Can a 1960 Tire Balancer Compete with Today's Machines?

[@sorenholmberg]

It's not a boring video. It's a balanced video.

[@roberternest7289]

I didn't find myself bored. But it also wasn't a riveting video.

[@RedEye19]

@@roberternest7289: Learning wasn’t meant to be “riveting”. For riveting try fiction.

[@roberternest7289]

@@RedEye19 it's a pun. Riveting in a workshop means to join two parts using rivets. The same way the original commenter made a pun about it being a balanced video instead of a boring one (boring in this context referring to enlarging a hole to a precise diameter)

[@tonywestvirginia]

Well said.

[@TheMrDarius]

I don't TIRE of this.

[@willemstreutgers1154]

When i was about 15-16 year old i worked with this machine. In stead of paper and a pencil we used a white paste and a metal needle to scratch into the paste. It was at a FIAT dealership, i am 79 now.

[@alanwhatley]

i remember having to use it but no paper used white grease it took forever tires and wheel rims were rubbish back in the 1960`s

[@harpoonlouis]

White grease! That was me too

[@einfelder8262]

@@alanwhatley Yep, a wide wheel was 4.5" and crossply tyres, 10-13" If you had 14" wheels you were futuristic. I had a Fiat 1100D Riviera which had 14" wheels, they were needed to clear the massive finned aluminium brake drums. That car couls stop on a sixpence from any speed, it just took a long time to get to any speed 🤣

[@MikkoRantalainen]

19:45 One thing that would be worth testing at this point with an old machine is to disconnect the wheel from the axle, rotate it e.g. 90 or degrees and measure the results. If the new orientation shows a bigger error, you can be sure that either the axle or wheel adapter has been bent.

[@igalaviz]

Just spent 23 minutes watching this... worth it, there is something magical about old equipment!

[@ninefingerdeathgrip]

"it's not going to make me rich, but it's going to make me happy"

[@gchg4925]

a truly happy man is a truly rich man

[@rustino666]

I love that machine, it's so old school. Would be interesting to take the tyre back to the tyre shop after your machine balanced it, and have them put it back on their modern equipment to see what that shows.

[@LeeHogan-l3y]

EXCELLENT VIDEO! This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. You sir, know more than most technicians trying to explain how to use modern day equipment. Five star video!

[@DaveC_TN]

These old machines are great!! The reality is - gravity and physics don't lie. Back in the 1980's - 1990s, our family operated a motorcycle repair center. We exclusively used a 'bubble balancing' system to static balance motorcycle wheels. We NEVER had a balance complaint - even on race bikes!! It does help that all the weights went on the center line of the wheel, but still...Gravity tells no lies with it comes to balance! Great video!! Thank you for showing this wonderful, accurate antique of a machine!

[@rickreneau5230]

Motorcycles tire were usually much taller than their width ( I know as I was the HD mechanic at City Cycle sales in Junction City KS 81 to 85) compared to especially wide performance car tires. Wide tires have more mass in relation to their height that can generate dynamic balance problems . I agree in that it was never a problem that we only static balanced back then. We sold Yamaha's too. Loved when the VMAX came out in 85.

[@siggibohlenbrecher1403]

An so einer Maschine habe ich als 15 jähriger das auswuchten gelernt. Mein Vater war Vulkaniseur. Schön das man so etwas noch sieht.

[@Carmalarky]

Artisanal wheel balancing. Not a boring video :-)

[@thomasspilcker8382]

Håndværksmessig , artisanal .

[@NZdiagnostics]

He even has the correct hat and beard.

[@somebloke5565]

Boring never! We need this pointless sh*t.

[@euroshopperbier1337]

what a cool machine! Nothing beats an elegant mechanical solution. It reminds me of the spyrograph toy I used to play with as a kid. :)

[@appleejack]

Awesome, i love old tools like myself ❤ subscribed.

