Ok On my truck I have knock off 35 inch MT tires on my 96 f250 powerstroke and I can't seem to get them to balanced and iv had 2 shops try. Then someone told me about running tire balance sand or beads. Anyone have any luck on it ??

 

Here are the tires im running

 

Never done it. Heard talk of using airsoft pellets. I'll google it someday if I don't forget. If you find a really good link please post it here.

 

Yeah I read a little about air soft bbs but didn't get very good info on like how much weight I should use and how well it works

 

My tire shop prefers a liuid tire balancer.

 

I've got something like 750 copper coated steel BBs in each of my tires. They were smooth at speed but now that they're worn out with 40k miles I have some vibrations. When I was first told of this idea, I thought the guy was crazy. But, it started to make sense once the logic was explained. It is indeed a viable balancing option. If I recall correctly, dynabeads is the commercial product, they list recommendations on weight if bbs needed for various tire sizes.

 

From experience, some tire/rim combinations "slip" on the balancing machine when the machine starts and stops. Due to that, the weights never get put in the right place. This is also compounded by the tire tech that doesn't do a final check spin after setting the weights. Some machines have a 'spider' that splines on the shaft and has fingers that hold the wheel securely.

Also, irregardless to what tire techs at the discount places will tell you, you have to have weight distributed to the outsides of the rim. You cannot accurately balance a wheel/tire combo with the weight stuck on the center only. Yeah, it's unsightly to put weight out front but it's accurate.

I learned this from a shop that balanced the wheel/tire combos for my various road course cars. They were balanced to 0 imbalance at 100 mph, something that took the techs not much longer than the discount d00ds. I also learned about smooth ride quality when I had my street tires done the same way.

 

I've spun a thousand tires and never had one slip that I didn't immediately see, stop, retighten and respin. A traditional balance machine measures the force applied while spinning at the axis. A better balance would be a road force where it also measures the forces with pressure applied at the tread.

Beads and sand? I doubt it's as accurate as inside and outside weights.

It's a knock off mud tire and you want it to ride like an expensive street tire? It's probably made out of round, after all with tires you get what you pay for.

 

Double post

 

I've run soft bbs before, they work but still may get some shimmy as it is not a perfect system. The good thing about them is that imperfect tire wear makes a balance job obsolete rather quickly and the bbs are like a dynamic balance system that changes with tire wear.

 

I've heard of such a thing in 4-wheeler magazines when other balancing options failed.

One thing to look into: Counteract Balancing Beads | The only tire balancing product proven to improve fuel economy.
There are others.

 

My experience with balance beads is they do not work and in my case, caused death wobble after hitting bumps at 70 mph. Atturos are knockoff toyo mts. Clip on weights at a competent shop is the way to go. Ive run a set of 285/75r16 toyo at2s well above the speed limit, still silky smooth.

 

 

I done that back in 1991 on my 84 F250 with 33x12.5x16.5 tires. Ran it for years and no issues. But the sight of BB's in a wheel sure shocked a tire changer guy once when it was time to replace them.

 

Here's my tires and wheel set up. And yeah of course I'd rather buy toyos but when u need tires and only got $1100 u can't be picky and I need MTS living in the mountains I commute to the Ford dealership every day going 70 mph and the wobble comes and goes and it's just bad enough to shake my mirrors and dash but nothing crazy