Question for RawPower

[fsr7]

Hey -
I saw in your sig that you have the 46" Michelins on your truck, and you drive it on the street some - have you done anything to balance them? I had my 83 ford with the 53" XLs on it that I never tried to balance, and it rode alright up to about 55... which was about as far as I wanted to push it. I'm about a month away from getting my Jeep on the road again, and I have some new 53" XZL's under it - the whole thing is built a lot stronger than the ford was, and I'm hoping to be able to take it up to 65 on the road. Its hard to find people running these tires, I was just wondering if you had any tips/ tricks to balancing them. Thanks.

 

[forcefed]

dynamic balancing. Do not know if it would work for those size tires but I use soft air bb's. I use the heavy loads that weigh .2 grams. I've used them in my 37" humvee tires and my truck rode very smooth up to 70mph. If you go to dynamic balancing website they will give you the amount of ounces of weight you need to balance your tires. They also sell dyna beads but I found out that soft air gun bb's work better. Just a thought. I never would of believed it till I tried it. I will never get weights put on my wheels again. Good luck

 

[fsr7]

Thanks - great resource. The site I found was inovativebalancing.com, I'm assuming thats what you were refering too. They do have a spec for the michelins - its definitely worth a shot. Nice truck, btw... It reminds me alot of the '93 I used to have. Looks like your paint is nicer, though...

 

[MUDKICKR]

i want to see pics of this jeep, and have you ever tried equal? if anything go to a big trk shop, they can help. when i worked at one trk shop we had a thing to spin the tires and a strobe to balance it. hard to explain but it worked.

 

[fsr7]

Don't worry, as soon as I roll the thing out of the shop I'll be taking pics and they'll be getting posted here. 2+ years in the making... I can't wait.

 

[forcefed]

I've never heard anything good about equal. Its pretty much just sand and if you get any moisture in your tire you will have a very jumpy tire. I had the dyna beads and they were ok, but I still can't beat the price of soft air pellets. I've used them in two sets of tires and my buddy has the pellets in his groundhawgs and Its a world of difference in the ride compared to using weights. The only thing that sucks is you have to have pop your bead off one side to install bb's. I installed a couple extra ounces than what the chart said just to make up for any imperfection in the tire. Like I said though I've never had tires that big so I would ask around unless you mount and dismount the tires yourself.

 

[fsr7]

Unfortunately, I do mount and dismount these myself - I can't find anyone around here that will deal with these tires with an aluminum rim. It is one of those things you look at and think it will never work... but a couple of hours later, a tub of grease, and two buddies with crow bars and they're all mounted up. The inner lip on the tire is 2.5" wide! Luckily once they are on the rim they are easy to get on and off the bead. Its just a work out for the air compressor to get them filled up again

 

[Rawpower]

Sorry it took me so long to respond.... Ok well here's the deal.

I haven't driven it yet. Its a project truck, and have been working on it for a long time. I now only need brake lines and driveshafts. I have all the yokes, I just need DOM for the shafts. It should be rolling in 2 weeks... so then I can give you a definite answer as to how well they ride. I won't be going above 65 for sure, but probably more like 55-60 mph most of the time because of my gear ratio.
65mph = 2398.73 RPM
70 mph = 2583.25 RPM

I won't be balancing them in any way for 2 reasons.
1. You can't balance these traditionally w/ weights/stamps very easily, so that method is out.
2. I can't put beads inside them because I'm going to run inner tubes, so thats out too.

So I'm going to be running them unbalanced on military rims until I get double beadlocks. Once I have those, I'm going to put ceramic blasting medium inside each tire.

I was going to be running them on cast alum rims at first, but couldn't get one mounted so I decided not to. I would have cracked them offroad anyways. I couldn't find a single place willing to mount them either. You could contact a tractor tire repair man that travels to jobs, have him come out and mount them.

Also, these tires shouldn't be too far off balance, as Michelin puts weighted patches on the inside of them from the factory to get them as close as possible.

Options are gofl balls, sand, equal, BB's, and blasting medium, best options being the latter- ie thats in order from worst option to best, in my opinion.

let me know if you have anymore questions, I may or may not be able to help.

 

[forcefed]

You can run dyna beads inside tubes. I did when I had humvee tires on my 16.5 rims. I ran tubes in those and with dyna beads they rode pretty good up to about 65mph

 

[geonc]

Options are gofl balls, sand, equal, BB's, and blasting medium, best options being the latter- ie thats in order from worst option to best, in my opinion.

GOLF BALLS ????? ...

 

[Rawpower]

You can run dyna beads inside tubes. I did when I had humvee tires on my 16.5 rims. I ran tubes in those and with dyna beads they rode pretty good up to about 65mph

ok well then i will def. be running bead inside the tubes.

GOLF BALLS ????? ...

yeah... people usually don't do it this way, but i guess it works for some people. I'd never do it.

 

[RLDSL]

Those dyna bead things look interesting. I need to balance my fronts ( as usual ) anyways, might as well check those things out.
Trying to balance front tires with weights with a twin I beam setup is pretty much a lost cause from the start.

 

[forcefed]

If you do buy them and if you can pop the bead on one side of the tire it makes it alot easier to install the dyna beads. I took my valve stem core out and put them through there and it was a long process. But if you are running tubes you have no choice but to do it that way.