How wheel balancing was done in the 1960´s

[@SeasideGarage]

Hello Everyone! This video has gotten a lot of attention for the last week... Never have I gotten so many views on anything! So thank you! I read all of you comments, but there are just to many to reply to them all. I have gotten a lot of advice and observations about how I did this, And it turns out that I might have made a mistake or two. BUT! This was not meant as a guide, more like a attempt to learn how to use it. One year later I think I got it right! I have been using this machine a lot! and are not having any issues with wheel vibrations... I am planning to do another video soon.. also to compare it to a modern machine!

[@imyaaniggua]

you'r welcome :D

[@spg3331]

Love the video! and your face! have a good one

[@bradleycooper5436]

German is actually very easy to understand in English if you swap the letters out. Common German sounds can be swapped out to the English spelling and it is very legable

[@TheMusingGreg]

Good job mate. Sometimes you get lucky and KZbin seems to recommend a video everywhere and views just go crazy! I've had that twice only on my channel but it's very welcome when it happens! Keep up the good work, a great explanation and I had no idea how this job was done!

[@82markmvd]

I'm looking forward for that video to come! 😀

[@stephenjcuk7562]

So analogue & so satisfying. My father was a mechanic back then. Machines like this are why at 81 years old he can explain why something isn't right and not just how to fix it. A nod to German engineering too.

[@ferolcat2009]

German engineering is the best in the world in my opinion. I'm from the UK and I go for German manufactured tools as much as possible.

[@fredsalter1915]

Agreed. Digital may be the most precise, but there is something about analog that is so much more satisfying.

[@dawsie]

Your so right my Dad was a mechanic back then, he could listen to your car or truck and tell you what needed fixing, a few people laughed at him and said its impossible to do that, but when they took it to a different mechanic, it would be stripped down for days while they worked at figuring out the problem, when they finally did, yep it was exactly as Dad told them, after that they stuck with him. Dad studied all the time improving on what he knew, in the end he was head hunted for a job in Australia so we packed up everything and moved from the UK to Australia 13 days before Christmas in 1978 where he got to work on the huge mining equipment one of which was 6 times the size of out house 🙀😳🙀😳

[@daveshongkongchinachannel]

It probably doesn’t happen but it would be nice to think that people training to go into the motor industry would be taught with something like this so they can truly understand the principles behind what they are doing rather than just being trained to operate a machine. My dad was also a young mechanic back in the 60s and I wish he was still here to share this with.

[@philtheairplanemechanic]

That type of knowledge is something we still have to learn to work on aircraft. Forcing us to troubleshoot and actually learn how to fix stuff for real is a skill I'm endlessly grateful for. I've noticed a lot of aircraft mechanics that leave the industry transition seamlessly to diesel, wind turbine, roller coasters, automotive, rail, any heavy equipment repair, and it's partly because the actual skill set transfers but it's also because we just learn how to learn, so to speak. More often than not I am doing a task for the first time as a line/light hangar maintenance mechanic. There's so much to break it would take forever to re-do every task. So we really have to learn how to figure something out quickly and efficiently and fix it to an Airworthy standard. It's not a skill that is common anymore and again it's one I'm endlessly grateful for.

[@albertpagana]

I'd love to see a video where you take a wheel such as this, balance it on the old machine from 1960s, then test it using modern equipment to see how well it was balanced. It absolutely blows my mind how simple yet precise this technology is. I understand a huge amount of research went into the design of this machine, I just mean simple in the same way that the mechanisms which allow a piano to work are so simple yet so complicated.

[@mummyjohn]

the definition of elegance, here

[@jackquick8362]

Wheels are not balanced normally to incredible tolerances for road use. You'd find this was probably within margin of error on many modern balances which really are just to stop the wheel rattling notably on the highway. Are the machines and tech better today yes, do most people bother using them to get a wheel to a 100th of a gram... No.

[@urugvajchernamazyj6240]

Yeah! Let's start with r21😂

[@billmalec]

Or the other way around...

[@albertpagana]

@@billmalec if you want to see the other way around, try watching the video again....

[@edschultheis9537]

I'm a 59 year old mechanical engineer. I have not seen this type of dynamic wheel balancer before. This is interesting.... A very simple and elegant way of balancing a wheel.

[@anonymouseniller6688]

It is indeed very interesting. IMO though the result looks simple, getting there (designing this lovely thing) may not have been easy.

[@edschultheis9537]

@anonymouseniller6688 In a pure mechanical way, this wheel balancer simplifies the rather complex engineering calculation of dynamic balancing down to drawing lines on a sheet of paper and picking the resulting balance weight solution off of a simple graph. Simple enough that any handy person w/o any engineering or math background can balance it right the first try.

[@shawnsatterlee6035]

Far from simple. Mean simple minded I suppose. But takes way long. Bubble balance is way faster.

[@mxrdslxg]

​@@shawnsatterlee6035well the machine is 62 years old

[@Scotty-vs4lf]

@@shawnsatterlee6035 ofc a bubble balance is faster but this was just showing an old machine

[@Volvith]

Using lateral harmonic frequency oscillation on a RPM reducing wheel to visualize imbalance is _actually_ bloody brilliant. I love old-school solutions to modern problems, because they often highlight a level of ingenuity that is just lost with "just use computers". Amazing! :)

[@ssa7843]

Isn't the RPM 1:1? Seems so in the video, just loosely attached to the frame, maybe with springs.

[@zoolkhan]

wow, you really know a lot of smart words :)

[@indian.techsupport]

Modern problems? Wheel balancing is a very old problem

[@user-vp1sc7tt4m]

@@zoolkhanPlease explain why you posted "wow, you really know a lot of smart words :)"

[@Wise4HarvestTime]

It's got to be how modern ones work too, except with digital gagues and computing that chart and giving a number instead of measuring a drawing and looking on a chart like this one to come up with a number. I like this simple one too... it exposes us more directly to the physics of what is happening and how to measure it 😊

[@iainmacknish5220]

I used to use one of those wheel balancers when I worked with my dad. It took a long time to mount each wheel to the appropriate mounting plate and ballance each wheel compared with a modern machine, but it was a beautifully made machine and a joy to use.

