead rim" that the Sysmic design has built into it.)

If possible I let the tyres heat soak in the sun for a few hours, or if it's cool weather on the seat of a car in the sun to soften them slightly. They need to well lubed to be fitted, then inflated to 25psi and left at this pressure to creep into position on the rim. Deflate them an hour or so later to a pressure of your personal preference.

I have corrected quite a few mates tyres this way.

To break the beads don't completely deflate them. Leave only 1 or 2psi in them and this will support the tyres wall, so all the pressure of the bead breaker acts near the rim. When you have one off, smear it with dishwashing detergent and reinflate to 1psi and then pop the other side bead. The first side will then be a simple job to remove now.

When inflating them a big supply of high pressure air is required to get "Beach Racers" or "Bigfoots to pop out and seat correctly.

I often use the explosive method to seat tyre beads using underarm deodorant and a lit rag on a stick to be well clear when igniting them. Work your way up carefully with the dosage rate of deodorant.:D



Chook has definitely set the record straight. Nice post mate! As for the explosive pressure thing, when the guys at my local tire shop mounted my 6-ply trailer tires on my 4x8 Sysmics they used something called a Bead Bazooka (great name!).

Bead Bazooka.jpg - 9kB

Chook - 26-9-2017 at 05:47 AM

Cheers Windstruck!!!

Now the Bazooka is something I'd like to try after checking them out on YouTube. Thanks for the heads-up.:thumbup:

JimSSI - 26-9-2017 at 08:25 PM

I'm dying to let my inner redneck out - a little WD40, a wooden match - yeah, Bubba. But, I use tubes. And I checked all three today - seated beads all around. One tire spins true-er, with little runout. That'll get moved to the front. Upon further inspection, each of the other two have a very slight 'bulge' in the side wall, where maybe 1/6 of the tire sidewall is a bit higher than the other 5/6, not anything dramatic. You see it more than feel it. Mainly noticed by viewing against the unmoving front fender

Now to find some high speed trailer tires with a good tread pattern

Thanks, guys.

Chook - 27-9-2017 at 06:10 AM

Yeh some of the ribbed 4 ply barrow tyres we use on land yachts are VERY poorly constructed, with hideous lumps where the ply's overlap. Quality barrow tyres that we push to over 100kmh are hard to find in Australia.

The "Kings" brand were extremely well made, but again hard to source.

Yeh love your thinking, just like you, the one with the least amount of run-out onto the steer.

I've tried the ceramic balls as used in truck tyres in my tubeless Beach racers with some improvement to balance, but you cant beat a quality casing.