I am almost ready to put tires on a set of wood felloe wheels that I've been working on. I mounted the front wheels on a spindle, and mounted one of the new tubes which have metal stems. I used a 3.5 x30 tube because it fit on the wheel nicely. This was so I could try balancing the wheel when it had the stem, washer, and valve cover in place. I know the tire and flap will throw it out a bit when those are installed but maybe not too much. One wheel needed only 1.5 OZ and the other 5.5OZ to balance nicely.
So I'm wondering if anyone has balanced wood felloe wheels by attaching weights inside of the rim somehow, before the tire, tube and flaps go on. Any suggestions how to balance, should I not worry about it, or just get some of those balancing beads?
I wonder if the original wheels were ever balanced in any way.
I've had very good luck with DynaBeads.
http://dynabeads.net/
If you're using an original type inner-tube with the thick, threaded, brass valve, installation is a piece of cake. It's a bit more difficult with the smaller inside-diameter of the skinny, rubber valves on the more modern looking inner-tubes. Either way, once the DynaBeads are in the tire, they work great and eliminate the necessity of gluing unslightly weights to the wheel.
Thanks Bob. I have looked into Dynabeads and Counteract beads, and would not be adverse to using them. At the stage I'm at I just wondered if there was a way to somehow attach some weights to the rim in the tire area, before I install the tires, that would be secure and not interfere with the tire mounting. After the tires were mounted I could check the balance to see how far off they were, try the ride, and decide if they needed beads. I only speed up to 40 or so at the most, so wonder how much I should be concerned anyway. Besides, beads cost $40+ for four wheels.
I've heard that some folks wrap solder around the spokes, but I'm sure some stick on wheel weights would also do the trick. Fronts are not hard to do, as you can jack up the axle and the heavy side will freely find the bottom. Rears? I don't know how they do them. I don't worry too much about it myself. 'Course, I seldom exceed 35mph, either.
Stick-on wheel weights sometimes remove a bit of paint and leave behind a ding in the fender. It has never happened to me because I never bothered to try to balance model T wheels. But I have been shown a couple of dings and told that was what did them. I like the idea of Dyna-Beads. I have never tried them either.
Using a std. bubble balancer machine make a wooden adapter which will allow the wood wheel to be centered on it. You can balance it out to perfection if you want but I just used mine as it was. Took 3 tries to get one right. No I do not have those any more so I cannot draw one up for you. Find the weighted portion of the wheel. There will be one on every wheel and different locations to the stem hole. I marked it with masking tape. I also made one for the tire which fits inside the bead line and holds the tire on the balancer. Find the heavy spot. You'll find that they are there. I then rotated the tire heavy spot opposit the wheel heavy spot when mounting. The valve stem will add weight too. I tried to lay them all together and weigh them in but I could never get it to work. This was how I did this in the 70's. I got tired of the bumping vibrations really quick. We used Shotgun pellets for the reloading of shells back then but I did not as I didn't understand if they could throw a wheel out-of-balance when hitting a bump in the roads. ???
Another note a lot of those vibrations are from our cars just setting on the tires for months at a time. I now keep most of my cars on jack stds. under the axles if they are not going to be driven real soon. The tires take a set.
Just a note for your perusal.
Joe in Mo.