[@LogiForce86]

How was the accuracy compared to modern machines, because even though it takes longer it does seem surprisingly accurate? 🤔

[@Unsensitive]

​​@@LogiForce86'd presume it's good enough. They could have easily made the arm to the drawing paper longer for increased sensitivity. That that didn't, to me indicates this was sufficient for a smooth ride and wearing.

[@stephenjones9153]

​@Unsensitive I often wonder why none of the older vehicles my Dad had never seemed to have out of balance wheel's, yet newer Car's I've owned nearly always seem to have out of balance wheel's at certain speed's. Usually around 65-75Mph I seemed to get vibrations. Makes me think the old fashioned balancing machines did a far better job.

[@HellboyKommentiert]

@@stephenjones9153 I would say it's because most modern cars have larger rims with less rubber, which leads to wheels being damaged from curbs and other impacts more easily.

[@hrvstmn31]

@@HellboyKommentiert That's basically it in my thought process, roads around... well everywhere in the US aren't great. Recently we got 4 tires on my partners car and wouldn't you know it 3 of the rims are bent.

[@grahamballard7041]

I’m 72 and I used a machine like this in my first job as a mechanic. It wasn’t identical but very similar, with a large central tapered nut to lock the wheel in place. The disc at the rear was coated with a chalk past and you then close a small transparent door with a probe. Once you had spun it both ways to record the spasm you simply read the scale on the door. You then had to work out in your head the weight to apply. It was very simple and easy to use and fairly fast once you got familiar with it.

[@kishascape]

This is just an upscale version of what's used to true bicycle wheels.

[@ElectricBillAlbright]

Bicycle wheels are usually done with the spindle mounted in a jig just like it would be on the bicycle. Then a dial indicator is placed on the edge of the rim. The dial will show the wobble of the wheel. Bicycle wheels can be very tricky because when you adjust the spokes it counter affects the opposite side and you also can change the center point of the spindle causing a out of round condition which ends up as a hopping effect of the wheel. Usually bicycles never see speeds that this causes a problem. Cross country cyclists going down mountain grades can hit speeds easily where rim truing and balance matter greatly.

[@Notfiveo0]

I’m so old I still thought they use these. 🥹

[@mitchellcrane9809]

I started as a mechanic in the late eights and still doing it today. I never saw something like this and it is fascinating. I always thought they just did static balancing with a bubble balancer, did not know they had a analog dynamic balancer for tires back then.

[@doomguy584]

The Bubble balancer is the quickest and easiest if you ask me

[@georgemaragos2378]

Hi was going to write a reply separately, my old boss back in late 70's was given a bubble balance from a garage that just upgraded to a "electric dyno machine" It was free and he was so happy as now he did not have to place everything in the ute, drive 5's away and get tyres balanced - so he had taught me the rubber hammer and tyre lever and soap for tyre removal, and he had crudely welded a T handle to a old clothes iron It was amazing, we mounted it on the concrete floor then had to shim it up with washer to get the bubble centered with nothing on it, then place a wheel on it and press the foot lever to make the rim lift of the base and be tested for balance, from there it was trial and error with placing weights to make the bubble centre. He also mentioned it it needed more that 3 weights, the i needed to deflate the tyre, and spin it say 20 to 30 degrees and reinflate and see if it needed more or less weights If it took more than 3 weights the 4th went on the outside of the rim It was good for 8 or 9 /10 wheels/tyres, a few that still had vibration went to the tyre shop, most cases it was a question of inner or outer balance issues - Oh some times we cheated and put the bad rim on the rear so it does not vibrate through the steering wheel

[@fishsquishguy1833]

I started as a mechanic in the early 80s and the shops I worked in used bubble balancers. They were just general repair shops and not tire shops although they always carried tires for customers. First dynamic one I used was in 83-84 and thought it was really cool but always wanted to compare how much better dynamic vs static balancing is on the car. The balancer he’s using reminds me of the old school way of balancing a driveshaft with a couple worm drive hose clamps and a piece of chalk. I remember learning this trick as a teen from an old Peterson Auto Repair manual I read until the binding failed and the pages were falling out! Would have killed for the internet back then!

[@eekee6034]

I grew up in 80s Britain and hardly knew static balancing existed. I'd read the term in some manual which implied that it wasn't really good enough. I always liked to watch the balancing machines, and when I was very little; the early 80s if not the late 70s, they had the external drive like the one in the video. Later, they had an internal drive. I never saw the paper and pencil, that side was always facing away from the customer. It was only later that they turned the dangerous spinning end away from the customers. :) These distant memories come back slowly, and now I remember some time in the mid or late 80s, flipping out internally as my parents' car's wheels were balanced statically, presumably on a bubble balancer. My parents trusted the mechanic, but I'd read that it wasn't good enough. :p It was quite good enough in the end. I wonder if it took time to develop bubble balancers; if they really weren't very good in the 70s?

[@shawnsatterlee6035]

Yeah bubble balance is probably more accurate and way quicker!

[@hartle100]

Back in the 60 . I had a machine like that in my repair shop, balancing a wheel could take a long time if it was out of balance a lot.

