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Caution: ON Topic posting, do not be allarmed!
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At the risk of getting flamed by the political and/or pro/con scientology
guys, I have a motorcycle question.
If I am not a speed freak, and I almost never hit triple digit speeds, is
bubble balancing my wheels good enough or should I find a shop that does
dynamic (spin) balancing?
Sport-touring type of guy.
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I almost never balance my rear wheels. I just make sure to line it up
good on the rim. When I put the SuperCorsas on, the guy at the track
did it and he has insert for wheels that go on the SS Swingarm.
I have prolly been up to 150 mph and can't tell much of a difference
between when I line it up on the rim and when it is properly balanced.
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The wheel is more what's being balanced than the tire anyway. Properly
lining up the tire is important but what generally causes imbalances
over time is just wear and tear on the rim itself.
New rims regardless of tires will generally require very little, if
any, weights to balance out correctly.
Older worn out rims will always require more weights and I have even
had rims before in the past that were almost impossible to balance or
required so much weight to do so it was ridiculous.
Especially true for cars more so than motorcycles where people are
more likely to hit a curb with their wheels and where the wheel has to
support more weight and is therefore going to be more sensitive to
impacts.
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I'm assuming you mount your own tires? Every time I've done that, I've used
something like this to balance:
If you "only" bubble balance them, it's not like the bike's going to spit
you straight into the weeds. I'm sure plenty of people don't balance their
wheels at all. Generally speaking, though, the more balanced they are the
smoother your ride will be at any speed.
If you wanted to test the quality of your bubble balancing, take a wheel
that you've freshly balanced in to a shop with a dynamic spin balancer, and
see what it shows on their machine. Of course doing so assumes that their
machine is accurate.
Personally, I like the simple static balancer best of the four available
options.
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I think tire balancing is overrated. Take what is given for free. The
first time you burn out or skid a tire, the balancing job is shot.
Tires are so good now that I cannot really say I'd noticed a difference
between times the tires are returned with balancing weights and the
times they haven't been. Only once in my motorcycle memory has a tire
been so unbalanced that it caused vibrations and the poor mechanic had
to glue a small sheep to the inside of the rear wheel well (it was an
Avon Azzaro BTW) to get it to stop. He suggested returning the tire on
a warranty issue, but I didn't want to screw with it.
The only "balancing" problem I notice as tires wear is that if I
release the handlebars at certain speeds the front end emit a near tank
slapping headshake. So long as there is at least some small stabilizing
force on the bar (a finger for instance), this behavior is completely
undetectable.
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I could tell a difference between the dealer's version of balancing, and
gravity balancing myself (put it on a rod suspended between two REALLY
GOOD bearings, spin it, and let it come to rest).
I could balance it to within 3.5 grams, while the dealer seemed unable
to get below 10 grams.
Made a lot of difference in the way my GPZ handled.
I'd say, yes, go ahead and balance the rims first without the tire, then
add the tire (heavy spot on the tire at the known light spot of the rim)
and then balance again.
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