wheel balance weights

D

Deanohh_imp

Been there
Thread starter
On my rear wheel there are 8 weights right at the yellow circle on the tire and the yellow dot on the rim. The tire mark is mounted on the opposite side from the valve. That seems excessive but I'm not racing so I guess its ok, but I would feel better if they would have put half of them on each side of the rim.
 
My front has 4--2 on each side. The rear has 2--both on one side

CA200 is the tire man. He can most likely talk about motorcycle tire balancing in much greater detail than we can stand!
 
OK I will try to make this as short so as not to put you all to sleep.
All street rim/tires need to be balanced if you go highway speeds.
As most of you might have noticed there is a painted dot on the side of your wheel rim. ( Only Honda does this and it does wear off after time).
Honda balances their rims. All other Mfg. consider where the valve
stem is should be the so called "heavy " spot on the rim. This is not always the case. Most , but not all tire Mfg. put a dot on the sidewall of a tire to
mark the " light" side of the tire. Michelin and Avon do not. They claim they are better then the rest. I have found that not to be true.
When you mount a tire you should mount the dot on the tire to where
the valve stem is so when you balance it will take the least weight.
Some times ( about 10%) if the tire needs a lot of weight you can dismount it and turn it 180 degrees to try to see if it will take less weight.
How much is to much. 80-100 grams is what we always considered to much
and I would return the tire. Even after mounting 1000s of tires I can not
remember a radial asking for that much.
I had the most problems with American tires mounted on American bikes.
The wide white walls were the worst.
I did believe in having the best balancer money could buy because we
did so many tires. I have looked at some of the " beads and balance
liquids and they really don't make any sense to me.
Making tires/wheels lighter makes a big difference the way a bike turns in etc..
Hope this makes sense, if not don't be afraid to ask me.
 
Thread starter
Thanks. I don't know how many grams but there are 8 segments at the dots on one side of the rim. I'm confident that must be ok because I don't think the Honda factory would pass through anything out of spec.
 
That's maybe 40 grams , the guy was just lazy putting all the weight on one side.
You can balance one side of rim to the other but it has to be more then 4 1/2" wide.
Mine has 10 grams on the front and none on the rear.
 
I may be old school but I always refused to put in Daya beads when customers asked. I did dismount tires with them.
Ya you try and take them out when you take it off!
Some people really think they work. I did talk to them when they showed up at the dealer show but I was not convinced.
I did check a tire that had them in on my balancer and it was off just as much as normal.
 
Say...did anyone else's bike not come with any weights on the rims??
After 9,000 wobble-free miles, I can't say it's been a problem.
 
I'll have to double check but, I'm pretty sure mine came without weights as well. Is that something the dealer does when they prep or do they come balanced from the factory?
 
ecka00_imp said:
I'll have to double check but, I'm pretty sure mine came without weights as well. Is that something the dealer does when they prep or do they come balanced from the factory?
Click to expand...
Spin balancing and wheel weights would be applied from the factory. Our wheels and tires have factory paint marking heaviest point on the rim and lightest point on the tire and I remember mine came with the dots properly aligned and minimal wheel weights -- so the factory actually did put effort into doing it right.
 
The dots on mine are aligned as well. I remember on my last bike, there was about a 2-week period between getting new tires mounted and waiting for my Dyna Beads to arrive in the mail. I did plenty of riding, and couldn't tell a difference with or without them.

When it comes time for new tires on the CB (pretty soon), I'm thinking I'll line up the dots again and leave it at that.
I find myself riding a bit slower these days, so even if they were off-balance, I can't see it mattering much.
 
Jeez Jim, Now we're going to have a 15 page argument on the merits of balancing tires :)
 
Lord Popgun_imp said:
Jeez Jim, Now we're going to have a 15 page argument on the merits of balancing tires :)
Click to expand...
Yes? And the problem?

Or is it that you have to balance them with oil?
 
For what it's worth, keeping unsprung weight to a minimum will give you the absolute best handling. I've thought about balance beads in the tire but that defyies logic.
 
No worries....I'm sure there's enough sludge built up in that darn oil cooler to dampen-out any vibration caused by unbalanced wheels.
 
CA..I so wish you lived in Cincinnati lol
 
Looking through the link that CA provided, that's the first time I've seen any type of liquid tire-balancing goo.
Apparently it's been around for a while, but I'm just as skeptical as I was with dyna beads.
Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but I'm still in no favor of lead weights.
 
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