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Balancing wheels and cowl shake, part 27

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Legal Bill

Jedi Knight
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Ok, I know we have covered this about 10 times, but I wanted to update you on my own quest for a shake free ride. Like many, I was faced with a shake around 60mph. I had spent big money on new wheels and tires and a high speed balance at a local tire shop. Like many others, my wheels came back from the shop with a significant amount of weight attached. And despite all that investment, the car would shake a bit right around 60. Upon researching, I learned that the wire wheels do not lend themselves to high speed balancing unless the machine being used has the correct hub to mount the wheels. the "adapters" do not correctly center the wheels.

I was faced with two alternatives, either ship the wheels off to be done correctly by the well known Hendrix Wire Wheel, or try to find a local alternative. Without taking anything away from Allen, before I incurred the time and expense of shipping, I wanted to see if there was an easier local alternative.

I found one. Fred at Wire Wheel Repair Serivce of New England:

https://www.wheelrepairservice.com/

Now, this is not really a substitute for what Allen Hendrix does. Fred does not high speed balance nor does he shave the tires. He does rebuild and repair wire wheels and he performs a static balance. If you need more than that, then you need Hendrix. But Fred's balancing did the trick for me. Fred did not need to true my wheels (he checked them both and felt they were spot on). Each wheel simply had too much weight on it and it was not in the right places. The static balance is really simple and it is always great to meet a guy who can get so much out of relatively simple equipment.

I test drove the car last night and was amazed how much smoother it ran. Although I don't really feel any more shake, I think I'll do the fronts next.
 
Bill,

I share your experience and also found a shop, Euro-Tire, for tires and the knowledge and equipment to properly balance British wire wheels.

Over the years I have had periods when I drove without a shake at any speed and times when the infamous scuttle shake drove me bonkers. Because of these diverse periods of opposite experiences, I always felt the problem must reside with the wheels being balanced correctly, however, the hit and miss results with balancing seemed to question this as almost all the balancing was done at either knowledgeable and equipped shops or with the use of my hub and modified knock-off for proper mounting.

Within the past 4 months, I purchased new 165/80 Vredesteins and had them balanced by Euro-Tire and still wound up with a shake. Again, frustrated, a friend lent me a static motor cycle balancer with cones that fit the opening of the drum with wheel-hub bolted on. What I found were drums between 5oz and 6oz out of balance. Using a grinder to remove some unnecessary mettle (but not secure with what I was doing), I brought the drums closer to (but not in) balance.

Remounting the wheels and taking a ride, I found the benefit of my actions was very positive. Although a slight shake still remained at around 60MPH, the total ride was improved at all speeds and well within acceptability. Some day I will send my drums to Hendrix or grind more unnecessary metal from the drums to achieve balance, however, for now, I am pleased with what I have achieved.

Bill, both your experience and mine seem to point to the difficulty of defining a common cause to this problem and that it may reside in a number of inherent faults in the Healey’s design and manufacture. Reinforcing the frame, adding support to the trans bulkhead, balancing drums and wires and many other partial faults must be addressed to achieving a good ride and we all have all of some of these faults in our Healeys to find and correct.

All the best,
Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
Legal Bill said:
Ok, I know we have covered this about 10 times, but I wanted to update you on my own quest for a shake free ride. Like many, I was faced with a shake around 60mph. I had spent big money on new wheels and tires and a high speed balance at a local tire shop. Like many others, my wheels came back from the shop with a significant amount of weight attached. And despite all that investment, the car would shake a bit right around 60. Upon researching, I learned that the wire wheels do not lend themselves to high speed balancing unless the machine being used has the correct hub to mount the wheels. the "adapters" do not correctly center the wheels.

I was faced with two alternatives, either ship the wheels off to be done correctly by the well known Hendrix Wire Wheel, or try to find a local alternative. Without taking anything away from Allen, before I incurred the time and expense of shipping, I wanted to see if there was an easier local alternative.

I found one. Fred at Wire Wheel Repair Serivce of New England:

https://www.wheelrepairservice.com/

Now, this is not really a substitute for what Allen Hendrix does. Fred does not high speed balance nor does he shave the tires. He does rebuild and repair wire wheels and he performs a static balance. If you need more than that, then you need Hendrix. But Fred's balancing did the trick for me. Fred did not need to true my wheels (he checked them both and felt they were spot on). Each wheel simply had too much weight on it and it was not in the right places. The static balance is really simple and it is always great to meet a guy who can get so much out of relatively simple equipment.

I test drove the car last night and was amazed how much smoother it ran. Although I don't really feel any more shake, I think I'll do the fronts next.
Click to expand...
My personal experiences with wire wheels on my Healey has always been to balance the rears FIRST. It seems that most of the front shake was caused by what's happening in the rear. Once I did the brake drum balancing from Hendrix it took care of all the shimmy/shake.
Patrick
 
Be sure to check the balance of your brake drums. I found the (rear) drums on my '62 tricarb to be HUGELY out of balance, on the order of 4-5 oz. I just used a bubble balancer. I carefully removed metal from the heavy sides to achieve a good balance, greatly reducing my vibration problems.

Obviously you want to balance the drums separately from the wheels, so that you can swap wheels around as needed.

I don't think brake discs are as subject to imbalance, simply because most surfaces are fully machined, whereas most surfaces on a drum are rough-cast.

Bob Frisby
Boise, Idaho
 
I failed to give my full history on this problem, whch can be found on other threads. I did have Hendrix balance my dums. They were slightly out of balance (maybe a gram or two) and the shake persisted after balancing. The wheels were off by a bit more, but the shake went away. Perhaps the wheels being of larger diameter amplify the effects of approximately the same amount of weight.
 
Bill,

I had a conversation with Martin Jensen a while back and he relayed that, after experiencing a few flat tires without obvious punctures, a wire-wheel-familiar tire dealer told him to run with 32 lbs of pressure to stop the chaffing of the tube. Since tube chaffing indicates tube movement, I wonder if this could be a cause of changes in wheel ballance.

Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
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