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Trouble balancing steel wheels on '79

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Well, I pulled my '79 out again and dusted it off only to find I had ply separation on two tires. No problem as I had three new ones ready to go on after I repainted my wheels. I balnaced them out once before using my buddy's machine but can't quite get two of them to "remain true". Every time you take the wheel loose and put it back on the machine it'll read different. I tried "coning" at the back and front of the rim. The front has more consistant results. That's how I balanced them out the first time. The smallest cone barely catches the front of the rim hole. I'm starting to suspect these rims are lugcentric only and not hubcentric at all.

I'm considering having an adapter made w/ studs so I can bolt them on the balancer and be done w/ this headache, however; I don't know if my buddy will still have the machine as he is selling his shop.

Any tricks to balancing these wheels?

Thanks, BIlly
 
I think I remember reading somewhere that the wheels <span style="font-style: italic">are </span>lug-centric, and using a 'normal' balancer won't work. Hopefully someone else hereabouts can fill in more details.
 
Bill is correct. For the rostyle wheel you can't count on the front hub opening and rear area between the lug nut pads being true to the wheel center. You need some sort of centering device for the rear that locates on the lugs instead of coned to the wheel center area. Similar to the locating problems the guys with wires have on balance machines as well. If you have a friend who is a machinest you can either have a disc turned and drilled or some just machine down the front and rear of an old hub and use that. Once the rear is correctly registered on the machine the front will work out ok and you can balance the wheels ok.
 
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