I got my 38 swampers mounted today, but the guy doesn't seem to have a clue how to ballance them.
He told me he tried one and it came up with needing a 17oz wieght.
Whats the best way or tricks to ballancing a big swamper?
I need to call this guy and tell him how.

 

swampers dont do great balance wise, some people just run them unbalanced. i had to get my 36's balanced as best i could, there's 3 or 4 different size weights on one side of my tire trying to get them balanced out right.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 31-Oct-02 AT 04:27 PM (EST)]Just talked to one of my diesel mechanic friends, he told me to use "Equal powder", I guess it goes in side he tire and balances while you drive, he says they use it on the big truck tires.
So I called a tire shop by me and they said no problem would cost around $18 bucks per wheel.
Sounds good to me, but he recomended I wait till spring when I run the tires daily for the summer. He said moisture is bad for it and if they sit for the winter in the cold, the powder may harded and cause a bigger problem.

So I will wait till spring and try it, but if anyone has any feedback on the product I would love to hear it.

Thanks

 

i read an article on that stuff, in "Peterson's 4wheel and Offroad", i think they gave it good reveiws, it worked good and you dont have to have weights all over your wheels to get the tire balanced.

 

This is probably useless info for you right now, but I thought I would post it here in case anyone is interested.

The only good way I've found to balance big tires is to use balance pads. They look like those patches you use on your bicycle tires, only a lot bigger, and they are glued (vulcanized) to the inside of the tire. Since you're balancing the TIRE and not the tire/rim together, you never have to re-balance unless you have some severe uneven tire wear. The tires are balanced dynamically also, so if you have wide tires it will totally eliminate tire vibration from inboard-outboard wobble. The weight is applied at the maximum possible radius, so a lot less weight has to be used. Plus, no more wheel weights to fall off!

BUT I don't know anyone who offers this service yet. You need a machine that's programmed for "patch balancing," like a Hunter GPS9700. And you'll have to buy the patches yourself. The only company I know that makes them is Patch Rubber Company, and you can buy them through Myers Tire Supply. You'll need the cleaner and adhesive also. Most Discount Tire stores around here use the GPS9700, and you can go on Hunter's website and they have a cool feature that lets you find a tire shop in your area that has a GPS9700.

I bought the patches & glue and took them to Discount, the guy said, yeah he can patch balance even though they don't offer it, and they did them no problem.

I'm planning on opening a shop soon... when I do, that's one of the services I will offer. I can't believe nobody else does it. Anyway hope that info helps somebody.

 

first step I'd reccomend would be to break the bead, spin the tire 180 degrees on the wheel & try it again... It can help with bigger tires...
next step would be the balance pads mentioned above... being on the outside of the tire, they will provide more balance than the same amount of weight on wheel.
Then spin balance, & add the powder if you really would like... keeping big tires in balance usually isn't very easy to do.

 

I did read about the patch on the Interco website, and also the rotation of the tire on the rim.
The shop that mounted them is a typical tire place, but the owner is a good customer of ours, so I figured I would let them do it. About 5 other place closer to me said they couldn't do it and the HACK self proclaimed "OFF ROAD SPECIALIST" here said there is no need to balance them. Go figure.
Like I said, I can't run the new tires till spring, so I will have a few months to research and find a place that may be able to do the patch wieghts. I have no problem paying what it takes, as long as it's right.

Thanks for your input guys.

 

I've used the equal before w/ pretty good results. My brother also uses it in his 40" boggers (which seem perfectly balanced) so I'd have to say the stuff works. Putting weights on the wheel just doesn't work w/ large tires. The radius of the wheel is just too small compared to the tire radius. 1oz of weight will only give 1/2-1/3oz of balance correction at the actual tire radius. That means that for every oz the tire is out it'll take 2-3oz at the rim to correct it.

 

When I bought my 37"s one tire needed like 14oz initially. Spinning the tire on the rim fixed it which is why you need to have the tires AND rims balanced TOGETHER! The guy doing it had no idea what he was doing, had never seen a tire that big before, so he got his boss to do it...that guy got all 4 tires to zero out. His method was to spin the tire on the machine and put HALF the weight it said it needed then spin it again. This gave him the right positioning for the next weight. It took like 3-4 spins minimum but like I said, all 4 were zeroed out, i watched him do it.

Texas A&M Off-Road
`95 F150 4x4
broke azz 5.0L
Solid D44 Front
4.88s F/R
37" MT/Rs

 

I've heard of using sand in the tires. Tell ya what, bring 'em to the shop I work at, and I'll only charge ya $15 for the sand! But I don't know about the 180 thing with 17 oz- it works great for around 6-8oz, but I don't know what it would do for 17. That's a lot of weight, and, seriously, if I had a combo that lost more than 5oz on a 180, I would send the rims back as defects. Most rims, spun alone, will show 1-2oz., as the valve stem is usually mounted in the lightest spot on the rim.

Jared

 

I ran the rims with my 35's with hardly any weight on the rims at all, so the rims are fine.
The Swamper site, talks about spinning the tire on the wheel and also have talked to some guys around here that says the Equal really does work.

I will see in a few months I guess.

 

I worked for a front end suspension and alignment shop on big trucks for 10 yrs just until recently. We have tried equal before and had customers comeback because of same problem. We used on the vehicle truing machines to make the tire round ( mud tires usually out of round pretty bad) and then balance them on vehicle with excellent results. good luck. jesse

 

I had them on the truck today for a "test".
Had it up to 65mph with no problems. Now I just have to get my gears in!!

 

the shop here that installed my tires and wheels and lift .. just got a new Hunter.. "Road Force" ( I think is what its called ) balancer machine ... they say that alot of "balance" problems .. are not really "felt" on a static machine .. so this machine actually spins the tire and wheel while applying 1400 lbs of "road" force with a large drum while spinning.. quite effective..

 

How about balancing 35's??? I had a set installed about two weeks ago, and the shop that installed them can't get them to balance. I'm not sure of the weight of the little lead balancing weights, but I have two weights about 5" long, plus two small weights on each rim on the right side. Almost half the rim is a frickin' weight!! And I still have a vibration (just added a front leveling kit with no vibration with stock wheels and tires).
The tire shop told me that some 35's just don't balance. Well, get me some that do, moron. I can't believe that I spent $1600 at this place, and they can't balance my tires.
I'm going in there today to demand that either they balance my tires with minimal amount of lead, sell me some better rims at cost that will balance (I bought the black rockcrawlers for $50 each, I suspect they're bad), or refund my money, and I'll go down the street, ending a 20-year business relationship.