[@neilfromclearwaterfl81]

Exactly why they were not very popular in high volume tire shops here in the US unless the customer was willing to pay for premium spin balancing. When tires were less than $20 few were willing to pay for it and would choose the lower cost bubble balancing most often. You didn't get 4 sets of tires mounted, balanced and out the door per service bay every hour with these early spin balancers. Some shops that did have these spin balancers didn't use them unless a customer came back complaining about vibrations from the bubble balancing with some doing the spin balancing to correct things for free while others charged extra for it. It would be interesting to take a tire spin balanced on this machine to be checked on a modern computerized unit to see the differences. My gut feeling tells me the computer might make a few compromises in order to speed the process up by using a braking mechanism to shorten the spin down cycle potentially making it a bit less accurate. Here in the US the Merrill System was the premium spin balance method since it provided for dynamically spin balancing tires while they were mounted on the vehicle therefore balancing the wheel hub and brake drum/disk. Merrill developed his system in 1945 at his Englewood, Colorado shop. In the 1960's when the first one was installed in our town my Dad brought me with him to see this marvel in operation. Since it used strobe lights to indicate where and how much weight needed to be applied it was quite a show. It was an inherently dangerous operation since the spinning tire so close to the ground would catch things and send them flying if the tech wasn't careful with where he left his tools, rags, etc. Of course if you opted for Merrill Spin Balancing it was more costly. This was quite a sophisticated system for 1945 and even in the 1960's only specialty shops had them. Best!

[@itsnetts]

@@neilfromclearwaterfl81 Modern tire balancers absolutely stop the tire pretty early, but I would assume they monitor the balance through the whole startup process as well. Even if they don't they will capture the wobble at higher speeds which are the most important speeds to not have vibrations. At lower speeds it's not so imperative to not have some wobble.

[@neilfromclearwaterfl81]

@@itsnetts Hopefully they do diagnostics during the spinup cycle however the old manual Bosch does do a more complete cycle with a full spin up and down. The physical record with a pattern of what it found is a nice touch too. The modern spin balancers though potentially not running as complete a cycle are more expedient and practical for use on every tire mounted plus leaps and bounds better than a simple bubble balancer. Plus there is a wide range of models out there today costing anywhere from around $1,500 to around $30,000. One would hope the $30,000 models would be more accurate than the $1,500 ones and not just faster. Best!

[@itsnetts]

@@neilfromclearwaterfl81 Right on! Have a great day!

[@DeadKoby]

The inventor of that machine gets my congratulations. Brilliant, simple, reliable.

[@mikaelturnip8820]

You can convert the pencil and paper, on these machines, with a steel pointer/scribe and a hard rubber/plastic disk. Then you just coat the rubber with damp chalk. Makes the same pattern but much less hassle. You can always convert it back if you want.

[@garysmith691]

very nice, i like seeing how things evolved from back in the day

[@Youhaveaname]

I've been a tire tech for the last 10 years and I've found myself wondering from time to time how tires were balanced years ago before computerized road force balancers. This is awesome!

[@jimherman3059]

I have seen a lot of tires balanced using a balance machine that sat on the floor and had a bubble in a liquid in the center of a spring loaded dome you put the center of the wheel on the triangle shaped dome laying flat and by adding weights on the same side of where the bubble was you centered the bubble in a sight and in the 60s and 70s these were all I ever saw used to balance auto tires in Illinois.

[@DataLog]

I've noticed that every time my tyres were "balanced", tyre techs like you did a poor job and it would start vibrating on the fast roads.

[@ScarlettStunningSpace]

Ten years! I've only lasted three lol. My body had enough by that time. Some people are built different

[@ScarlettStunningSpace]

​@@DataLogModern tire balancers can be finicky, especially if they're not bolted down and dirt gets under the feet of the machine. All three shops I've worked at didn't have their machines bolted down

[@solobobo2158]

They just don't make them like they used to. I can't imagine a new machine lasting this long. Now a days manufacture's quit supporting equipment after 10/15 years can't get parts or go out off business. Great video. I love it.

[@RollingLogs21]

That is such an awesome machine, like nothing I've seen before! Thank you so much for sharing this gem with us!

[@Shive1337]

Hi, I'm a 68 year old balanced wheel and I used to be a mechanical engineering mechanic back in the days before modern times. It's so nice to see fellow wheels spinning around in circles all balanced based on experimental mathmatics.

[@leocurious9919]

Just an idea: If you scan the graph I could give you a formula to calculate the values you need in a more or less simple formula. Or re-make the graph from scratch. Would be a bit of work but could be fun.

[@badgermetal]

That would make for a neat app.

[@itrstt66]

@@badgermetal Please do i, andalsopost avideo on the process

[@Scotty-vs4lf]

this would be cool

[@rivernet62]

I think a spreadsheet would do the trick

[@Jauertussen1]

@@rivernet62 nah just plot the functions

[@Flatseas]

I love it. No obsolescense issues with neither software or hardware. 👏

[@acpompeo]

Very good!! Congratulations!

[@nauy]

This is a gem of a machine. What a find!

[@crash3514]

It's honestly so incredible to see how accurate and perfect their chart is. Incredible machine!

[@82markmvd]

Really nice balancing machine! I bought exact the same model balancer the other day, it's a 'Nurburg' from 1958, and tried it out just as you did. Need to practice a bit more with it but your video made a few thing more clear to me. Thanks for the nice video and greetings from Holland.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Try a bare rim and work with that. You can make your own calibration chart. Most rims are very close to perfect balance.

[@jvmiller1995]

@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 Not really. Oneside does have a 7/16 in hole with a valve stem in it. Of course I bought 5 rims for my old 53 truck and one of them was missing the hole. I got a phone call from the tire shop and he was like I got 4 done but. So I had to look up the size and took my drill and made a hole. Of course I called summit and told them what the deal was and got their blessing. That way if I did mess up for some odd reason they would replace. I was going to send it back but it was a chrome smooth rim with a steel hub I had already painted to match my truck.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

@@jvmiller1995 pop a valve stem in there or leave the old one in. Try it with a tire on it like this fellow and it's likely to be even more out of balance.

[@jvmiller1995]

@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 I am just saying the rims are not normally balanced from the factor. They are machine welded and or machined and stuff anymore so they are much closer than ever before. The fact they have a valve stem on one side and not the other will affect the balance of them too. Most wheels if you put them on a balance machine without a tire will be off before ever getting rubber. Especially cheap steel wheels. Some high end aluminum wheels are balanced but most wheels are out of balance leaving the factory and will be because the factor knows they will be balanced when they get a tire.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

@@jvmiller1995 I guess it's how you define, "Very close." A quarter or half ounce isn't much compared to random old tire and rim assembly. Some electronic motorized balancers might fault on start to spin with just a rim. Sometimes you can spin by hand and they'll lock in. But either way you can balance the bare rim. Then once it's zeroed you can move it on the shaft and see if you have set up or other internal imbalances. It should still be zero or possibly a quarter ounce since machine will round off to nearest ounce. Some machines will show exact amount in fine mode. Then having established that one can add one, two, or three ounces on one flange or plane and check for location and amount calibration. And that's great information from me. A fellow who's been down this road many times because I love fixing up equipment.

