Wheels and tires, long story I'll try to condense as much as possible

Last January I put up a post to the effect that I needed new tires to replace my 10 year old Vreds. Today I finally turned the last page of the story and shut the book. I’ll try to be brief and there is one significant takeaway that I think is important to know for those of you who may have wheel/ride issues.

I took my wheels and new tires to one of two shops in my area that had the capability of mounting and balancing the splined hub wire wheels. Up to that time my car rode smoothly at all speeds, no vibration. The guy mounted the tires and when he went to balance them showed me that 3 out of four wheels were wobbling (out of true) on his machine so I left them with him for trueing. When I got them back, put them on the car and drove it, the steering wheel shook like crazy. Back to the shop for a redo, but same result when I got them back. The guy said I needed to do an on car balance. Enter Ray Livingston and his hub-on-an-axle wheel balancer. We were under the impression that the car is more sensitive to balance issues than perfectly trued wheels but we were not able to balance our way out of this situation and the car was basically undriveable.

So I then unmmounted the three tires, put the wheels on Ray’s hub/axle jig horizontally and measured both the lateral and radial runout with a dial indicator. All three wheels were out of spec, not by a huge amount, a little more than 50% but you could see the wobble visually. The next step was to buy a spoke wrench and take a shot at trueing them myself. This turned out to be much easier than I thought and it was not hard at all to get the wheels well within the 1/16" (total lateral and radial) spec. I remounted the tires, balanced them with Ray’s hub/axle jig and went for a drive. The car rode smooth as silk.

The last chapter of this sad but happy ending story involves the hi-tech load cell balancer that Ray has designed and built. We re-balanced the wheels and the car still rides nicely demonstrating that the new balancer does the job but with much more precision and reliability than the hub/axle jig which takes a while to get the “feel”.

I mentioned a takeaway from this. It looks to be that the true-ness of the wheel is critical to smooth riding and balance secondary. When we re-balanced the wheels today we did get slightly different amounts and positions but the end result was pretty much the same. I hope that what Ray and I learned from this exercise helps someone in the future.

Cheers,
Jim

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Neat, thanks for sharing that.

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I too recently purchased new Vredesteins and I took them and my original wheels to John Blake in Grapevine. John worked in the Bay Area for many years and many JL listers went to him there, but he had moved to Texas to attend radiology school. Jerry Mouton found him in Grapevine and gave me his contact information several years ago. John trued my wheels and installed and balanced my tires on them and also explained the nuances of the process. The local tires shops were absolutely inept at this task. I drove my car last week and got it up past 80 with no vibration. He also knows how to install tubes with the proper chalk which is another important aspect of the process.

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Installing tubes, it’s painful to say, has become quite an art. The high school dropouts who change the tires have absolutely no clue.

LLoyd

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

Physicist Niels Bohr

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I’d say Ray has a business opportunity!!!

pauls

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Agreed: I bet there’s a fair few wire-wheeled conveyances in his part, who pay a handsome fee to get’em right.

I darn well would.

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Drew, our loss is your gain, John balanced my tires 10 years ago with no issues. I don’t know what the problem was in this shop and I am not going to name names. The guy was concerned and responsive throughout the process and in the end gave me my money back, about $500 without me even asking. The last time we spoke he was going to check out his tooling to see if maybe it went out of calibration or something, there was a consistency in the way the wheels were out of true.

Lloyd, unmounting and mounting the tires is not difficult. I borrowed a Harbor Freight bead breaker from a friend and a couple of long tire pry bars. The hardest part was during unmounting, getting the inner tire bead over the outer wheel rim. Inserting the tube was easy, not any harder than doing a bicycle, just use a lot of baby powder.

And yes, I do believe that Ray will be doing the appropriate market research in due time :wink:

Jim,
Lots of installers say they can do the job, but they are apparently unaware that the our wheels must be balanced using the special cones and that the tubes require chalk or talcum. The local shop I took my first Vreds to said they knew all about mounting and balancing as well as installing tubes, but terrible vibration around 60 mph and several flats later revealed they absolutely did not. Stickers left on the interior of the tire and no chalk used is simply not acceptable. As for tuning the wheels they have no clue either. I feel lucky that John is as close to Austin as he is.

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Murphy’s Oil Soap. Never mount/dismount without it!

[quote=“DrewScherz, post:8, topic:376844, full:true”]
Jim,
Lots of installers say they can do the job,

Well I agree with everything you say except for that first part. In the beginning I did call around to shops near me, even ones that used to do them and no one would touch 'em.

I recently replaced the tires on my fhc. Bridgestone 205 70 15. Mounted with new tubes myself. I then had them balanced at a local independent British auto shop that I have dealt with for many years. At pickup they told me that they were able to balance them but that they were out of true by a significant amount. I checked all four by mounting them on a front hub after tightening the bearings enough to get a very slight preload. None of the rims were noticeably out of round but 2 had approx 1/8inch wobble laterally and the other 2 approx 3/16. I mounted the 2 best wheels on the front and the other 2 on the back. I have no vibration at all by seat of the pants or through the steering wheel up to or at freeway speed. I do not claim any expertise with what determines acceptable deformation of wire wheels but perhaps ovality is more of a problem than wobble. Presented as information only.

Geoff, don’t mess with it!

I definitely violated the “If it ain’t broke…” rule and possibly the “If you want something done right…” one too. What I did find though is the external surfaces of the wheel are not reliable to take measurements from. You need to measure the inside of the rim where the tire sits.

I don’t plan on ever doing anything with these wheels. They came with the car 25 years ago and are actually 5 inch rims for a series 2 car. “Did you know that those are the wrong wheels for your car” etc. The spokes are getting a bit of rust on them and the car will be going on the rotisserie if I ever get the ots done. If they last me a few more years I will be happy.

Hi Paul. I used Simple Green. Lubrication wasn’t the problem, some muscle was needed along with leverage. What worked was I had to slowly walk the tire over the rim about an inch at a time but it was hard to keep the tire from slipping back. But then again I am far from an expert in doing this seeing I did 5 ten years ago and another 5 a few weeks ago

Yeah, it takes… brawn, to do it! With my shoulders and hands, not even sure I could lever the spoons enough to get a tire on or off.

I got rid of my manual tire machine years ago, because I simplly never wanted to do that crap, ever again!

Lol, yes not much fun at all. Funny thing is my original intention was to not diy it and just take the wheels and tires somewhere and pay to have it done. Best laid plans… but I guess I am lucky to still be able to monkey around with some of the hard labor aspects of these jobs.

FWIW I believe that good technique can alleviate some of the need for brawn. I don’t claim to know much about this, but after watching a few YouTube videos I did find that I no longer had to pull so hard on the Harbor Freight bar I used that it bent! As I recall it pays to make as much use as you can of the deep channel in the center of the rim cross section. When levering the tyre bead over the rim, push the section of the bead 180 degrees across from it into the deep channel. This, combined with good lubrication, makes the job much easier - at least, it did for me.

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As someone who paid their way through college by working at a bicycle store, I fully agree. Once the tires are on the rim try to keep them in the smaller diameter area of the rim. It will make your life much, much easier

If someone has already mentioned it ignore this but there is an easy side and a hard side of the rim to mount from. Mount from the side that Is closest to the deep channel that the spokes attach to. That way the rubber has to be stretched less to go over the edge. I find that soap and water is as good as anything to lube the tire.

Hmmm, this is a good tip that I wish I knew a few weeks ago. I will make a note for the next time I need to do this in ten years. I will be 77 :slight_smile:

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