bubble balancer

[davyfireball]

Are they any good? I bought one at a auction. It's a harbor freight paid $5.00 for it. Can I use it on radials? Or do I need a $4000.00 unit. Just a farmer not a repair shop.

 

[Arvin Haslem]

I use an old bubble balancer on my radial tires. Seems to work OK.

 

[rustyfarmall]

A bubble balncer is not as effective as the spin balancer, but for most practical purposes, a bubble balancer will do the job just fine.

 

[Goose]

I have one identical to the ones HF sells, only I bought it elsewhere with a different name on it.

It does great 98% of the time. Only rarely do I have to give up and have a wheel and tire spin balanced. I've noticed the last few years that tires seem to be getting easier to balance than they were 20 to 30 years ago when I was in service management and had access to high dollar computerized balancers. I just mounted and balanced a set of four Otsu tires on my Dodge minivan and none of them took over 3/4 of an ounce of weight. At least one "pinwheeled" the bubble without weights. Same with a set of Coopers I put on my wife's T&C last spring.

The trick to using a bubble balancer, and this is stated in a sheet that came with mine, is this: If you have a tire that needs, say, an ounce to correct it don't just put a one ounce weight on it. Put two 1/2 ounce weights side by side and move them apart until the bubble starts to move toward you, then move them back until the bubble is centered.

Anyway, I use mine all the time and wouldn't be without it.

 

[Blackhole49]

Before I bought my high speed balancer at an auction ($175), I bought a bubble unit at Harbor Freight. It is pretty much useless.
The high speed unit will do anything that will fit on it perfectly. Because it is old, it only goes up to 18" wheels. I've saved
enough on balancing over the last 8 years to pay for it several times.

 

[Ken Combs]

I learned to balance tires on a bubble machine years ago. It was the only balancer we had at the station.

They worked fine on the narrow tires of the day. Most of the imbalance was around the outside, not side to side. As tires got wider the weight difference became often side to side, not radially. So, an out of balance caused a 'wobble' not a 'bounce'.

I still think the work OK on narrow tires, say 85 down to 75 aspect ratio. Over that, they may work or may not.

Oh, I was taught to split the weight 1/2 one the inside of the rim and 1/2 on the outside to prevent causing a side to side imbalance.

 

[jeffcat]

Just a little tid bit I found out. Have you ever noticed that on brand
new cars they have a little green paint mark on the tires. Look really
close at them. That mark is there for the valve stem. The tires are
pre balanced and with the valve and mark lined up they should be darn
near perfect. This is what I have heard.

 

[pburg]

I was given one several years ago by a friend moving out of town.

It's a Sears brand. Also several pounds of wheel weights---both new

and used. It's been sitting in shed attic and unused for several years.

 

[Gambles]

There are two ways to balance a tire: static and dynamic. Static, of course, is standing still or not moving, exactly what a bubble balancer does. Dynamic is when the tire is rotating. A static tire can be balanced while still, but be out of balance when moving. Just imagine if you took a tire and put 5 ounces of weight on the INSIDE of the tire on one spot and then took 5 ounces of weight on the OUTSIDE of the tire exactly 180? off, or the other side. The bubble balancer would show it to be balanced, but the tire would shake your steering wheel when you drove as each weight would centrifically pull as the tire rotated. That said, a bubble balancer is better than nothing.

 

[kevinthefixer]

(quoted from post at 18:20:06 11/09/17) I was given one several years ago by a friend moving out of town.

It's a Sears brand. Also several pounds of wheel weights---both new

and used. It's been sitting in shed attic and unused for several years.

Add a little electrical solder (10-15%) and the weights are good for casting bullets.

 

[sotxbill]

(quoted from post at 09:33:31 11/09/17) I have one identical to the ones HF sells, only I bought it elsewhere with a different name on it.

It does great 98% of the time. Only rarely do I have to give up and have a wheel and tire spin balanced. I've noticed the last few years that tires seem to be getting easier to balance than they were 20 to 30 years ago when I was in service management and had access to high dollar computerized balancers. I just mounted and balanced a set of four Otsu tires on my Dodge minivan and none of them took over 3/4 of an ounce of weight. At least one "pinwheeled" the bubble without weights. Same with a set of Coopers I put on my wife's T&C last spring.

The trick to using a bubble balancer, and this is stated in a sheet that came with mine, is this: If you have a tire that needs, say, an ounce to correct it don't just put a one ounce weight on it. Put two 1/2 ounce weights side by side and move them apart until the bubble starts to move toward you, then move them back until the bubble is centered.

Anyway, I use mine all the time and wouldn't be without it.

we were taught "double" that...

if you need an ounce.. you put a 1/2 ounce on the back side of the rim first. then re-balanced it, two quarter ounce weights on the front side, moving them apart or together for a balance. Then the tire was .......... symmetrically balanced with weight on both inner and outer sides of the rim,,, about equal. We had less come backs when we went to this method.. the manufacturer sent a trainer out... as we were complaining of too many mis-balanced wheels... The new method eliminated almost all problems going forwards...

 

[dustycoal]

That is what they teach at truck tire school. It works, even if you need weight you will use less. Truck rim can have a dimple showing were the heavy part of rim is other wise it's the valve stem. We also did radio run out and lot of tires didn't need balancing.

 

[teddy52food]

A lot of the weights are zink & they are no good for casting & spoil a batch of good lead.

 

[ldj]

I have an old VW with the lager 5 bolt pattern. Couldn't find anyone to balance them. Doing research on how to balance I came across using BB's inside the tire. I tried it and it works perfect

 

[RayP(MI)]

I had a cheap bubble balancer. Could never get it to repeat a balance. Put a wheel on, balance it, take it off, put it back on, and it would indicate unbalanced.

Think I threw it away.

 

[Texasmark1]

Won't repeat....balance a tire, take it off, put it back on and it shows to be unbalanced, and doesn't balance the side to side that is necessary with todays fat (like my 20") tires.
Utterly useless and I spent a lot of time and trouble on other farm tires to get it to work.

 

[hd6gtom]

Spent 22 years as a tire shop owner. They are junk. Do not buy Ranger spin balancer. Boss at work bought 1.
It was shipped in broken. Three years later after many calls, emails, letters someone showed up to fix it.
Only cast $1000.00 to get it fixed. Sat in place, not used for that long. Company would not fix it. They
were told about it the day it was delivered.