I have a set of 450 firestones on a new build that appear to be out of round and feel pretty out balance at about 50 mph. I dynamical balanced them but still is pretty undesirable to drive above 50 mph. Front end is all new and should be set up correct, no shimming just feels like out of round tires. Before I pull them off is their any kind of tire shaping or grinding I could do. Also a couple of pics of new ride I built at home. Thx Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Back in the day at a Ford dealership where I worked we had a machine to skim the tires to make them perfectly round. Don't know if such a thing still exists or not. edit...found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAasIWzUJaU
Increasing tire pressure may help.. I usually run a little over recommended pressure, however it may ride a little rougher over bumps.. I'm not sure you will ever get a great ride on that small of a tire.. At least I haven't but I have never shaved mine..
huge problem if you use coker bias ply tires, you need to find someone to shave them, a lot of road race guys shave their tires look for a local scca website near you and you should be able to find someone to shave them
Shaving may help. My friend also had his tires balanced on the car so that the brake drum wheel and tire are all balanced as a unit. That combined with shaving cured his issue. I had my bias ply front tires balanced on a spin balancer and have had zero issues 5.60 x15 on one car and 5.00 / 5.25 x16 on the other. About 12,000 on each set. Same with the rears. You will solve your issue. chuck
Take the car out and drive it far enough to get the tires good and warmed up and then run it back in the garage and jack the front tires a few inches off the floor and set something close to the center of the tread for reference and rotate the tire to figure out how much runout you actually have. Tire stores usually have a dial indicator designed for checking the runout in tires when there are vibration issues. If you haven't already done so, you might try breaking the tire down and rotating it 180 degrees on the rim and seeing if you can cut the runout down. An on the car spin balancer would no doubt help some as the hub or drum may be out of balance. That might be especially true if you are running Buick drums on Ford hubs or some other combination like that.
I usually run 20 lbs on all four tires that helps a lot and gives a less jarring ride. our roadsters only weight around 1900 lbs so we can afford to drop the pressure. An old dirt track guy told me they used to run 6 lbs. Here in the north bay we go to Sears Point Raceway to get em shaved. Gorgeous Build By the way
I have an Amermac tire truer in service at my shop in Green Mountain Iowa which is 65 miles NE of Des Moines Iowa. Jack the wheel off the floor and spin it on the axle. Position a stationary object near the tread as it spins. Look carefully for runout. It will be visible if it exists. John
I agree with Mr48 chev about indexing the tires before you put a knife to them. Could change the ride enough to live with. Maybe not, but at least you will know.
Try a different pair of wheels and tires temporarily, borrow from a friend if possible, to make sure your problem is definitely with your current tires...
I went through the exact same thing and found that my brand new bias plys were out of round. Its a pretty hard decision to get your brand new tires skimmed considering the cost of them and in my case the importation time and cost. I was told about Dyna beads and thought it was a load of crap but since it was my last resort I tried them. Guess what they work great before I put them in I got up to 55MPH and the shake would start. I now regularly get up to 75 with no issues. They do seem to work real good once the tire has warmed up. here's the link good luck Peter http://www.innovativebalancing.com/index.php
Stegman, Nice looking ride! I have 450/16 and 750/16 on my '32 Phaeton high boy. I was able to find a local stock car guy that shaved the fronts for me, since no tire shops around here do it anymore. I've heard some guys say large truck shops might do them too? My 450/16s are good up to about 80 mph now. I have 4.10 rear gears with a turbo 350 trans, so that's about all I care to run anyway! I am in the process of changing to radial tires and 3.25 gears for highway cruising. I just don't trust the little bias plys at speed on a long road trip. I like to think of other things while driving, rather than if or when my cool looking tires might blow up!
Thx, time to find the heavy side of the drum and balance the whole rotating mass and jack it up and see how out of round they really are. Thinking 5.50 would ride better anyway, so not to scared to cut on em, but thx again. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I had the same issue with bias ply tires. I tried another set of tires and got the same thing, 45mph + onset of a shake which increases with speed. Didn't have this problem for the first year on the road. Tried Dynabeads without success. Swapped tires with a friend for his radial tires and the problem went away. Finally broke down and bought Coker's radial ply tires and now everything is fine. I did find someone in metro Detroit that could do it but I too was hesitant because of the amount of out of round.
I know this is kinda dumb and a no brainer, but make absolutely sure they are seated on the bead properly. Usually the tires have a few small lines formed into the tire near the bead, make sure they are symmetrical all the way around the rim. I had a hell of a time with this putting my Firestone repops onto my Merc wheels. Good luck, I just hate these bias ply stories, since we all want to run them. Just glad there are a few out there with no problems, gives me hope.
Good point. I used to see that when I worked in the tire store in the early 70's on rigs running tube type tires on occasion. Luckily Fred usually did the tube tires and was pretty sharp at dealing with things like that. That was with "real" Firestones.
Everything you need to know has already been said .... so I'll say it once more. Find a shop (or a person) who will shave the tires for you. Took me a while, but I found a guy in S.A. that still does it. Spin balance the entire assembly -- tire, wheel, drum -- on the car and balance the entire unit dynamically (not a static balance). It didn't totally change my life, but it made a BIG difference and I had all 4 done locally for $120. If that fails to solve the problem, check the run-out on the wheel ... it's always possible they're not "true." I'm running 4:50/4:75 X 16's on `35 Ford wires and this worked for me.
Thx again, does anybody know of a tire shaver in St. Louis. I may call a couple 4x 4 guys. A couple of more pics it's been inside all winter, suck see ya in Austin in two weeks. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Wouldn't tire shaving & spin balancing "take care" of any wheel run out? You're still making the whole set up round and balanced at that point right?
I would check the wheels first because we have no idea how bad the wheels are. If it's a 1/4" out or even a 1/8" thats a lot of meat off of a new set of tires. You can balance a square but it will still ride like crap....
We are all spoiled by the radial tire performance. There is a reason radials caught on to the masses. Indexing, running until warm, 500 miles before balance... I remember all the old issues. One more part of the experience, like gas fumes coming in under the open wind shield. Enjoy !!!!!
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