[@soggybottom3463]

I would have NO PROBLEM with this gentleman working on any system on my vehicle...the attention to detail and common sense....👍👏👏👏

[@arthurjennings5202]

And then there was the American "on the car balancing machine." The balancer was mounted to the outside of the wheel rim. There were four wheels on a shaft in the middle of the balancer. Two that shifted the balance weight in and out, and two moved the weight around the wheel. On the rear, you jacked up one side of the axle, then put the car in gear to rotate the tire. (Beware the car with a limited slip differential.) Your buddy controlled the throttle to speed up the tire's rotation until it began to shake, while the other guy carefully manipulated the four individual wheels on the balancer to adjust the weight so the vibration would smooth out. When he got it steady, the throttle man would drop the transmission to neutral allowing the wheel to gradually slow down and stop. Imbalance was read in ounces by the indicator window on the side of the balancer. The indicator window showed where the weight was to go. To balance the front wheels, a motor driven drum was pressed against the jacked up car tire to spin it up to speed. All of that mass spinning at 60 to 70 MPH was a little dangerous. I was very glad when the shop got a static bubble balancer.

[@chybanie716]

Great video. One thing I'd love to see - what does the professional machine "think" about the wheel after you balanced it

[@shaunhardie6077]

Hey Seppo your videos are NEVER boring.

[@dodgydruid]

I was harking back to my dad's and grandfather's Triumphs when they felt a wobble on a wheel would simply grease up the axle's up to the point where grease didn't work then it was wheel bearing and bushings to be replaced and off the car would go again, then my father got a Hillman Hunter in 72 and that all changed, as he had to have the Rostyle wheels proper balanced and back then few tyre places even offered that service. My grandfather did his own as he had an ancient "top hat" balancer from his Austin 7 and 10 days which was basically a cone that sat on a large drawing pin and he had a little set of weights he would counterbalance the wheel and then fit his own lead slugs. He had the insanely powerful Vitesse 2 litre six cylinder beastie and that did need all the help it could get as tiny little car with a monster motor up front lol

[@WOFFY-qc9te]

I remember the Top hat from my days wrenching in the 70's also tire irons. The Triumph Vitesse was a fun car very quick but not good in an accident. They had a sale show where they built a Herald in 30 minutes. If I remember correctly the first new Hillman Hunters had ridiculously large padded thingy in the middle of the steering wheel as crash protection. Enjoy your memories.

[@ferguscosgrave7510]

Very good it's like when I balance a watch balance wheel

[@stickman-1]

I have my own balancer because I was tired of getting unbalanced tire/wheels. I know getting the perfect balance takes a lot of time. I also know that most machines do a lot of "rounding" and I know some techs are not as diligent as others, they rush it and say "it's good enough." This was a great video. Thank you.

[@jeffwolf8018]

I went to school in 89 to be an auto technician. They had machines back then that used to balance the entire front end of your vehicle. You lift up the front tire you put a load on it and you put this machine on there and it spins your wheels and your whole front end at 60 miles an hour and you put the weights on until everything's smooth. Of course that was a long time ago and I don't really remember how that exactly worked. But it seems like it worked pretty good as it was balancing the whole drive shaft and wheels.

[@SeasideGarage]

Hold my beer.... video about such a thing coming up! lets say in 10 min?

[@catranger01]

I love it. You did better than the fancy computerized balancer which is amazing.

[@hajosteffen1793]

Great to see you using another old german balancer.... My own is from the 70ties and I would never swap it to a new digital one, because of its exact results. What improved it much was to find a quick fixture "spanner" for the wheels. So no time to clean the workshop inbetween. Best wishes from germany!

[@paulclairethomas1344]

In my youth as an apprentice mechanic, I used this type of machine, and the indicator was a white paste and marker.. Brings back memories.

[@AdrianMcNab-e6y]

Wow this was great to watch. I like to see when old school beats new tech.

[@timhardin7287]

Cool machine, I still use a bubble bubble balance r with great success . That machine is most likely more accurate than a new machine .Great video !!!

[@stevenmoomey2115]

In the early 60’s I remember going with my dad, to get the tires balanced. They did the Fronts while they were still on the car. Remember how fast the tire went, and a screeching noise when they put a smooth steel plate against the tire to slow it.

[@SeasideGarage]

Got one of those also! :)

[@clintonlamar1503]

High school auto shop in 1985. Had a friend who could balance a tire by hand. Nobody knew how he did it. We would put it on the machine and spool it up afterwards and 99% of the time...bam, first shot. Even the shop teacher was amazed.