[@trendliners9658]

Quality back then was top notch. Everything lasted and will last forever, working flawlessly.

[@giostisskylas]

Those were the days when machines were built that lasted 60 years and will probably still work in 100 years.

[@finnmcginn9931]

We have a fridge in our boatshed in Canada that's 60 odd years old and still runs like a charm. I've replaced the fridge in our house twice in 8 years.

[@crackedemerald4930]

Well, this one lasted that long.

[@andyxox4168]

... by which time the government ‘green agenda’ will force you to sell your car and have you walking and cycling in your 15 minute prison city !

[@DNTMEE]

We may not even be using tires in 100 years given the progress in the last 100 years. OTOH we still don't have flying cars and may not in another 100 years either. Or tires will only be used for take-off and landings. On the third hand, takeoffs and landings for cars and aircraft may be mostly some sort of magnetic levitation or "dark energy" levitation.

[@williamthompson1455]

I wish that was true. But it's just not.

[@willitweld2127]

Fantastic demonstration! so complex, yet so simple...

[@theblackhand6485]

Yes indeed you should balance a balanced wheel of a modern machine. Can't wait for the results.

[@Eff917]

Or just send this balanced wheel to a modern shop, and have it checked

[@christianmarth9989]

@@Eff917Do both

[@TheFireball1711]

And try it at driving to feel which result feels better

[@trevcessna1723]

So cool I have never seen one of these before! I was born in ‘61’ so I know it’s good quality LOL! Thanks!

[@chrisjohnson4165]

Thanks for posting this. I love this machine! In the 1970s I used an on-the-car balancer which used a sensor that triggered a strobe light to pinpoint the area which needed some weight.

[@grandinosour]

I patronize a semi truck shop that still uses this type of balancer ....they will put a chalk line on the sidewall of the tire to use as a reference point during a strobe flash. They like it because it will take into account the whole rotating wheel assembly during balancing.

[@quantumleap359]

@@grandinosour Yep, exactly right! I remember watching mechanics using this type of balancer in the 60s. The motor spun the wheel to a tremendous speed, and the strobe light would stop the motion! I don't think it would indicate how much weight you had to add to the wheel. Trial and error I suppose.

[@cosmicallyderived]

Go capture some video footage of that process, should make for a popular video here.

[@throwawayyeha4947]

That's a really cool method of balancing a wheel and the visualization is especially interesting. The name of that shape drawn by the pencil is a "Cardioid" and the reason it's drawn out by the unbalanced wheel has some really cool reasoning in calculus and trigonometry. Sines and Cosines and all that.

[@stevenrichardsonsr3812]

cardioid cause it resembles the cardiac muscle in the human body?

[@tmeinc]

Be a little careful here because a true cardioid is generated by two circles as shown in Wikipedia. The equation for a cardioid would produce an approximation to the figure this machine produces. I suspect the figure from the machine is a series of circles whose centers travel along arcs. The arc lengths relate to the amount of unbalance. Spinning the wheel backwards produces another set of circles partially overlapping the first shape. The result resembles a cardioid with a single cusp. It would be fun to really unbalance the wheel and watch the figure generate under a strobe light

[@reinoldi1097]

@@tmeinc im german and wirtten there on the graph is Nierenbild Niere + Bild translates to Kidney Picture

[@AlexanderWright1]

Looking at the graph, it's incredible how out of balance older tyres used to be. Likewise, the size of the disk implies huge vibrations!

[@jefferyboring4410]

I used bubble balancing it’s a lot faster. And the equipment is cheap like 100$ Maby not as accurate u just get it close enough u can’t feel it .

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Modern "cheap" tires are generally more "out of balance" and require more corrective weight. High quality Michelin and Continental even Firestone Bridgestone tires generally exhibit better geometry and less "hop" on the balancer. Cheap tires are usually heavier and stiffer and require more material to meet their load specifications and this additional material must be exactly evenly distributed. The thickness of the sections and the extra material no doubt cause more opportunity for imbalance. My three cents...

[@thelasttimeitried]

I can't imagine spinning a tire up to 300rpm and then having it waggle around to that extreme!

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

@@thelasttimeitried I had one of the old Canadian Bear machines with a 500 RPM spindle. Unbelievable! Great balance though.

[@wills.5762]

Look at how wide the slot is that allows the disk to wobble

[@kobelrudolf1794]

We had just such a balancing machine in my father's garage. It was just as good as a fully electronic one. It just takes more time and understanding to evaluate the drawing. Very nice video, and a jump back to my youth. Thanks.

[@Reman1975]

Nice new toy. Whenever I think of wheel balancers I think of a friend who bought a cheep old one many years ago. He got it because he liked changing the wheels on his retro project cars pretty often, so would always be half looking for tatty, but really cool, classic aftermarket wheels, and then restoring them. Sometimes he'd end up with a set that needed a lot of grinding/sanding to get looking great again, and this often lead to them being ridiculously out of balance when he'd finished. He hated it when a wheel needed a ruddy great long strip of stick on weights, so, while still in the early stages of restoring them, he'd stick the bare wheel on his balancer, and use the info it provided to let him know where to subtly sand a little extra material from to get the wheel a lot closer to being balanced. So rather than have a ton of unsightly wheel weights on it, he'd just start sanding slightly heavier in that half of the wheel which was heaviest, then the finished wheel/tyre combo may only need a couple of small weights to compensate for the tyres imbalance.

