Balancing 13" wheels

[bball7754]

Was wondering whether anyone else has experienced the issue I ran into yesterday.

 

I have a set of 13" Panasports with Toyo RA1's that I use for track days. Last spring I had two of my tires flipped on the rims, and decided I should do the other two before an upcoming track day.

 

I went to the same tire store that had originally mounted the tires, and that had flipped the first two. When I went to pick them yesterday, I noticed that they had weights on the outside vertical edge of the rim, instead of on the inside horizontal portion of the rim.

 

I was surprised, and asked why since they had never put weights there before. He said that the rims were too small for the balancing machine, and so had balanced them using a different method. It still seemed odd, so they took me back in the shop and showed me what the problem was.

 

Sure enough, the sensor for the inside of the rim couldn't fit inside the rim - it hit the outside vertical edge. He ended up rebalancing them using some kind of hybrid method, and we lost the edge weights.

 

Anyway, was wondering if anyone else with 13" wheels had experienced this issue with getting them balanced.

 

Steve

[jlumba81]

They must be using a different type of wheel balancing machine than what I'm familiar with. This type should be able to accomodate a 13" wheel with no issues and is the most common type of wheel balancing machines.

[bball7754]

It looked a lot like that one, but I think it was manufactured by Hunter? Maybe the "A" team wasn't working on Saturday.

Edited January 27, 2013 by bball7754

[James A]

Go to someone who specializes in selling and fitting race tires, the are use to working with 13" and even smaller rims.

[JBH]

I'm not sure of the effectiveness of balancing wheels for the track unless you are going to clean the inner wheel of the rubber pieces that accumulate throughout the day.

 

I don't bother anymore - it seems kind of pointless.

[powderbrake]

Steve:

 

Balancing is a bit of an art. Even though the machines are digital and "idiot proof" I have still had idiots overcome the machine's ability to do it right.

 

The Dobbs near my house could not balance a new set of tires on my vette after trying 3 times, so the manager sent me to the Dobbs at Lindbergh and Watson road. They are very competent, and have received all my business since.

 

I also got good service on installation of a set of tires from Tire Rack at the Auto Tire store in Dierber's Plaza in Oakville. They acted like they cared, even bringing out a torque wrench and asking me what I wanted the lug nut torque to be.

 

Of course none of these were 13".