On Vehicle Wheel Balancer 50s-60s
Hi Richard
Your memory is dead on, there were commercial units that had a wheel spinning motor and a very simple trembler switch which triggered a strobe. The switch had a magnetic base that you could stick on axle top (preferred) Use was fairly simple you chalked numbers 12, 3, 6, and 9 (clock positions) on the tire then spun the wheel up to speed. The light would flash when the imbalance was in the vertical plane. You would note which number was top and place the weight accordingly. Now my memory is failing whether you put the weight opposite or used two smaller weights 120 degrees from the heavy point. Remember that it took a lot of playing around to get to understand how to place weights, tricks like inside and outside of the rim. End results were pretty good, my dad had one that he got from a garage when they went over to a off the vehicle spin balancer.
Remember my dad having a set of tires very carefully balanced on a high speed off the car balancer. Then put the wheels and tires on car and used the on vehicle balancer to find which wheel assembly was out of balance, turned out there was a drum and hub that were, to him, badly out of balance.
But that you were also balancing the brake drum and hub was one of its failing as you could not necessarily move the tires around without rebalancing.
Cheers Phil
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