[@dipankar4865]

SIMPLE AND BRILLIANT 🥰🥰🥰. Never felt so satisfied watching a video 👍👍👍.

[@georgeross9834]

My grandad car garage had a balancer which was a cone with a bubble in a small glass . The wheel would tilt out of the small black circle and be in the centre when it was balanced 1938 I believe it was . Nice video 😅

[@oldmaninthecave]

You can still buy one of those at Harbor Freight. I have one in my garage right now that I used to balance the tires on my Model A.

[@quantumleap359]

Yes, static bubble balancers are still used today, but I'm not sure how these compare to a dynamic balancer like the one in the video

[@oldmaninthecave]

@@quantumleap359 I don't really like the balancer in the video, but modern dynamic balancers are way better than a bubble balancer. I actually have a bubble balancer in my garage, which I used on my Model A Ford. The car is the most fun you can have at 45 miles an hour. With a car that is 1930s technology, a bubble balancer is good enough, and on a modern car a bubble balancer would be better than nothing, but not by much. At modern speeds and technology, a bubble balancer is totally inadequate.

[@jbdragon3295]

I used one of those in Auto Shop in high school years ago. Another one we had, it was this device that clamped don't the wheel with a couple nobs in the middle, a strobe light and a box with a motor that would spin the tire on the car. As it was spinning, you would adjust the nob until the wheel stopped moving under the strobe light. You would stop it and put the weight in that location. It was a pretty old device. Later on, we ended up getting a computer balancer. You put it on the machine and then hand spun it yourself. There was no motor to spin the wheel on the machine.

[@mykneegrow2819]

Great stuff. What’s great about stuff like this is that by using it you learn how it works. New stuff is all electronic and automated

[@thomaskidd1400]

Very interesting! Reminds me somewhat of our balance machine ,used in our Ford dealership in the early 70s! It checked the wheel balance while still on the car. The car was raised off the ground by approximately 1 ft. Balance was checked by fitting a magnet onto the ball joint arm, the magnet was also connected to a device that moved up and down When the spinning wheel was at its heaviest point, 12 o clock This in turn caused a strobe light to flash at these intervals Onto the front of the wheel, This made it look as though the wheel was actually stationary! All you had to do then was check the position of the tyre valve!?! For example if the valve was flashed at 2 o clock , You stopped the wheel and put the valve at 2 o clock,then fitted a weight at 12 o clock, The weight size was decided by a guage similar to your machine . The bigger the up and down movement,the bigger the weight fitted! The beauty was that it balances the wheel and tyre, also the brake disc or drum and the hub all complete together!!!!! Modern machines only balance the wheel and tyre,not the complete assembly!

[@cosmicallyderived]

That’s fascinating. Someone should dig one of those up and document it on KZbin.

[@ptonpc]

That is an amazing machine. The amount of thought and calculations that went into making it so simple to use.

[@techman2553]

Once the bearing and mount are made such that a wobble in the tire could translate to the paper, it was probably pretty easy to make that chart. Just start with a balanced wheel then add progressively more weight to unbalance it and record the measurements, then use the measurements as plot points to draw those graphs. You don't really need to calculate it, just let it do its thing with and record the conditions to make the curves. Still very clever though.

[@mjrams]

I am so impressed! I didn’t think for a second this machine would still be at all serviceable. Great demonstration.

[@davidparker9676]

This was a fascinating video. I really enjoyed seeing how this balancer worked. I was wondering how the dynamic balance would be done especially with a piece of paper and a pencil lead.

[@mikesabota2570]

I had an old GT Mustang that an old very knowledgeable mechanic speed balanced the front tires ON the car..opened the doors as a visual guide to verify the shimmy was gone..best balance job I ever got..then or now..would love to come across one of those old machines!!!👍👍👍

[@ArtFiendz]

That is absolutely incredible. We are pretty lucky we had people like the person who made this to pave the way for us and make things much easier

[@shadetreemech290]

Thank you for showing me this. This is the answer to a problem a friend had back in the 1980s.

[@yourfriend5144]

Mechanical engineering student here. And this machine and other old gems are what made me choose to study engineering. My grandfather had one in his repair shop. And it always fascinated the 12 years old me and still does

[@Mickhanic-garage]

I joined the RAF in the early 90s and for many years the balancer was this type probably from the 70s. Later on they they replaced it with newer digital one. The old one had a small window with a pointer and a scale on the window. You put a thin layer of oil paint on the disc behind and again the same procedure spinning left and right, worked fine. Those days we were still fitting Metro TD tyres... awful things to get on with a mechanical hand tyre changer.

[@bigblockjalopy]

Wow, I Love that machine! Always wondered how they did it back then. Thanks for sharing!

[@stogmot1]

Many many years ago the balancing machine i used , spun the wheels actually still on the car with it jacked up ,and one would place a vibration sensor on the suspension arm and a strobe light would show you where to place the weights on the wheel .

[@SeasideGarage]

Wow that sound cool!!

[@harpoonlouis]

It was ok until you removed and reseated the wheel, then it needed doin again

[@world_still_spins]

​@@harpoonlouisSounds like the machining issues I had with an 'on the car' rotor lathe in college.

[@robertheinkel6225]

@@harpoonlouis. I marked one stud on the car, and lined it up with the valve stem. As long as the wheel was reinstalled with the stud and valve stem lined up, rebalancing wasn’t needed. I had to do that for three years, because the balancing weight on the brake drum came off, requiring me to balance the wheel installed on the car.

[@TheOneRaf]

I don't know why this came up in my recommendations, but it did, and I absolutely enjoyed this!

[@MrFastFox666]

Im always impressed at the creativity, engineering, and maths that it must have taken to get all this stuff figured out. They should make a modern version of this for home use, I think. It seems to take a while to use so I can see why a tire shop wouldn't like it.

[@worawatli8952]

This is awesome, the principle is the same as today's machines, but it was all manual, no electronics. Seeing this make me understand more on how the machine works. It's the same things happening inside, but today it's done in few minutes, not an hour. lol

[@jaguarracingus]

here in the states there's a company called bear alignment. they made a balancing machine that instead of paper it used an adjustable spark gap. it would spin the tyre up to 100mph. fun and hazardous at the same time. no OSHA when it was made. highly effective they were.

