I have just got my car back from fairly extensive suspension work, followed naturally with an alignment. The warning part comes from some sage advice that FChat member Carl888 who is a wheel alignment specialist. Carl had warned me about operators who do not know how to use their equipment properly and mistake positive for negative and vice versa. Not one, but TWO separate specialists made this BASIC mistake on my car, instead of giving me agressive rear toe in, for track usage, savage toe out!! Both "specialists" had the latest equipment and appeared very competant, one having three race cars in at the same time as mine. Moral of the story, until you have checked( with string or whatever) that your alignment shop knows the difference between negative and positive on their equipment, don't trust that they do! When you do manage to find someone that does, don't go anywhere else, it isn't worth the headaches..
also check that the equipment used actually fits the wheels rims snugly, without binding up on tyres and without resting on damage or balance weights. Also, the widest possible anchorage point is best.. I saw one last week that picked up off the rim just 3" apart top and bottom, with a vague fitting method. Check wheel run out, bearings and bushes and tyre pressures before even starting. Load the car as necessary (fuel/passenger etc), verify the ride heights. If big changes are made, road test and re-check.
Here's a question for Carl888 or anyone else. It is on the subject of not knowing how to use the equipment. I am trying to decide whether to just static balance with a cheap level balancer or go with a full on dynamic spin balancer. The answer is obvious use the spin balancer. Shops use them because they are fast but not necessarily the right way. I was reading the instructions on a balancer and it said it has static and dynamic balance abilites. Static is really one plane balancing and dynamic is really 2 plane balancing. So to dynamically balance you need to enter the diameter and width of your wheel tire into the machine before you spin it up of you default to static balance. Guess what. 1) When is the last time you ever saw a tire monkey reset the machine for your tires? Mostly they just push the spin button. 2) When was the last time this machine was even calibrated? 3) Here in Kali. there are fancy cars all over and polish and shine owners do not want wheel weights to show so weights are always on the inside not visible. Well thes 3 things lead me to belive that we are really single plane static balancing wheels/tires not doing a true dynamic balance. 4) Another racer friend says he static balances his race tires with no problems with vibration. I thought I'd try it because it is 10 times cheaper equipment. 5))So I mounted 4 new tires and used a cheap sinlge plane dynamic balancer placed my weights and ran the car. So far up to 100mph there is no vibration. In my mind there is absolutely no question that 2 plane balance is better. however, I posit to the FC audience that we are mostly getting single plane static balancing and that there is basically no difference felt on the road. So Carl888 did I just get lucky with my 1 set of tires or is my logic sound? I like gadets and I kinda hope someone has some good reasons I'm wrong so I can justify buying a new balancer toy.
I think the state of art is Load Force Balancer, which actually presses the wheel into a roller as it spin balances. Recommended by Tire Rack. I have used it, and it is the first time I have had a balancer tell me to send new tires back as they couldn't meet the acceptable specs for load force balance. These balancers give you a number which shows how close to perfect the balance ends up, and over .20 (I think that is what they said) is unacceptable and back to Tire Rack went two of four tyres. They replaced no problem. Jim
Oh what the hell, I'm always sticking me foot in me mouth, so what the hay. Step into the time machine booth with me as we step back 30 years............ Okay, not quite, its only 1977. Hey, my 308 was built this year, maybe we should have stopped in Modena? I was in an auto mechanics class at Vo-tech. this particular area of education was going on, and we had three different computer spin balancers. One was the kind that spins the whole wheel and hub on the car by placing a drum against the tire to spin it, with this big goofy hub cap thing placed on the wheel. It was suggested we balance the tires on our own cars on the three machines. The trouble was that I had just bought a brand new set of tires, and the machanic bubble balanced them. He found the amount of weight needed to center the bubble, split it in half, and spaced maybe a foot apart. He chalked the spots, then using a cheap caliiper, made marks on the opposite side of the tire, and placed 1/4 the weight in each spot, and rechecked the balance. That car drove like it was on glass. I could drive it up to 130mph indicated (hotted up Mazda RX2) without any shimmy or shake. So, I pulled off all four wheel and re-balanced them at school. All three machines made the balance worse, far far worse. The best was that the car didnt shimmy until I was over 70 mph, but if you said anything you got that stupid reasoning that you wernt supposed to drive that fast. I went back to the tire shop and told the guy what I had done, and if he would please re-balance the wheels. Instantly the car was back to that on glass ride. I spent a year working at a Firestone Tire dealer when I got out of school, doing wheel alignments all day long, and changing tires and spin balancing when called upon. They had a guy come in once a month and supposedly calibrate it, but every car I ever drove still shimmied at high speed. Do you know how they balance a airplane propellor? Static balance. Thats right, that big prop on an Aero Commander that costs as much as $20,000, gets balanced statically. And if it were to vibrate it could set up a resonance that could litterally rip the engine off its mounts. Know how they balance helicopter blades? Yeah, static balance. Thats how they balanced wheels on many of the world land speed record rocket cars too. Now I realise someone is going to say those things revolve in a narrower plane, that many new wheels and tires are wider, and need a better balance. I would argue that if you had the proper equipment, and it was calibrated for that exact tire and wheel combination, you might get a better balance, but as the question was asked, do you want weights on the outside of the rim? Because thats where the machine said to put the weight, not somewhere else. Any other place you put the weight defeats the purpose of a spin balancer. But if you bubble balance, and you are accurate, you will always be properly static balanced. Last fall I bought a Micro bubble balancer, built in 1969, just like they all used in service stations all over the country. It will be good enough for me.
