On Car Wheel Balancing

what kind of wheel balancing machine/set-up was it? What were the associated costs (because of the 'waste of $ remark)?

 

Your drivetrain should be balanced when it's new but nothing says that it still is after 32 years of wear and ??? repairs.

Your friend might be an idiot.

 

Rick
Be sure to mark your wheels as to which hole goes where onto the hub. If you remove a wheel and don't put it back exactly as it came off the car when it was balanced, you will now have an imbalance. In effect, you balanced your wheel hub with the wheel. If you re-orient them they will be out of balance. It is not impossible to keep track of them but some extra care will be required.

These machines have been around for 30 years or more, but they are not a perfect answer. Enjoy your smooth ride while it lasts!
Ken

 

I'd say this a little bit differently -- it would be unusual for the other components to be significantly unbalanced because their radius is not so big, and they tend to be symmetrically-made and machined with decent precision (although sometimes you'll see weights added to a cast brake rotor or drum to balance it as an individual component).

What was the unbalance feedback mechanism that the Mechanic used? Just by hand feel, or did he have some sort of instrumentation that mounted somewhere? I'm thinking that it would be difficult to do a two-plane balance on each wheel/tire/hub/rotor since the spindle axis of the wheel would resist any moment perpendicular to the rotation axis.

 

I haven't seen one of those balance machines around for years(early 70s) they claimed it would balance the brake disc/drum along with the wheel and tire. I remember the quality of balance to be good also but, of course that was comparing it to a bubble balance. How old was the machine do you know?

 

well u'all things in balance do become unbalanced. my shop has at least one job a week. balance weights fall off. people bend parts driving. and parts rust/ ware out.

 

Had this done perhaps twenty five years ago and the equipment was old then. Haven't seen this done since.
The results were very good but this precludes tire rotation and also requires the wheel to be properly indexed to the (proper)hub.
I guess what's old is new again.
Who is doing this now?

 

brake rotors are balanced by manufacturer

only way to know forsure is to immediately balance wheels only on a modern conventional wheeloff balancer

hey rick what part of the city are you in iam close to picking up a gt4 and would love to see your car

 

Which GT4 are you buying?