[@suttoncoldfield9318]

When I worked at Dunlop in the early 1980's, for the price of a packet of cigarettes one of the blokes in the tyre shop would balance your car wheels good for up to 130mph.

[@greggc8088]

@@suttoncoldfield9318 What's the difference of a balanced tire/wheel assembly turning 30 mph when compared to a balanced tire/wheel assembly turning 130 mph?

[@KenzertYT]

@@greggc8088 more obvious vibrations

[@greggc8088]

@@KenzertYT OK. Another question-Which weighs more, a ton of lead or a ton of feathers? 🤣🤣

[@mrb692]

@@greggc8088The feathers, because of the weight of what you did to those poor birds to get a ton of feathers 😂

[@grundegrimstad4703]

Loved it! I love old analogue precision tools. Greetings from Norway.

[@arieplomp8906]

Very cool 😎 machine! The only updates you need are a fresh piece of paper and a pencil !

[@dragan3290]

In the 90s i used to buy tyres cheap from an old man selling tyres, fitting and balancing. But his machine had the wheel sitting flat on a scale looking device. I was only 17 so i had no idea how it worked but i did see what looked like a bubble level for his readings! Cheers from Australia

[@Taekwondo101Official]

Super cool machine. Would you do a video, taking the cover off so we can see how that machine works?? I’m very interested in the internal mechanics of that thing. Thanks for posting.👍🏻

[@TheNewMechanic]

Also would love to see the inner workings!

[@XwpisONOMA]

I don't think there are any more parts on the inside other than the motor that rotates the spindle that turns the wheel. Then there is the mounting axle with a direct through connection to the circular paper mounting part. The chart is all the money and I bet with time a good "analog" mechanic learns how to use, i.e. read, interpret and compensate for human error. It's a very simple machine; however, for the demands of that era it probably worked very well. Obviously a modern balancing machine is quicker and more accurate. But back then the mechanics were real Mechanics NOT auto-part changers like today.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Probably a loose belt and pivot to bring motor pulley tension up. Sort of a deadman's brake.

[@4everdc302]

34-year tireguy here. Awesome👍! I have a 60's fiberglass based bubble balancer. It is filled with mineral oil.

[@TheBrain2K]

As a programmer (with basically zero experience in car maintenance, but a good understanding of basic physics), I have always wondered how wheel balancers work (modern or old ones), but never really bothered to find out. After watching this video, I have a fairly good idea how modern ones probably work too. They probably do the same as the pen & paper here, but with magnetic coils instead to measure the deflection. And then running an algorithm on the deflection and wheel position data collected to determine the direction and size of the "heart" figure to show where and how much weight to put on.

[@mickeygallo6586]

Amazing, simple, tough as nails, and precise !

[@twocvbloke]

It's amazing to think how they had to work out the mechanical system of this machine to read the tyre's balance like that, all by hand, no comouters involved, and then using it as it is again without computers to balance the wheels, very smart technology, these day's it's all load sensors and position sensors and probably other sensors too that calculate everything in seconds, with little human thinking needed... :)

[@grantcivyt]

A human had to think about how the new digital systems would work--not to mention the way the sensors themselves work. Importantly, innovation also frees humans to think about today's challenges and how to solve them!

[@alias_not_needed]

You can achieve a lot with trial and error. If you are intelligent you write it down and see a pattern. Then you put the values in a graph and make your life a lot easier for the next million times you use the machines. If you write stuff down and keep everything labeled you can hire someone else to do even very complicated things ;)

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

First and second order vibrations. First order or wheel tramp is up and down and is the static balance. Done so the wheel has equal weight around the circumference and does not tend to rotate. This is the single plane static balance. Old bubble balancers would have you split the amount and put half on inside flange and the other half on the outside rim. Weights were A, B, and C sizes. You could take two weights heavier than the amount needed and move them both equally away from the exact point where the imbalance low point was indicated. Simple and extremely effective. Second order dynamic or two-plane imbalance is called wheel shimmy. The wheel and tire assembly could be in perfect static balance, but have dynamic imbalance. This imbalance can only be observed with the tire rotating. This machine allows the tire to move in the horizontal axis. Wondering if it's just a rubber elastomeric suspension. I wonder if there's a fixed pivot? Or steel spring suspension with dash pot or hydraulic dampers... Very cool. The electronic type have load sensors on axis and no doubt electronically identify the peak displacement or force. Electronically easy to do. Calculating the proper balancing weight is more complicated.

[@shawnsatterlee6035]

It's a spin balancer. A crude one if that. But a simple spin balancer just like any other, but again a crude one. Stop overthinking it ppl! It's what it is.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

@@shawnsatterlee6035 Thanks for that clarification. I'm sure none of us thought of that. Any other wise words of advice? Thanks in advance!

[@TheRtm68]

It’s so nice to see the machine on how I learned to balance wheels, later one we had a wheel balancer for “the wheels had to stay on you’re car” with that you balanced the wheel,brake system and drive shaft on you’re car! It’s sad to see that profession is out of the modern car mechanics, they only can use the computers!

[@Hagemann666]

This is super cool! I'd always wondered how it was done back in the day. The clever solutions that our parents and grandparents dreamed up without the benefit of computers is so interesting to me. You got yourself a new subscriber!

[@jazzochannel]

how would you solve it with the benefit of a computer? I think the mechanical solution is by far easier to design and implement.

[@MultiPureskill]

I would love to have this machine in my home! Such a cool machine!

[@brainwater]

That's cool! I'd wondered how balancing wheels was done, and eventually settled on thinking they spun the wheel up and used chalk to mark where it was heaviest (the wheel would move towards the chalk at the heaviest point, making a mark there). This looks like a more accurate system.