[@bobphillips2188]

Dude, excellent! I was a tyre fitter in the mid 1970s, and as well as pretty modern - for then - machines which did most of it for you, we had an older machine, not unlike yours. Nobody thought to get rid of it just because we had the latest machines too, because there were times when they were in use, so we'd used the older machine, because why wouldn't we? Instead of the paper disc device, there was a gauge on top which short-cut the calliper/line-on-chart procedure, but otherwise it went much like with your machine, lining up the back rim of the wheel with an arm, and we had to enter the wheel dimensions somewhere else too. We rarely had anyone come back to say they had wheel vibration, and when that did happen, it was usually that the wheel was out of true. Of note, we had a machine for truck wheels, which were mostly 20" x anything from 8" to 10"-ish. The tubeless 10 or 11 x 22.5 alloy wheels were just coming in at that time too, plus what we called 'Super Singles', which replaced double wheels on some trailers. We could also balance truck front wheels on the vehicle, using a pretty big machine you sat on, and pulled a roller over to spin the wheel up. You jacked the axle up, and lowered it onto a special sensor stand, as close to the wheel as possible, and that did all the magic. It was pretty dramatic if there was more than a hint of vibration, I doubt modern safety awareness would allow it these days. The static balance was done much as on the car version, like yours. I took the end of a finger off once, turning a truck wheel while feeling the back rim. An existing weight snagged my middle finger and squished it past the track rod end..... I was already covered in general workshop filth (no one wore gloves like now, and barrier cream was optional, and Swarfega plus dirt in an open wound was 'difficult' ha ha!), so cleaning up an exceptionally painful wound took some time (-;)~ I have carried a spinal crush injury, incurred through truck breakdown work, all my days since, I am 68 and VERY arthritic!

[@GenerationAI2024]

If you need help translating from German into Danish so its understandable, i think can do that. Went 10 years in a German school in Sønderborg and have some experience with old machines. If you still need help of course. Thanks for sharing, and i just love the old Diesel moped you have.

[@jhazardiii]

72 or 73 years ago I was allowed to wander in the shop at my grandparents' car dealership. Their machine had a set of small, different colored disc's that fit on the outside of the tire. These were felt by the technician to determine imbalance and weight position. I loved watching it in use. It looked nearly identical to this machine. Of course, I was only 5 years old at the time.... my memory may vary.

[@jamesbrooks5442]

Yea the tires stayed on the car it was called hi speed balance

[@HannoImmelman]

Found this video very interesting. The fact that a machine from the 60s can balance a tire this well. May take a bit more time but still very impressive.

[@jpkalishek4586]

I only have a bubble balancer, but it's served me well enough for my truck. I was shocked recently when I purchased 5 remanned factory steel rims, and 5 winter tires (Arctic Claw, made in Japan) and after mounting them with regular stems, and making sure the valve/TPMS circles were in the correct place, I used not a gram/ounce of weight, and they are smooth as can be. I also have a summer set of mud tires in LT29x9.5R15 and those took a lot of weight, but so far, they're smooth riding as such heavy knobbly tires can be. The best "modern" one I've used was a Snap-on a friend with a service station bought from the Lotus Dealership, used. Hand spin, and along the design of their old Aircraft tire/wheel machine. I say "modern" because it was in the 90's when I used it and it was 10-ish years old then. Other service stations and shops would send sensitive cars to him when they had issues and it worked a treat. He regrets not holding on to it when he sold the station and moved to Nashville to take over another station.

[@eddielane9569]

Around 1995 to 97 I use to drive an hour south to Panama City Florida USA to a family owned shop to get the tires on my 1988 Camaro Sport Coupe balanced and rotated. I don't recall why I went that distance for that purpose but they used a system I have never seen before or since. They would use a floor jack to jack the front of your vehicle up and then they would take a machine and slide it under the tire and they would use that machine that was electric with a roller on it to roll your tire at high speed. They would then place their hand on the side of the vehicle to feel for vibration and somehow determine where to place the weight by doing that and I never once had any trouble. The new systems we have today with the electronic balancing are really only better in my opinion. They get the job done faster but they are extremely expensive and require a technician to show up and recalibrate the machine ever so often to keep it accurate. I don't know if there is any calibration to these older machines or not. Often the old way of doing things were really better in the long run. You wouldn't have that many problems with the machine of yesteryear compared to those today that cost a fortune and then because they're electronic they require a specialized training person to repair them.