Hey Paul, I've heard this story before, years ago now, sadly never paid attention to it but sounds interesting. I would like to balance my wheels and tires myself and buying a bubble balancer would be relitively cheap compared to the other methods. I don't mean to sound dense here but I'm not sure I completely understand how the method you describe works. If you are, lets say 2oz. heavy on one side you would split the weight 1/2 oz. in four spots, on the front and back of wheel, from the centerline of the heavy spot? Thanks for your input on this, Regards, Vern
Well there's a whole new market for the driving schools. Who's going to take a performance course to sit in gridlock? But you could teach people to recognize the feel of an unbalanced wheel or a misconfigured alignment. At least, on a good car you can. I've had rental cars where the steering wheel felt like it was attached to the tires by a very loose rubber band. On the Ferrari, I can feel the difference of 1-2 psi in a tire. I had a botched alignment from a Toy dealer. The worst part is the Deux ex Machina complex: It took me an hour to convince them to re-check the findings. They were convinced it couldn't be wrong, because it was done on "the computer". Even driving it didn't tell them anything. When they finally put the thing back on (with the mirrors on right this time), they couldn't believe that I had told them what was off on the alignment just from driving it. Nobody can tell that from the road feel, right? I'm still convinced that the $40K Hunter machine gives worse alignments than a plumb bob, a tape measure, and a protractor -- when the latter is in the hands of someone who cares about getting it right.
Oh, I thought this was the flight to Alignmentville. I didn't realize the thread had been hijacked to Havantabalance. To answer your question, you get your alignment right, so a bad shop balancing shows up immediately in the road feel. But then, you have to be an olde phart to know what that feels like from experience.
Sorry, I hijacked the thread. I went from use of bad alignment equipment to bad use of computer balancers. Anyway, it is nice to know that others believe in the bubble balancer. So far I am very happy with it for 100 bucks and a foot print only 1 square foot. Sometimes you think if something is 10-15 times more costly it has to be better.
HAHAHAHAHA! Stop it, I now have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. But there is so much truth in this statement it really is not funny. I quit the shop I was working at because I seen it as a rip off. Wheel alignments are only for profit. They couldnt make money doing alignments the right way and then not selling parts, it ties up to much of the building, and the overhead is to high. Not many people would want to pay $50 to $100 hour for a real wheel alignment. So instead of a real expert, you get a pimply faced guy working for $10 hour to keep the flow moving through. I swear, if I didnt have a car ready to leave within about 40 minutes, the boss was back there wringing his hands asking what was taking so long.
S'alright. I was trying to sorta re-hijack the thread into a proposal that driving schools teach people to recognize bad alignment and/or unbalanced wheels.
One point: hub centric and wheel centric. What are Ferraris? My Lotus and many British cars of that era are NOT hub centric. You have to use the 4 mounting nut holes to correctely balance the wheel. Of course, the pimply faced kid does not know this and will balance it with the center hole. Hardly anyone has the right equipment to do this. I suspect *some* Ferraris, especially older ones, may be the same? Ken
Having grown up in this business being taught originally to use equipment that oftentimes was built in the 50's I would say that modern alignment and balancing equipment really has 2 advantages over the equipment I used a few decades ago. First and foremost it gives the person that has no fundamental knowledge of physics, geometry or automobiles the ability to do the job. It is designed to be idiot proof, the only problem is that a determined idiot can f-up a steel ball. Second it provides us with a real razzle dazzle piece of equipment to impress the customers with. I have bubble balanced lots of tires very well and if you split up the weight in 4 spots as described it works quite well. IMO most of the high tech balancers are junk. The load force type are good at finding junk tires but if you stay with Michelin or Bridgestone you will just not have that problem. I have aligned many cars with both the new Hunters (I love em, great piece of equipment in the right hands) and also with string and a good machinists rule (the way Ferrari F1 cars are done BTW) and challenge a good driver to know the difference.
And Stephens, if you had a bunch of toe out in the rear I'll bet you had one tail happy mother of a 550.