[@shawnsatterlee6035]

No, modern is spun balance and machine will tell ya exactly what weight is needed on inside and outside of rim. It's stupid easy actually. Actually takes longer to put wheel on than balance it.

[@jenntek.101]

This is one of the BEST garage tools EVER !!!!

[@shortcut6671]

Hi there, I'm writing from Berlin, Germany. I know that balancer quite well as we had it at our school for motor mechanics where I used to teach. With it you could very impressively show the apprentices the difference between static and dynamic balancing of wheels. Also was the result of the job with medium wheels quite sufficient. Sorry I can't help you with a copy of the manual, but there isn't more to it as you showed in the video.

[@donniecatalano]

Beautiful simplicity, excellent manual tools that didn't need any damn electronics. Love it

[@theGADGETSplaylist]

love your enthusiasm and your old school machine! You correctly started off by addressing the static unbalance by placing weights on the plane closest the bearing support Then the paper provided you with the couple unbalance information and you placed a weight on the plane furthest from bearing support. THERE GOES THE STATIC! Am sure that an equal weight would also be required 180º opposite to be added to original static plane.

[@SeasideGarage]

Hmm... I get your point.... But it seems very much in balance as it is now :)

[@olivercouch1651]

Not quite. The point of adding weights out of plane is to generate a transverse moment that cancels out the existing transverse moment of the wheel as is. If you put weight directly opposite you'd cancel out the effect. If you need something precision balanced you need to go back to the first plane of weights and remove some actually. Think of the wheel like a series of discs stacked together. In a dynamically balanced wheel, every individual disc is statically balanced (ie. Its centre of mass lies on the axle). But in a wheel that is statically balanced but dynamically unbalanced, the individual disks are not balanced, but they cancel each other out while sitting still. Once you spin it up the difference between them combined with centrifugal forces creates the dynamic imbalance (a transverse rocking couple). The wikipedia article is pretty good: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_of_rotating_masses

[@curtislavoie2242]

@@olivercouch1651Great explanation, thank you.

[@anj000]

@@olivercouch1651 so in the video he did everything correctly?

[@QuasiRandomViewer]

@@SeasideGarage Very interesting. I, too, expected to the dynamic balance weight to throw off the static balance. Did you ever attempt to rebalance a newly, professionally balanced wheel, as you suggested at 11:18. That would be fun to watch.

[@ziggys745]

VERY INTERESTING, I REMEMBER WATCHING THE WHEELS GET BALANCED WHILE STILL ON THE CAR IN THE 70'S

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

Oooh, I like that machine. As I understand it, you statically balance the wheel around the inside rim, i.e over the pivot point of the axle, which only leaves the out-of plane imbalance to deal with, yes? The forward / backward spin then maps the imbalance due to its 90° phase shift in each direction. That's incredibly clever.

[@kougerat5388]

Well I'm glad you worked it out I'm still scratching my head🤔 ha ha

[@imho7250]

The thing that doesn’t add up is if he did a static balance by adding weights to one plane, and then to achieve dynamic balance he adds weighs ONLY to the opposite plane, then it would no longer be in static balance. It would in theory need equal weights added to both planes, 180 degrees apart, to correct the dynamic balance without ruining the static balance. Or do the dynamic balance first, adding weights to both planes 180 degree apart, and then do static balance by adding equal weight to both planes at the lightest part. Unfortunately we never got to see the wheel come to a full stop to see if the static balance was off at the end.

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

@@imho7250 Nice catch. I hadn't thought about that. Still trying to wrap my head around how this works. That said, having driven 1970s cars, the answer might be "just about well enough as long as you don't go too fast"

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

And I've now fallen down a dynamic balancing patent rabbithole. THANKS A BUNCH!

[@imho7250]

I added a comment going into more detail on how i think this works, but in a nutshell its: 1. Determine where you will add weights (stick on or clamp on) and that identifies the two planes. 2. Put the inner plane at the marker which indicates the fulcrum point. This prevents the inner plane imbalance from affecting the outer plane. 3. Spin the wheel both directions to obtain outer plane imbalance reading, then use magicians guide to determine how much weight to add to the outer plane. Repeat until wobble goes away, indicating outer plane is now statically balanced. 4. Now perform a standard static balance on the tire, adding weight only to the inner plane, since thats the only plane that can be causing the overall tire to be out of static balance. Now with both planes individually static balanced, it is dynamically balanced.

[@6panel300]

Absolutely fascinating. My son used to fit tyres before qualifying as a mechanic, I'm going to show him this. He was amazed when I showed him how to change a tyre by hand without any machines, just a slide hammer and levers.

[@steverandall5814]

What an interesting piece of automotive service history! This machine comes from a time when mechanics were expected to measure, look things up and extrapolate. There was real skill involved. No lasers, no hall effect sensors...just precision all-mechanical equipment. Modern tire shops have fully computerized spin-balance machines that tell the user exactly how much weight to apply at what position. There is very little skill needed any more. Tire balancing is becoming a lost art.

[@SeasideGarage]

Yes! It's gives a great understanding of the problem and solution... :)

[@497Dante]

Yeah, also many shops (I call it as fast shops) nowadays hiring “under skill” workers maybe it is due to lack of highly skilled workers available.

[@LymanPhillips]

The art of balancing may be dying off, but if the results are better, I'll take the dumb computerized balancing any day. I'm old enough to remember this type of balancer and the static bubble balancing and the occasional bad job, and I'll take a good job over a bad one no matter what technique is used. That said, I absolutely love this video and this machine. So analogue; so hands on.

[@Dappersworth]

This type of balancer couldn't be used anyway because it's slower than the computer aided machinery. Auto shops need to get that quantity of cars serviced.

[@frunomaol5069]

Your enthusiasm is infectious.

[@magnusatheos7301]

Very cool! If a professional shop balanced it previously, I'd put money on it being out of balance before you started. When you did the static balance, the old position was a few degrees off where the wheel settled. Gravity doesn't lie. I've yet to have a tire shop do a good job balancing wheels. They're just too much in a hurry and don't care to do a good job to begin with. Would have been interesting to see how unbalanced it was before you started.