[@twocvbloke]

It would be fun to see a comparison to wheels balanced on this versus on a modern machine, given the latter uses load cells, hall-effect sensors and computers to pinpoint where the wobbles are, still amazes me how the 60s machine works though, all the mathematics they had to do in order to make it make sense... :)

[@justme-in2jb]

That is the issue of today, having someone to do the math it took to figure this machine out, no calculators or computers, just human comprehension. Everything we have today is presented to allow a modern society of time continuance, we gave up quality many years ago. I sometimes wonder when someone suggest that these modern machines are somehow better than the old, true, machines and can't fathom that mankind built the pyramids or the other true architectural marvels without modern science. Weight is still weight, water level is still level, and string is still straight, only difference is in moving forward we eradicated the true distinction of the brilliant human mind for speed.

[@ilquattro1204]

Non è questo il problema... è che se io per fare un cambio gomme e equilibratura devo stare 3 ore e ti faccio pagare 200 euro tu mi dici che sono un ladro.

[@donniceblakely1075]

Man, that is pretty cool. I've had my tires balanced by local tire shops and they bounce like a basketball. There's not a shock absorber anywhere that can stop the dribble.

[@chriscansdale6389]

Others here have already mentioned balancing using internal free floating weights 'pellets' or ball bearings etc. This is what I used to do to balance timber spoke wheels on Model T Fords as you usually cant put modern weights on those wheels. We also used to have to mess around with the weights and placement of washers used to fit 'demountable' rims. Long before anyone had to think and invent a machine like this.

[@MuzzleMike]

I still use a bubble balancer . Lol ! I also brake my tires off manually.

[@JimLambier]

Me too! I do the winter tire change overs on my car, my wife's car, and those of my two kids. Paying for it would be expensive and it takes less time for me to do it myself compared to driving to a tire shop and waiting. I honestly don't feel a difference between my static balance and a professional dynamic.

[@DavidFisher-d8m]

Being involved with tire sales and work for around 45 years I find this video very fascinating.

[@david-hf3dk]

I remember using that exact same machine in the early to mid eighties in UK.

[@bluecollar58]

Very cool.

[@andre_s.]

Dank automatischer Übersetzung sprichst du sehr gut Deutsch 😅 klasse Video, danke dir 👌👍

[@ZelosZelo]

that was well balanced video :) jsyk, there are a few different theories about balancing tires. well..a ton of theories actually. But we have settled upon a harmonic style of balance. Meaning using a counter weight as well as an active weight. However we reduce the active weight to compensate for the counterweight, leaving us with a complete harmony over time, expense and accuracy needed for the job at hand. If it was a high speed car. Cyclic vibrations are dampened just like a harmonic balancer on a v6 but the absorbing media here is the tire its self. IOW. the mfg puts a mark on the tire indicating its heaviest point, we try and put that spot on the lightest point of the wheel (normally where the stem goes), and any extra is taken up by usually a small stick on weight but the same outcome can be done via the traditional clip on.

[@ZelosZelo]

just in case that was hard to grasp what I was saying= since it can be quite a technical thing, look at how the massively unbalanced test you did at the end did a lot of wobbling at a specific rpm, that rpm range "magnified" the imbalance. as the tire spins faster or slower the vibration is still there but the overall mass deficit is not as noticed. We try and compensate for the rpm range the tire will mostly be operated within (20-80mph for example) there like I said is a whole lot more, but we simplified it so everyday tire installers can efficiently and quickly balance a tire, with minimum weights.

[@knobsdialsandbuttons]

Great old machine and excellent video 👍

[@ziorick2007]

Some times ago, my old friend, for my old bike (FZR1000) balance my tires with an old machine like your... Till 280 Km/h there are perfect!!!

[@harrickvharrick3957]

Treasure seeing this ~ Thank You !

[@kristianjansson8063]

Sup! love your videos!

[@DugatDizzyLizzys]

When I was 16, (40 years ago), I went to college to learn mecanics and the trye balancer we had was that machine but we used grease instead of a paper disc. What i did notice was the Sun machine in the back ground. BEAR had a similar machine that for one of the colledge promotional pictures, had me using it on a Land Rover. It was worth £20K which was the price of a house in 80's 😮 I can believe my hair was half way down my back in that picture 😂

[@stewartsmith1947]

I used a bubble balancer in the 60s with excellent results ! 4 weights must be used !

[@ahenrytheninth]

Find a bubble balancer, 1940 ish. They where quite accurate. Back in my Ford days we also balanced wheels on the cars with a weight ring

[@DadGamingLtd]

Jeg elsker den maskine. Det var som tidligere nævnt mit gateway drug til kanalen. 😊 Jeg gad godt vide hvad den professionelle maskine sagde om balancen på dit selvbalancerede hjul. Bare for at slutte cirklen 😊

[@willmcgo8288]

That is very interesting old technology. It would be very interesting to see what is inside the top of that balancer that allows the shaft to wobble when an unbalanced tires spins on it. Are there any patent numbers on that machine? Nice scale, I have the same model!

