Poorly Balanced Tires... I Hope

[theleisure]

Last weekend I went to Sears and had them swap out a perfectly good set of early rostyle wheels on my Sprite for a set of correct for my year disc wheels. I found out yesterday that the car vibrates like crazy at 50 mph. It's back to Sears for me... I hope they can fix this.

 

[Sarastro]

Are you sure the wheels are straight?

You can check this pretty easily. Just clamp one end of a stiff wire to some part of the car, with the other end very close to the wheel edge. Spin the wheel. If it's not true, you will be able to see the wheel edge get closer and farther from the wire end.

Works for bicycles, too...

 

[theleisure]

rats, two wheels are straight and two are bad. Anybody have 2 straight 1966 style wheels for sale?
super cheap?

 

[Billm]

How much were they running out?
If it was less than 1/8" then you MAY just need the tires checked (but 1/8" is about the limit I use)
Bill

 

[theleisure]

I watched the wheels while he was balancing them. I could see them weaving, they are definitely way off. The machine stops the wheel where they need adjustment, on the good ones it stopped and outputs numbers like .5/.75 and .5/1 but the bad ones were up around 4.0/4.0. Whatever that means... I guess it's weight to add or subtract.

2 good ones are up front now and i'll just keep the speed low.

 

[RJA]

Your wheels should have been balanced using the bolt pattern. I assume Sears used the center hole. New tires are not round, should be shaved to the center line of the wheel. Go to Hendrixwirewheel.com

 

[theleisure]

What should I read there? Here's a picture of one of the wheels I installed:

 

[RJA]

The site shows how to shave tires, and balance. It may not show a wheel being
balanced on a fixture that uses the bolt pattern. I know it is slanted toward
wire wheels but the concept is the same.

 

[Brian_James]

I have at least one non-Bugeye rim for the price of shipping.

Brian

 

[theleisure]

Thanks Brian, you have a private message.