Hey guys I just got my 1st set of cragar ss wheels. I mounted them myself with older tires. I also got a bubble balancer from Amazon & stick weights. The car is a ‘63 Impala Sunday driver that doesn’t go over 65mph. Is the bubble balancer good enough?
Did that very thing when I was in my teens, worked fine. And my hot rod saw a lot faster then 65mph, a lot faster.
A bubble style balancer was a go to for a long time. Several big name brands pretty much had the market. Very accurate with a bit of patience. I have no actual experience with the $60 Amazon balancers so can't speak to how accurate they might be.
One way to get an idea of the accuracy of your new balancer would be for you to balance one or two tires and before mounting them back on the car take them to a tire shop and have them recheck the balance.
As cheap as some shops charge for balancing I couldn't imagine wasting time to do it with a bubble balancer. With newer equipment it also does static and dynamic balance too. Until I started using one of these machines I didn't see much use for dynamic/static balancing until I drove a car afterwards. Now I love it.... ...
I’ve used a bubble balancer all my life and never had any issues. In fact I prefer doing the balancing with a bubble balancer. The tire shop that did the tires on my OT F150 hot rod used the stick on weights with the latest and greatest balancer and they couldn’t get it right to save their lives. Damn thing felt like it was coming apart @70mph. I grabbed some of their weights and used my bubble balancer and it has been smooth sailing since. But my balancer is from the 60’s so that might have something to do with it but doubtful
If Dale Earnhart can go 200 MPH on bubble balanced tires and about every car that got new tires up to the late 70,'s I'm sure it will work for 90% of the tires on the cars here. I have a old balancer and use it all time. Just used it to balance rims I welded the centers in before even thinking about tires. Since I have a tire machine it's nice to just finish the job at home . The new stuff works better for some stuff , certainly faster but it was $80 last time I took a set in off the car and waited almost two hours.
When I had a cycle shop, I wanted to have the best tools and machines. Mainly to empress my customers that it was a first class shop. I had picked up a bubble balancer from another shop. I went down the street to a supply house to check out the electronic balancers. I finally ask the salesman, how do you guys double check these balancers? His reply was, "check them with a bubble balancer". So I saved a few hundred dollars that day.
I have an Amazon bubble balancer ( HF balancer is the same ). Balance my little car tires with it because I can. I have a road force and a smart weight at work I could use but I like going old school once in a while. put a little oil on the pin, and split the weight in a Y pattern. It’ll run smooth
Had an issue trying to have brandy new wheels /tires balanced on a spin balancer. Could never get one of them centered - it was for sure a casting issue (that's for another thread entirely). We got it close; but not good enough. I drive my shit, so it needs to be right. Balance beads to the rescue! Do the math and you'll be happy.
I have a North Hydraulics bubble balancer, and it works great. The problem these days is getting decent weights. Save all of the older weights you take off; you'll be glad you did.
I balanced mine on a hf bubble balancer only had the up to 70 on the freeway so far, no vibration. It's funny you mention Cragar s/s, it is common to break the centers on these wheels on a balancing machine, that is the reason I wanted to balance mine at home. Use brake cleaner to clean the surface for the stick on weights and I like to use aluminum (duct) tape over the weights for better stick.