[@yodasbff3395]

Interesting machine, thanks for sharing your videos. 👍

[@johnridley1038]

This firm also made a balancer that was a "on the car" balancer, It used a motor to spin the wheel, then a strobe to locate the axis, the car sat on an Axle stand that had a sensor in it, Quite good, because it balalnced not only the wheel, but the disc and hub assembly as well at the same time.

[@SeasideGarage]

got one! the strobe bit is broken though! :(

[@arkadybron1994]

I'd like to have seen the wheel put back on the new balancing machine, to see if it agrees with this one.

[@travissheehan6082]

That was cool to see. Wish I had one!

[@DumbCarGuy]

Back in highschool in 1983. I worked at an auto parts store called Champion Auto in Forest Lake MN. I was the weekend mechanic. We had a racing tire balancer. It spun your tire to 120 mph and there were two electrodes that faced each other and caused little lightening bolts to arch across and that was so long ago I don't remember much else except all my buddies came there to get their tires balanced. I remember a clear window and black and white checker flags on this machine.

[@Sctronic209]

Reminds me of a spirograph

[@TheManFrayBentos]

The tyre balancing was often done by an apprentice on lower hourly rate, so the time spent wasn't such a hit. Nice old bit of gear though, and it pre-dates the ones I was acquainted with.

[@Quickened1]

I'm a bit shocked at how accurate that old machine is. I imagine it was even more accurate when it was new, but the proof is in the pudding they say, and this thing beat out a modern balancer. The main difference may not be in the machines at all, but the operator of the machine! Like myself, you are a semi-perfectionist, that means you do your best to achieve the best results. The guy at the tire shop does 50 a day and slaps those weights on in "about" the right spot. If the tire technician on the other end, were held to the same degree of precision, perhaps the results would be much closer.... Pieces of paper, all the steps, it's a total waste of time, and yet so worth it to have your own tire balancer... Great demonstration man. 👍🏻

[@stevenburt5801]

Were i worked in the 80's the garage used a wheel balancer that balanced the wheel on the car ,so the hub was balanced along with the wheel .

[@patk8417]

I inherited my buddies static balancing rig when he passed. He used to balance wheels and tires on guys race cars that went out to the track and did over 150 mph with no complaints. I am not going to say that I possess his skill at using it but given enough time I'm sure that I can equal those results.

[@ramiretz]

im every time so fascinated about those old beissbarth machine or in generell the old tools you use... soooooo cool

[@Xt1000]

I worked at Western Auto in the 70's after school. We used a bubble balancer.

[@manchegocheese997]

It's interesting that at some speeds the rotating mass resonates with the spring in the balancer and amplifies the effect of the imbalance which makes this machine more sensitive than it may at first appear to be.

[@tonyheffernan7403]

Most informative video, Thank you.

[@AJB1]

Love old machines, and this one looks great! I'd love to have one of those!! I'm a bit confused by the process, though. If you calculated the dynamic balance first, but didn't put the weight on, then got the static balance perfect, surely putting the weight on the outside will put the static balance out. In this case, the outside weight is small, so not a big difference. But if the dynamic balance was way out, so the outside weight needed to be big, wouldn't the static balance be very wrong at the end, once you put the outside weight on after it was perfect? I'd have thought it made sense to get the dynamic balance right first, measuring then putting the weight on the outside. Then once that's right, test and correct the static balance and get that perfect too. I don't think adding weights on the inside will affect the dynamic balance result, as I guess the pivot it's oscillating about is in the plane of the inside of the wheel. In my head that would give perfect static and dynamic balance. But I could easily be wrong, and I'm struggling to get my head fully around the physics!

[@Rebel9668]

We had an old bubble balancer and a big box of assorted wheel weights on our farm when I was a teen back in the 80's that was no telling how old, but it always worked just fine. Wish I knew whatever happened to it as I'd use it now instead of taking my truck to a shop because it feels like I'm driving on wheels about as round as eggs, LOL!

