How To: Wheel wobble, C15A

[Andy Beevers]

Short post
Balanced wheels, fixed.

If only everything was that simple 😂😂
So, you do all the normal things, repair or replace wheel bearings, shackle bushes, steering joints, tyres etc. the normal stuff during a rebuild. Go out for a road test and get a bit of a wobble, make enquiries about wheel balance, all dry up but a lot of good advice is given.

I decided I will balance the wheels, somehow.
Couple of problems.
The hole in the middle is to big for most balancers ( bubble, electronic etc.)
The wheels are around 65kg each (9x16 8 ply)
The tyre specialists I spoke to, both commercial and car, were very polite and wished me good luck.

You have to start somewhere, jacked up front, secured axle on axle stands, removed rear prop shaft and spun up wheels to target vibration speed.
My friend confirmed that the wheels were doing some “funny” stuff as he backed away.
Good, definitely wheel issue, perhaps the new tyres are causing it.
Or the rims are not too good.
I had an old brake disc, drilled some holes found the centre point, using an axle stand and large ball bearing fabricated a sort of bubble balancer, this suggested around 500g of lead was needed, now cars have weights that go up to 80-100g max, over that and a little concern would be shown, so perhaps my centre is off.

I drew up a spec for a plate to be cut, went to my local Waterjet cutting fabricator had a plate cut, ( 10mm x 360mm with 8 holes for the wheel studs)
I have an old hand spin wheel balancer, electronic. According to the spec it could take up to 75kg of wheel, this might work, with the plated tapped out to take M14 bolts and spherical washers to locate the wheel, had to put the wheel on sort of backwards, otherwise the balancer fell over.
The good thing is once on the balancer, the wheel can be checked for distortion both up and down and side to side, now I know the wheel is true, the tyre….

Removed the tyre, bolted up the split rim, mounted on balancer. Even just letting gravity do it’s thing, I could see it needed balance weights, around 200g.
Refitted the tyre, made sure the seat was good, over inflated to around 60psi checked run out, better.

The balancer only reads up to 300g.
I needed to find out how much weight was going to be needed, with a roll of duct tape and a 5 kilo box of stick on weights I started.
750g on one side, 500+g on the other, the wheel now showed good, if left to stop spinning by itself, no longer had a a heavy point, so in practice mounted this way it is balanced.

Duct tape is good, however, not ideal for keeping weights in place.
Trying to find knock on weights to fit the rim, no luck.
Stick on weights come in 60g strips, that’s a lot.
I found commercial balance weights, they go up to 500g each, got a box of 10 x 250g, cut off the clip on them, with a little reshaping, they fixed in place with an epoxy glue, the logic being centrifugal force should keep them in place, the epoxy was for position.
Weight position for that size weight needs to be very accurate, a little out and you would need to counteract the weight with another.

With balanced wheels, now refitted, tyre pressures reset, prop shaft back on, road test.
Different vehicle, still has all the CMP characteristics but the steering wheel stayed where it should, finally.

This journey has already been cut down in length 😂😂

[Lynn Eades]

Good effort Andy!. Fyi, WWII WC Dodges had a welded on steel weight that fitted into the concave of the rim.
Can you post a picture of your balancer?

[Andy Beevers]

I was very tempted to start welding, but decided not to mark the rims.
Hopefully picture will upload.