It is your choice, but Amazon does take back items not abused or able to work correctly. The reason could be that it does not work well to balance the tires. Send it back and go to a reliable tire shaving, balancing on the spinning wheel machine and get a good alignment to boot… it does not matter if you go slow, fast , short drives or long drives… Hello, Well, here we go again. Some folks do, some folks don’t. As early as we were involved in hot rods, drag racing and even motorcycle racing, tire balancing was very important. No one likes to go down the highway, dragstrip or dirt road shaking the front end of any vehicle. If you are on a long distance flat surface for miles with handlebars on an unbalanced front wheel, it will feel like you have been squeeze handle with heavy springs like those weight places used to have. (Twist and squeeze) Not only are you fighting the constant bouncing, but the pull of the wheel, the wear and tear on your grip is horrendous. So, it does the same to the front end on most cars. The wheel bubble balancer was good to use weights to get the bubble in the center. But, it did not take into consideration of the spinning wheel. We can all balance the bubble on a static wheel. So, is the tire round, did you get the tire shaving shop to show you how much your tires are not round from the tire stores or companies? The bubble is still in the middle… so one is feeling good about “balancing.” If one takes the static wheel bubble balanced tire on a tire shaving machine, it will show how much it is not round. What, tires not round? The spinning wheel balancer, the “dynamic” called version, shows how the movement of the wheel is necessary to show the odd spots for the weights. This is as close to good balancing as possible. Yes, we can all use a static balancer and get that bubble in the middle. But, does it show how balanced it is when spinning on a drum or axle? The 50s-60s solution was to balance them with new weights. But, with new weights, you were just counter balancing and not making the tire ride in a round fashion. We can all balance the bubble. So, the proper thing was to shave the tires. Sometimes the shavings left on the floor of the shop was horrendous. 1000s of miles seemed to be laying in a pile at the base of the tire shaving machine. But, it did make balancing simple and no mass quantities of weights. Now that the tire is round and balanced, the wheel alignment can take place, on a spinning machine. Not a tire opposite bubble balancer. If one just rebalances the wheel/tire on a bubble balancer, it still will give the same results. So, get those tires to a tire shaving place and watch how much rubber it takes to get it round. It will break your heart to see so much rubber on the ground. Then take it to a good shop that knows the machine spinning version. Lion's Dragstrip 1958-59 We had all of our Firestone stock factory tires shaved and balanced on the 58 Impala. Each time, it was not the bubble balancer, but the spinning wheel machine. Do million dollar race teams balance the tires on a bubble balancer? Low speeds, high speeds or constant speeds on a freeway or open highway. The need for a tire to be round, is step one. Step two is to check suspension for out of alignment or repairs, step three is to get the tires mounted and balanced on a spinning machine for the best results. No one wants to go through the 1/4 mile with tire shaking. It definitely lowers the resistance as the tires were round. Every time we got a new set of tires for any of our cars, tire shaving was the second thing done, after mounting them. Then the tire shop used the spinning wheel balancer to get it as close as possible for the smoothest handling possible. Jnaki photo Vnak When I got a new set of Inglewood wide tires for my 1965 El Camino, the shaving place was close by. So, I spent an hour of so getting those new tires shaved. My amazement was the rubber on the ground at the shop. But, the spinning balancing took less weights and alignment made driving wonderful. No shakes, no drifting, added to the total miles cruising and long road trips until I got my second set. I put on more miles on my shaved tires, than my friend who just bought a new set the same time as I did and did not get the tire shaving, machine balancing and alignment… YRMV
Tire shaving has become lost art / tool Here where I am @ , It was like every other tire center had one , I have even called big truck Service centers most of them don't know what I was asking for .
Tire shaving is going away as tire manufacturing gets better. Some old school truck guys still know and have the equipment. 99% of any modern car tire is near perfectly round and if it’s not, the manufacturer is willing to take that tire back as defective.
Go to the CounterAct Balancing Beads website & check thier chart for how many ounces your tire size requires. They may not have your exact size listed, so close is just fine (generally 3- 4oz for littles & 5-6oz for bigs) I use them in every vehicle & trailer I have & I drive a lot of miles (well over 100K per year). I have not used a lead weight in anything in over a decade. I only use the CounterAct brand, they are glass beads that continue to balance the tire throughout the life of the tire. As a tire wears, the amount of weight needed on a certain point of the tire to keep it in balance changes. The lead weights are only perfectly balanced in the beginning. Now that you have already installed the tire on the rim, you will have to put them in through the valve stem, which is a pain, but they have a little plastic bottle syringe thing to do that.. If the tire is still off the rim, you just throw the little bag of beads in each tire (bag disintegrates) God Bless Bill https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/
When I was looking afew years back & un able to find , I pump up to 60 or so went out with a few buckets of water did some minute or so smokey burn outs
I don't see why not, once they find their "spot" in the tire, they are stuck there by force & are not going to move. On a side note....If you have a quiet car, you can actually hear when they find their spot (about 21-22 mph). You can hear them rolling around until that speed. God Bless Bill https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/
Just try it and see if it works for you. If it doesn't you can always have them balanced professionally. The pros don't always get them right the first time, but I'd rather have mine balanced on one of the newer machines.
I heard about the hubs cracking on cragars because of carelessness. Also the cost of balancing at a shop. I’m also Po, a step down from poor.
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