[@1201suddenturn]

nice & smooth explanation, thanks

[@kh40yr]

Worked a tire shop for 15 years. On several occasions I couldn't get the Digital Coats balancer to clear a wheel and tire for balance. I had to use a old Coats lay-down bubble balancer to balance the combo statically. The lay-down would nail the balance, where the digital spin balancer would just make it worse.

[@scthomas1982]

We used that in autos class in the 90's. Worked great then

[@jacquespoirier9071]

that machine is better than a modern electronic the way it calls for comprehension and there is no electronic to fail or exhebits a flase result. just a pencil end a sheet of paper, bone reliable. excellent demonstration of a very reliable technique

[@goldcountryruss7035]

In the old days I always thought the Hunter "On the car" balancing system was superior. I am talking about the Hunter system consisting of a portable electric motor & drive setting on the floor under the tire that rotates the tire and a separate Tune-In balancing device that attached to the wheel. I was always happy with the result but never learned to use one myself.

[@elinicfurniture6860]

Very interesting! Thank you!!!

[@jamiejohnson3960]

Great Video!

[@kosir1234]

a small difference is that the modern machinese use center bore on a rim to locate the rim, this one uses boltholes

[@andrewsnow7386]

I was going to mention that. It could easily account for the difference between the professional balance and the one he did. But note, at least some tire shops can probably still do a "Lug Centric" balance using the bolt holes. At least when I needed a set of tires balanced this way 15 or so years ago, the tire shop was happy to do it.

[@mattiasrosberg1332]

I think it is absolutely crucial to really get that wheel perfectly centered on the mandril. And it would have been very interesting to go the other way around. To take this old schooled balanced wheel to the shop that did the modern balancing. What would that shop say about the old school balancing?

[@Alan_Hans__]

Very interesting. I'd find it interesting to know if there was a frequency at which is vibrates the worst and if that is due to the width of the tyre, diameter of the rim or a combination.

[@AJB1]

I think the wheel/tyre and axle of the machine kind of act like a horizontal pendulum about some point. A pendulum has a natural frequency - that's how clock's work - I guess there's a centring spring too. So I reckon the natural frequency will depend on the weight of the wheel and how wide it is (ie how far the centre of gravity is out from the pivot). When the speed of rotation matches that natural frequency, it will resonate, and that's when you get the big trace. Each rotation gives it another little push exactly in time with how it was oscillating anyway.

[@Tonyplat98]

Great video. Thank you for sharing

[@swedishpsychopath8795]

We should thank Norway for inventing this technology!

[@dogman8436]

Fascinating display of an ingenious non-electronic physics solution to correcting dynamic wheel/tire imbalance! Very brilliant design-German?- likely to solve vehicle vibration complaints during high speed drives on their Autobahn. But who has the time today when a 5000 dollar electronic balancer can allow this job to be generally well done in 30 SECONDS, at a typical customer charge of 15 dollars each? A bigger money maker than sale of the new tire! Another major issue would be tire road force variation causing vibration undetectable from mass imbalance. This was only field detectable in the last 30 years with special force roller design wheel balancers by Hunter Engineering. I am not affiliated with Hunter in any way.

[@DaveCurran]

"Activate the pencil" shall be my new battle cry.

[@Edvinas_channel]

20:00 you are correct - you would need to test it with a different machine to know for sure...

[@Taroodin]

Thank you! It's very interesting.

[@v1-vr-rotatev2-vy_vx31]

Used to like the tire balancers that balanced the wheel and tire directly on the car so the brake rotor would also get balanced

[@MelodyMan69]

That is a piece of Advanced Machinery when compared to what was being used in the 1960s. (Before you were born, Sonny). Most Garages had a 'Balance Pad' - Used like balancing a Plate with a Pointer in the Centre. The Wheel was placed on the central hub then the Operator pressed a Pedal that lifted the hub and Wheel. Weights were placed around the tyre to 'Balance' the wheel/tyre combination then fixed in place. Check that out. There were NO ROTATING Balancing Machines.

[@robinwells8879]

Like balance machines themselves, not all tyre technicians are seemingly made the same. I have had tyres balanced more than once for experimental purposes and some had multiple stacked weights whilst others achieved the same outcome wit much less mass. Accuracy with transferring weight location and even inner or outer rim placements can seemingly have a significant impact on the outcome. Both are balanced but one with a fraction of the added weight. Is it true that the red dot marking position relative to the tyre valve is the heavy point of the carcass to account for the reduced mass caused by the valve hole in the rim? To help with balancing as I was told once.

