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Wheel balancing


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I used to have good luck with cheaper tires on the mains and never had to balance them. My most recent set of Air Hawks have been a disappoint and have constantly given me a slight out of balance vibration right after lift off until I tap the brakes to stop the wheel rotation.  I have started to balance them but am surprised at the amount of weight it takes to do the job. One wheel took 2.5 ounces of stick on lead weight.  I want to ask others that have been balancing if this sounds like an excessive amount?  In any case I no longer plan to purchase this brand of tire and was wondering from others who have been balancing tires which brand you have found that truer and requires the least weight?

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1 hour ago, carusoam said:

Gary,

Did you match the dot on the tire to the proper location on the rim, when you mounted the tire?

Best regards,

-a-

 

Dot is light side of tire and should be placed at tube valve stem ( heavy side of tube).

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Yes matched the dot and inflated and deflated several times to make sure there were no kinks in the tube.  The weights all ended up on the valve side of the tire.   I think it is a poor quality tire that I would have thought would be subject to some kind of FAA requirements. But I really don’t have much data on what other tires require to balance.  lower speed smaller diameter tire like these may not need to be perfectly balanced. 

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Many moons ago, which  I used to do the MX stuff, we put all the tires, mains or nose, on a balancer and used adhesive backed weights. They have the low friction bearings on them which can help you get the weight right. 

https://aircraft-tool.com/shop/detail.aspx?id=AS01&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 

DIY Option: http://ronkilber.tripod.com/balancer/balancer.htm 

Edited by Stephen
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@Gary0747 what are you using, static (bubble) or spin balancer? Also is it one or both tires that is needing that much weight? You can also rotate the tire on the wheel (moving the dot 180° from the stem) and see what that does, PITA but I have seen tires that were marked wrong

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The other wheel is identically as bad. It took the same weight at the same location. I am using a simple spin balancer from harbor freight. I think the comment about the small radius taking a larger amount of correction weight is probably correct. The weights at 2.75 inches balancing a heavy tire with a 8.5 inch radius. There is hardly room for that many 1/2 oz weights.  I may try the rotating trick to put the dot opposite the valve stem but I hate breaking the bead and risking messing up my tube.  Wish I knew what others found on better branded tires.     

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Yes it is made for motorcycle tires but works great on Mooney wheels.  

As a follow up I have added 2 oz of weight to both mains and 1 oz of weight to the Flight Special nose tire. Test flight with a take off and there was not even a hint of vibration and did not have to tap the brakes like I normally did to stop the vibration.  I imagine I am over sensitive to the vibration and suspect many pilots either do not care or are focused on other things while taking off and don’t balance their tires.   

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On July 2, 2019 at 11:15 AM, Gary0747 said:

The other wheel is identically as bad. It took the same weight at the same location. I am using a simple spin balancer from harbor freight. I think the comment about the small radius taking a larger amount of correction weight is probably correct. The weights at 2.75 inches balancing a heavy tire with a 8.5 inch radius. There is hardly room for that many 1/2 oz weights.  I may try the rotating trick to put the dot opposite the valve stem but I hate breaking the bead and risking messing up my tube.  Wish I knew what others found on better branded tires.     

The risk of messing up the tube comes from pinching it between the wheel halves, if they were just mounted with sufficient tire talc, you should be able to push the bead off by hand and rotate the tire with ease. Also double check that your balancer will "ZERO" wth nothing on it. I've done thousands of balancing of the years, on big $$$ custom wheels I would dis-mount the tire and place the weights inside.... those were a PITA

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