Does anyone ever get their wheels balanced ,or do it themselves? I was looking into balancing my own. It looks easy enough. Then I saw this product on a website. What do ya think? Worthwile or worthless?

http://wingstuff.com/pgroup_detail.php?pgroupid=27738

Caveat: Pure speculation.... thinking out loud....

On fairly smooth surfaces, I expect they probably work as advertised.

On irregular surfaces, or where there is a lot of directional changes, three to two wheel transitions, sliding etc. I expect the effectiveness would be reduced and it would be more a case of having your own personal pinball machine.

ATB,
Sam

The general consensus on the motorcycle forum I used to go to was that they're junk. Of course, that could have been a lot of armchair quarterback type commenting. I've never actually known anybody to use them so couldn't say for sure.

I have balanced motorcycle tires with stick on weights and it's pretty easy to do...just put a rod through the wheel, spin it, and add weight to the side sticking skyward when it stops spinning. Repeat until it spins freely without any heavy spot settling to the bottom.

Although I've never used them in a buggy wheel I am familiar with their automotive use. Their main problem is that they don't produce any kind of accurate and/or useful balance at speeds below 50mph. I would think this kind of rules out using them in buggies as we're not spending most of our time above 50mph (unless you live near Ivanpah). They're great for long haul trucking though. Tire life is extended by 2-3 times.

WG go to Harbor Frieght and buy a wheel balancer and get some self sticking lead and do it yourself. The beads in theary are great. But water would do the same thing at high speeds and costs nothing. Bad wobble in freezing temps though for the first few miles

Forgot to mention that my experience with them was on 35" tires on a custom Toyota I have. Once up to highway speeds they definately smooth out the ride on a tire that would otherwise be unbalanceable (35x17.50x15). Don't work at all though at city speeds. Additionally total mass makes a difference. Large truck tires will see an obvious difference at speed. Something small like a 17" motorcycle tire will see no noticable difference as there is simply not enough mass out of balance for the beads to have any effect.

does slime help with balance? I'm running tubes so the mess is no problem.I think the tubes are what is causing the unbalance condition . Even my landboard wheels are unbalanced. When you spin em really fast ,you can feel the pulling of the condition. I think it is caused by the valvestem and the thicker rubber attached to it

Slime doesn't do anything to help with balance. Is it just one buggy tire that's giving you the problem or all of them? If it's just one tire then you might want to dismount it to check for any problems and try mounting it again. I've found that if your not careful while inflating the tire/tube it's possible for it to look properly mounted but upon closer inspection the tire is out of round by 1/8 inch on one side more than the other. Deflate completely & try again. If that doesn't work and it's just one wheel perhaps you got a dud and could replace just that tire. Just a thought.

And use tire grease on the beads. With ubes often the beads do not get pushed out far enough and you can get a wobble. If the tire has a rim protect bead then it will be even harder to get the bead on fully.
Grease it up it goes easier!!:wee:

Oh and by the way I would use TUBES instead of UBES

no the tires are fine. there is no wobble and they are centered fine . And if you hold an axle and spin it ,it is fine. But if you hold it and spin it really fast you can feel the weight differnce. It is only slight, but X 3 that could be alot of parasitic drag. I checked my landboard and they are horrible when spun up. But the ratio of imbalance is higher because the valvestem is larger compared to the wheel.(on the board) The buggy wheels are way larger and the valvestem is still about the same size as the boards, so it doesn't affect it as much. I was just just wonderin if anyone ever did anything about it, or has no one ever noticed this?

Ahhhh, that clears it up. If you run your tires at high pressure you might notice this subtle imbalance. I usually used 8-10 lbs in the standard flexifoil tires and around 4 in the new tires. Slight imbalances are less noticable with less pressure and you get a nicer ride

i got my beads at nabx/sbbb 2010 they work great for me .got my set off steve irby, he's a blowkarter now that live's in edmonds wa.

So,someone does use em.
Thanks doublespeed360

I used them on a motorcycle that I could feel was out of balance at highway speeds. I put in the recommended amount and it fixed the imbalance.

steve brought a bunch with him to nabx/sbbb i was there with the blowkart ppl the week before . i went to there work shops learn a bunch of stuff.i used them and they made a differnce for me. i don't use them around here[ nahant beach ] cuz my beach is only a mile 1/2. they swish until you get up to speed.