Airsoft BBs for Tire Balancing

[the_blue_phantom]

Ive heard of Dyna beads, the ceramic beads you can put in your tires to balance them. Unfortunately, I dont feel like paying for them. I know that airsoft bbs work well as a replacement, but they dont fit down the valve stem and i would have to take one of the beads off to put them in the tire. What else can i use that works the same way besides the 6mm airsofts? Do normal, metal bbs work?

 

[gcfishguy]

Search google for equal. Not the sugar stuff, but looks like it. You toss a bag of it before seating the beads, but it could be funneled into the valve stem with the core removed.

I used (flame suit....on!) antifreeze. 8 fluid ounces in each of my 31" Explorer MTs.

I pulled all the wheel weights, pulled the valve core, hooked a piece of 1/4" airline to a pop bottle and slipped the air line over the valve stem.

Yes, I did a lot of reading before I did it. I would have gone airsoft or something but my OBA system in the jeep was run off a Sanden AC compressor that i had to feed oil to, so even after it was filtered there might have been a tiny bit of oil vapour in the air. Given that I aired down every weekend, sometimes twice on a weekend, i figured that the oil would turn stuff into a stuck glob of gunk.

In went the anti-freeze. VERY good results.

The antifreeze works exactly the same way as the beads. But it can't clump.

With any balancing system like that you WILL get a vibration until you settle out at a certain speed. Ex: Drive 80 (km/h) and it's smooth...accelerate up to 100km/h, it'll shake for about 2 seconds until the agent moves around and counteracts the vibration, then you're smooth again until you change speeds.

Something else that's a bit goofy with balancing agent is secondary roads. Ex, a back road that you travel around 80km/h on... Every time you hit a sharp bump (pavement patch, pothole, etc) the balancing agent will move, give you a shimmy for 2 seconds, then smooth out. if you hit a bump, then another bunp, then another bump...well, it can be interesting....BUT, the jeep was a solid front axle, coil sprung with a parallel trac bar/drag link, so that would amplify the shake.

Anyway, steel shot is a no-no, as is golf balls. Some people say that they had no issues with them, others posted pics of tires all chewed to heck on the inside. Also, steel/metal shot will make a heck of a noise at low speeds (not enough centripetal force to keep them on the tire and they hit the center of the rim as they fall off near the top of their arc).

I know that using antifreeze sounds crazy, but it had none of the drawbacks that the other agents had.
Also, coming home from wheeling with mud or ice packed in the rims was a lot more bearable because an agent that can move around can counteract that (to an extent). Better than lead weights, which can't adjust to changing conditions (mud or ice that throws the balance off, losing weights when wheeling, losing a bead and having the tire turn when wheeling, etc)

*Something to note also, was that the 31's were remolds, with a big block tread pattern (like this), so they were a bugger to get a decent balance on in the first place. On the highway at 60mph I had a little shimmy in the steering wheel. When I say little, I mean small. Smaller than what I had after more than one attempt at conventional balancing.

 

[the_blue_phantom]

Thanks man. I went with antifreeze. I put about 16oz in both of my rear tires. (My front tires are already balanced). Gettin on the interstate, i can definitely tell a difference. The ride is a lot smoother, until i get up to 60mph or so. Then the tires start shakin a lot. I mean worse than they were before maybe. I already had a lot of unconventional weights on the rim, and they were unbalanced then. Now that I've got the antifreeze in there, should i take those off? Im thinking that having the lead weights on the rim and the antifreeze in the tire they may be workin against each other or somethin. What do you think?

 

[gcfishguy]

I pulled all my weights off when I put in the antifreeze. No weights at all.

When you say 'shaking', is it in the steering wheel, or in the body? Sorry if that's a dumb question, but some people aren't familiar enough to be able to tell front balance from rear balance. And that's not meant to be a smart comment. It's obvious to some that if the shimmy is in the steering wheel that it's the front tires and it's the rear if you feel it in the body....

Could be also that 16oz is too much? I did a lot of reading and came up with a decent guess of 8 fl oz to start with and was going to add more if it gave me crappy results.
8 was perfect as it turned out.

I'd check the tires very carefully for a broken belt or a twist or anything.

like I was saying about the bumps moving the anti-freeze around....if you have a slightly out of round tire, it might be 'thumping' hard enough at highway speeds that it moves the antifreeze and makes it more out of balance...

 

[the_blue_phantom]

The vibrations are coming from the body, there is no shaking in the steering. My front tires are perfect, the rear tires are the ones giving me problems. I guess I'll pull the weights and see what happens, if that doesnt help, i'm gonna drain some of the antifreeze out i reckon. Thanks man.