[@don2deliver]

A modern machine will balance to within an eighth of an ounce on each side after about a12 second test spin. You can't get any better by taking more time, as long as you test spin the balanced wheel. A road force balance machine takes what the car feels from the tread contact against the road and calculates that into the weight placement.

[@magnusatheos7301]

@@don2deliver So why can't the tire shops get it right?

[@ghoulbuster1]

@@magnusatheos7301 they want to do it quickly and screw it up by hastily slapping the weights on the wheel.

[@don2deliver]

@@magnusatheos7301 I don't know, some don't even put them on the balancer that's sitting right there. Sometimes the machines go out of calibration and nobody double checks the tires after the initial spin and weight placement. And the most likely reason is that there are 7 different kinds of wheel weights and almost nobody keeps every type of weight in every size in stock. It is extremely expensive to stock every weight. And nobody wants to pay $50 a tire to have their wheel balanced when they see it only takes a few minutes. Paying hundreds of dollars a week in wheel weights is a big expense for shops, let alone the $8000 outlay for the initial assortment. Old weights get reused or the wrong type of weight is used and they fall off. Wheels without a front lip have also become popular and require time to properly clean the inside lip so the stick on weights stay stuck on. But if a shop owner sees you 'take to long' to balance a wheel you will be bitched at. So yeah basically it's because you won't pay $50 a wheel.

[@shawnsatterlee6035]

Long as not off more than half ounce ur fine! I sold many of tires and balanced them also. Btw selling tires isn't a good business to b in!

[@marmaly]

Outstanding! Such fun! The satisfaction of manual process.

[@PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

That’s a cool balancer. All I saw in the US in those days were static bubble balancers. I do have a Snap-On static balancer about that age. It mounts the wheel on a horizontal shaft, which then turns in ball bearings. You let the heavy spot settle, then place a beam with sliding weight on the end of the shaft. Slide the weight until the static balance is good. Then slip on a pivoting marking strip which divides the circumference into thirds. Read the indicated weight from the balance beam and install that weight at the marked 1/3 points. Dividing the weight in thirds seemed to help avoid harmonic out-of-balance. The machine really worked about as well as dynamic balancing originally did.

[@ronalddaub9740]

Is yours a weaver?

[@joshuaphillips1867]

This is awesome, simple, and ingeniously clever.

[@danman9017]

i imagine the shaft and bearing must be supported by spring to have that flex to move

[@Snarlacc]

I remember these things from my childhood, they still were in use by the 90s. Always wondered, how they worked, thanks!

[@superargo4701]

Just add 4 to 6 oz of beads to the interior of the tire, and it will always be dynamically balanced as it spins up. BTW, the beads don't harm any tire sensors.

[@Automata_Omega]

Around 2010 when me and my family came back from my homeland Tranyslvania to Hungary, and I remember the tires went faulty and blew up so we got a full wheel defect on the front left (thankfully we weren't going fast enough to lose control because of the speed). In romania, literally in between the nowhere, we found an old man, who had a secialisation in fixing tires/wheels and he was an expert at it, he did a wonderful job centering (balancing) our wheel. This techique still exists nowadays, and is the best solution for a quick fix, and it lasts for years!

[@4wheelwarrior]

Amazing! Paper is so elegant ... been wondering for years how this was done before computers, thank you!

[@Michael-vv8im]

I was used to such a machine 40 years ago. It is standing in the workshop of our motor sports club up to now. I balanced the wheels of my FORD Fiesta and a club-member even balanced the flywheel of his motor.

[@Ratzfourtyfour]

That's a way more sophisticated method than I had expected.

[@frankmcnally996]

That was quite interesting. Its things like this that make learning a bit more difficult but more gratifying.

[@stephengates7215]

And to think we just had a manual machine with a spirit level type thing. Great vid, Thank you

[@gregclark5344]

Cant believe you actually knew how to operate this beautiful old rig.

[@jeff8ball]

I remember going to the garage with my father to see Rick the mechanic. Early 60's. He was always covered in grease. He let me sit in the car while it was raised up on the old hydraulic jack to change the oil...and the sound of the bell ringing as it ran over the trip cord when a car pulled in for fuel. Loved it! He knew the family and looked after the car. Simpler times.

[@cableguy130]

Thats brilliant. Ive been trying to understand how this works for the longest time and all I needed to see is this simple principle in action.!! Thank you!!!

[@frankwren8215]

Beautiful, elegant & simple - Peak engineering.

[@powershot9933]

All this manual computing back then vs now where a computer does it for you. Technology is awesome

[@Truthist1776]

My grandfather has an old bubble wheel balancer, and it works great.

[@alowatsakima8950]

That's so advanced. In the summer of 1964 I worked at a filling station on OAHU. I balanced tires on a machine that had a center with a bubble. You balanced the tire by placing the weight around he tire until the bubble was in the center. Half the weight went on one side and the other half on the other. Since I was a college student the manager let me work as many hours as I could and he kept track of the hours over 8, and paid me those every week after I left until he had paid me for all the hours I worked.

[@OVRxNxOUT]

I’m not sure why or how I ended up on this video, but I did & am sooo glad because that was completely fascinating to watch. Thank you!

[@hailster]

Such a simple way to balance a tire. I'd love to get my hands on a machine like this for us at home.

[@Interstate66]

I like these old machines so much! Sturdy, simple, working vor 60 years and very precise :) And also sometimes cheap to get. If you want or need I can translate the instructions for you. I'm native bavarian from Munich, Germany ;)

[@jcvcomfg1]

I love analogue and primitive devices because I learn a lot from them.

[@rage2k1]

Love old tools like this, may not be as fast as a new computer balancer today, but functional all the same

[@dr.x4050]

I like seeing these old tools to show how everything works.

[@stumac869]

Such an elegant solution to a problem.

[@rogerwilco8597]

This machine is simple and awesome. Good work.

[@mariocolic4943]

Great way for balancing wheel, great machine! Thank You!