[@kevinking5406]

So there was an art to it once upon a time

[@Jakob_Leth]

That wheel looks familiar in some strange way 😜

[@hotpuppy1]

If you could find a retread snow tire, now THERE would be a tire to balance. In 1979 my dad got two retread snow tires for my car. I think they took a POUND of lead to balance them. Without it, it shook madly at 45 mph.

[@blaircrocker9845]

I have had remoulds before within the past 8 years. I know about truck retreads but these were passenger car remoulds. Not common now but still a thing.

[@theodorgiosan2570]

​@@blaircrocker9845 In the US retreads for passenger cars still exist. The mail trucks which use a small 14 inch wheel go through them by the millions. They also sell them for uncommon tread patterns that are normally not available in a given size. For example mud terrain tires in standard car sizes.

[@MrToxicSkittle]

I’m amazed the old machine was this good, considering that the chart did not have the correct size and the accuracy when determining the location more or less by eye! When I worked at a garage 10 years ago, we would sometimes modify the weights, so cut the ends off a 35g to get it to 30 g for example. We would normally say 5 g off was acceptable. Modern tyres and rims sometimes have coloured circles indicating heavy/light spots (I cannot remember which), so that you can rotate the tyre on the rim to minimise the balancing weights. If a tyre was impossible to balance, we would typically rotate the tyre half a revolution on the rim.

[@michaelhamilton3778]

I still have one. And it works great. And I would never get rid of it. It just works. Accurate up to about 85 to 90 miles an hour. Anything over that….. I wouldn’t trust it 🤣👍🏻

[@felixbouvet1746]

Merci bravo le fait d'ajouter un peu de poids ça rééquilibre de l'axe du roux je suis fier de vous bravo pour votre travail

[@therandomtester9561]

I've worked at tyreshop, seen what people in the industry does and I can assure you, you can NOT trust that the tyre was 100% in balance when you started. Not vibrate, sure, but.. Most common mistake workers do is slap on the weights and remove go on with next wheel. They should spin it again to check. If machine is set up wrong, well, then they fit the wrong weights. Other is accuracy, often you set machine to round of number +/-5 or even 10 gram, to match the weights used. Then add that normally under 10g is ok, customer will not feel any vibration, especially on a tyre like that... Then just by accuracy it could be around 10g off each side. Really interesting to see these old machines, how simple they are, yet how great job they do.

[@donpinley8942]

Used a bubble bakancer and adjusted thethe weights to compensated forroad contact stretch

[@ZAFARADIL-cd6xh]

❤❤❤Old machines were,free from cheap toxic plastics and no need electronics ! ! !

[@jimyekel1396]

For many years i used a static balancer with no issues . I did not however ,not point load the weights. I would split the weights in two . It takes more weight but the distribution is better.

[@johnrussell6620]

+1

[@dennisrohm6372]

My uncle has a service station in the 50s, 60s and 70s. He had one like it. It was the only place in town that could balance an MG wire wheel. It spun faster that the car would ever go, thus a great balance. I don't think todays balancers are as good.

[@monkfry]

Love the dinosaur machines. They work just as good, if not better, in some cases and they’re highly serviceable.

[@selenelacaze9883]

I would love so much to have a beautyfull machine like this one !

[@ZAPATTUBE]

What a Great machine. Could you pull the cover off so we can see the inside. Thanks.

[@billdyke9745]

And by the time that has all been done the rubber has perished... I've heard that these days people aren't balancing wheels, but putting some kind of pellets inside the tyre. Each time you drive the pellets migrate to the right place. Very interesting, sir. 👍

[@moestrei]

I converted a motorcycle to electric hub motor and as the rear wheel with its cables cannot be put on a balancing machine my tire shop uses the pellet method. First I thought it was a joke but it actually works.

[@skunkjobb]

Never heard of that. Of course people are still balancing wheels these days. Haven't you seen a car wheel lately? The only difference is that in most cases, the weights are glued to the inside of the rim so you don't see them on the outside.

[@billdyke9745]

@skunkjobb I phrased that poorly. It was not my intention to suggest that it had become ubiquitous practice.

[@stanpatterson5033]

I have never thought of them as "pellets", so much as "beads". I believe they are silicon beads. Silcon, so they won't rust, hold moisture, etc.

[@daliborzeljkovic672]

Old cd roms used same method. One can hear hissing noise while drive loses its speed.