I went yesterday and bought a gallon of A/F, some 1/4" tubing, and a small opening squeeze bottle.
I'm having some trouble with my tires now and after spending 20.00 on absolutely nothing at the tire shop (they didn't solve the problem), I've done lots of reading on dyna beads, BBs, antifreeze, and other forms of internal balancing and figured it was worth a shot. Can't hurt anything if it doesn't work. The winter/summer coolant might even keep the rubber at a better temp on the road. Shouldn't have to worry about balancing again. It compensates for tire wear and when you go wheeling and spin your tires on the rim, which will happen while wheeling with low pressure, you don't have to worry about the lead weights just making the situation worse. The "material" you have inside the tire will simply re-balance your tires.
Have you guys done this yet? Been working for many people for many years. Time to loose the weights (no pun intended).
I use the beads. I'm running 38" Mud Grapplers right now with them in there and no problems. I mount and balance tires and any tires over a 35, I recommend running the beads. Using weights to balance on big tires is just a waste of time, in my opinion. The Mud Grapplers are not the only tires I have run with the beads, and they have always worked for me and my customers.
Never have heard of using A/F. Might work though, let us know how it comes out.
I'd like to know how that works out, too...but you really shouldn't be having trouble balancing 33" radials. Are they putting weights on both lips of the rim, or just the inside, or using hidden weights on the center? I have had to rebalance my 32's, but I'm pretty sure it was because I lost a weight or two.
I agree. You should not have a problem balancing 33" radials.
I have had older tires develop problems, but those turned out to be internal problems. Lift each wheel and spin it as you watch the tread surface. There should be little or no fluctuation. If you see a noticeable bump or dip, there is your problem.
My motorhome has the beads in them. That is commonly used on large, standard width (narrow) truck tires.
I was having some steering wheel shimmy at certain speeds. I took them to the tire guys and he told me that one of them was calling for 30 oz of weights. That didn't sound right to me, but he finished what he was doing and put them on. I left there and it felt like they didn't do anything. I figured if it was that far out of balance, then led weights wouldn't do any good anyway, especially after wheeling it at Superlift; figured the tires would be half way around the wheels.
The A/F is the same concept as the beads. I read that truckers have been doing it for years. With A/F, as opposed to other liquids, you don't have to worry about it freezing up in the winter, plus one gallon, will do just about every wheel you have at your house. I was going with the RV antifreeze, but Wallyworld only has that product out during the fall/winter, so I guess I'll go with the regular. It's also supposed to have rust inhibitors in it so you don't have to worry about it causing a problem on steel wheels.
I've read that people have used golf balls, tennis balls, and the soft colored BBs for air guns.
If the antifreeze doesn't work, then I'm only out the time it takes to break the bead, wipe out the liquid and air them back up.
Here is a good illustration of how the dyna beads work. Anything that you put in your tires that are allowed to move freely inside the tire should work the same.
I figured I'd put about 8oz of the A/F in each and see how they do.
http://www.evolutioncycles.com/dynabeads.htm
What kind of lift do you have? Steering wheel shimmy at certain speeds sounds like you may have death wobble, my friend. Are you control arms adjustable? May need to check castor angle. check to make sure you don't have any bushings, tie rod ends, or ball joints going bad, either. Make sure the axle is properly centered under the vehicle, too (adjustable track bar is best for this). I hope it's something simple. Death wobble can be nasty, and makes people regret Jeep ownership, when it could have been prevented or fixed. I know this, because I thought about selling mine at one point because of DW that I couldn't seem to shake (punny). I need to replace all my steering components and ball joints now, and get a little wobble between 45 and 55 when turning left because of the worn parts.
Swap your fronts to the rear and see if the shimmy goes away. That will narrow it down. I seriously suspect that you have a bad tire.
I had just rotated the tires because the front had a little shimmy. When I had my tires mounted right after purchase, they were smooth as silk up until about a month ago. I think what happened this time when I took them to get 'em rebalanced, they had possibly slid around the wheel some. When the guy saw that they needed lots of weight, he didn't do what he was supposed to do and spin the tire around on the rim about half way to redistribute the weight. He just left as is and tried to compensate for the severe balancing problem.
Mark, you might very well be correct though. I just don't know why it would all of a sudden start doing that. I will change the back to the way they were before I rotated and see what that does.
As far as the antifreeze, it seems to work. You do have to remove the lead weights though for the balancing to take place. I put about 10 oz in each front tire.
Reserector Wrote:Swap your fronts to the rear and see if the shimmy goes away. That will narrow it down. I seriously suspect that you have a bad tire.
I'm seriously suspecting that same thing now, Mark. I started out with these 33s running perfectly for around a year, then a little shimmy started before I went to Arkansas. Before the trip, I put the back on front and front on back. It was worse. While in AR, I did the antifreeze in the two that I had put on the front and moved them to the back again. It was slightly better, but still shaking some. Most of the shaking was in the seat of the pants rather than the steering wheel, which indicates that the problem is more to do with the rear (pun there for you 601). Just two days ago, I removed the lead weights from the front tires, broke the beads, and installed the Airsoft BBs. I test drove and found that there was really no difference, which also lead me to believe that the front tires are not the problem. I need to do one or more of several things now to narrow it down to which tire it is....
I can move one back to the front and see if the ride stays the same or gets worse. If the steering gets worse, then that tire is suspect. If it stays the same, then move to the other side and swap tires to see if the steering gets worse or stays the same.
Another way would be to find someone with a 33" tire that is balanced, borrow it for an afternoon, put it on and take for a test spin. If I can get a nice ride on it in any of the 4 positions, then I replace the tire that I used the spare in the place of. Then I have a full size spare to put back on the Jeep. I'll also have a BFG AT tire that has never been on the ground to sale.
If any of you have more ideas, let me know. I know I could take it to a tire dealer and spend an afternoon at that place while they tell me that I need to buy a whole new set of tires from them, but I feel that this could easily be solved by the do-it-yourselfer. I did, however, break the beads and put in the BBs.