New set of tires, balanced....Huh? took it back for rebalance....huh? Bought a used bubble balancer from e bay, bought wheel weights from e-bay. Spent lathe time making adapter for Red car wheels...center hole to small to fit on balancer Spent more time trying to balance wheel...huh? As I got a little more upset, decided to go back to SQ1 and removed all weights from wheel/tire assy...that dealer had installed about 57.99999lbs everywhere. I then balanced the wheel with a fraction of the weights the dealer used. The new pretty balancers used by outlets look nice but only as good as operator, plus the fact that always there remains a un-balance point (harmonics?) usually at your cruising speed. The best is the spin balancer while tire on the car and hub adapters to spin set the weights. Hard to find anymore plus someone knowing how to use it. Next is the cheepie ol bubble balancer...still used for race tires today. Then the hi tech stuff with low tech operators refusing to take the time to do it right, they spin it and throw weights where ever there is a blank space (my quess) So now I will do my P/U truck and collect a ton of weights off of it and enjoy a smooth ride in both vehicles....I use balance beads in the Harley
The most basic equipment can give phenomenal result in the right hands. The nice thing about some of the new alignment racks and tire machines is some of the diagnostic tools it opens up for you in a very short amount of time. In particular the newest tire machine we have will allow you to match mount tires so the high spot on a rim lines up with a low spot on the tire. Often this results in a much truer Wheel tire combination that requires 5-10 grams of weight to balance rather then 50+grams. Likewise the SAI angles, setback, and chassis dimensions can very quickly be checked with the newer alignment racks, many can even give you the tire circumference. The trick is knowing how to use this information which unfortunately is not something many technicians want to spend the time learning anymore. Find a good technician and stick with him, pay him what he deserves. If you pay $79.00 for the alignment you likely got what you paid for, a straight steering wheel but not much more.
Well said. Especially on any car which requires shims (like our Ferraris), as opposed to adjustable threaded connections, to set the alignment ----- this takes time, experience, parts (correct shims), and skill (loosening / tightening of suspension members) ---- it should take a couple of hours and cost accordingly.
Wow! this is an old thread and lots has changed for me being a garage rat not a real pro. Sometimes we are right but for the wrong reasons. Being blisfully ignorant I was happy with my bubble balancer. Later as a gained more knowledge and demanded more precision dynamic spin balancing is the way for me. Dynamic force would be better but i don't own those tools. Windsocks words are true. As I posted earlier basically when was the last time the tire monkeys used the machine right? When I spin balance at home I calibrate my machine every time. I measure the runout on my wheels before I mount tires. I raced for a long time just balancing wheels and not wheel tire combos because race tires have low rotating mass and you can get away with it. But as I got faster and reached for higher personal limits my fear increased. A rock steady car allows me to feel good about going faster. Runout on wheels is critical to good balance. Your tire machine sees runout as weight imbalance and makes you add weight to compensate when really you got wheel bend. Now after a couple years racing I throw out old wheels and buy new ones. Miraculously new wheels with near zero runout and you need hardly any weight to balance them. Tires are made so good today when you see lots of weight on wheels you can bet there is wheel damage.
Very good points regarding runout. To exemplify your argument --- This "wheel" can ACTUALLY be both statically & dynamically balanced PERFECTLY (with the correct technique and equipment)........However, I don't think anyone would enjoy driving on it too much ??? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Friends, This is important to me as I taken off my rack for rebuild and dont trust hardly anyone to touch my car. The closest MB place has a new Hunter. I am worrying about dining up my QV painted wheels and he manager said the machine doesn't touch the wheel just the tires? That does not seem right. I am also getting new tires and after seeing a youtube video on the road balancer I an worried as it you look at our mag wheels the only thing holding the outside cone on the the thin pice that the logo cap pops into. Do I want tons of weight on that fragile portion of my wheel? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice Rob
Bob --- You are fortunate enough in location that you probably have a shop nearby that specializes in doing race car wheels ?? Do yourself, a HUGE favor and take your wheels into them. Whenever I have the option (access to a speed / race prep shop), that is the ONLY place I have any (even the daily driver) wheels mounted and balanced ---- guys that work at these shops know how, and they give a damn ---- they also have all the right equipment to handle even the most delicate of wheels .
Unfortunately no. I also after having the new tires mounted and tipping the guy a bunch had a problem balancing the wheels. It is almost impossible to mount or dismount tires on these mag wheels without messing them up, especially getting the old tire over the rim and the new one on....The newest Hunter balancer did not have a fitting that would fit into the back of the QV wheels. We finally found one that almost worked and got 3 wheels balance the other was a bit corroded on the inside area and when the wheel spun it moved about 1/4" up and down. Not sure what to do now....
