Opinions on bubble balancers.

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My thread about tires got me thinking. How accurate are bubble balancers for modern day applications? I hate dealing with tire shop techs as most of them aren't very knowledgeable on their job. How accurate could one be with a bubble balancer?
 
My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.

A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.

In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.

Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.

NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.
 
Originally Posted By: Kira
My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.

A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.

In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.

Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.

NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.



Thats hilarious. Our darts have stick on weights and it seems like they constantly throw weights and most shops have stupid Tech's. I'm contemplating doing it myself with a bubble balancer and seeing how close I can get it the wife just had her balanced a month ago and it's shaking again. The shops will do it for free but the time and trouble is annoying.
 
Originally Posted By: Kira
My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.

A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.

In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.

Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.

NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.



Thats hilarious. Our darts have stick on weights and it seems like they constantly throw weights and most shops have stupid Tech's. I'm contemplating doing it myself with a bubble balancer and seeing how close I can get it the wife just had her balanced a month ago and it's shaking again. The shops will do it for free but the time and trouble is annoying.
 
The less aspect you have the less good a static balance will do you.

What are you running, 40-series?

Take the brake pads off your rear hub and you have your own static balancer, just put weights up top until "up top" changes every time.
 
Back in the day, bubble balancers were what we had.
They worked just fine and I drove many smooth miles on static balanced tires.
 
Originally Posted By: ram_man
How accurate could one be with a bubble balancer?



Nowhere even remotely close to as good as a 20 year old motorized wheel balancer.

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Prep is key.


This

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen stick on weights come off by themselves in over 20 years working on cars professionally. Either caused by lack of prep work on the wheel, or you have a vibration causing the weight to get tossed. Aside from the adhesive, centrifugal force helps hold them in place.

Is this the Dart from the forever vibration thread a while back that nobody can fix ? ...
 
I used to work at a tire shop that had a bubble balancer and a hub on a pipe. With that you marked the low spot then added weights till the tire stoped in a different spot every time. Never had any complaints.

I dont know about road force balancing. I have never had a problem with a rwgular spin balancer. I dont drive real fast either.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Darts are far from the only vehicles with stick on weights.

Prep is key.


No I know but it does seem like they are very sensitive to a lazy balance or even a slightly warped rotor ect. They do seem picky.
 
Originally Posted By: Seventh
Originally Posted By: ram_man
How accurate could one be with a bubble balancer?



Nowhere even remotely close to as good as a 20 year old motorized wheel balancer.

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Prep is key.


This

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen stick on weights come off by themselves in over 20 years working on cars professionally. Either caused by lack of prep work on the wheel, or you have a vibration causing the weight to get tossed. Aside from the adhesive, centrifugal force helps hold them in place.

Is this the Dart from the forever vibration thread a while back that nobody can fix ? ...


Nope it's not
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Back in the day, bubble balancers were what we had.
They worked just fine and I drove many smooth miles on static balanced tires.
How far back was that? "Back in the day" of the early 1960's (and maybe a long time before that), well-equipped shops already had dynamic balancers. Bubble balancers, (if competently used) gave better results "back in the day" than they can now, because tires and wheels are generally wider now.

If a hypothetical tire is perfectly balanced except for one heavy spot on the left side, and another equally heavy spot on the right side 180 degrees around the circumference from the first one, it would show up as perfectly balanced on a bubble balancer, or any other static method. Yet, it would shake the car. The wider the tire (i.e., the farther apart the aforementioned hypothetical heavy spots are in the axial dimension), the worse the imbalance and consequent vibration.
 
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I picked up an old bishman air bubble balancer off Craigslist for a good price. I was going to go with a harbor freight bubble balancer but am glad I did not. Instead of the wheel and bubble top resting on a small pin like the harbor freight balancer the air balancer top rides on a cushion of air. Its basically like zero friction where it pivots. It's so sensitive I swear dust throws it off. I would look for an air bubble balancer if you want a bubble balancer.
 
I hope you do get a bubble balancer, so you can tell us how great it works, and all of the time and trouble it saves you. Placing stick-on weights with the wheel facing down would be interesting too, along with centering the wheel on the stepped hub bore so many alloy wheels use anymore. Bubble balancers worked great long ago with zero-offset wheels that were only 5 inches wide, but maybe you will get lucky, and it will keep you busy for quite a while.
 
Just an FYI, We used quality bubble balancers to balance very high end race car wheels+tires. Cars that exceeded 230 MPH on some tracks. Done correctly, a bubble balancer will give a good result.



the computerized wheel/tire balancers are not always 100% accurate. I've had balance jobs that were never right. That's why road force balancing came into play.

Remember, many computerized balance techs don't put weights on the outside of an expensive rim. They stick 'em on the inside, often dead center. That is in no way, a proper dynamic balance. AND it often works just fine.
 
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I have a bubble balancer that I sometimes use to rebalance my track wheels/tires. It seems to work okay, or at least I can tell the difference after I've done the work! There is no doubt that a modern dynamic balancer can be more accurate, but sometimes good enough is good enough.
 
I had tire/wheel assemblies static balanced as late as the early eighties.
These were narrow rims of 12"-14" diameters.
As I noted above, no issues with vibration.
 
[URL]http://i65.tinypic.com/33u5oco.jpg[/URL][/IMG

I pulled her wheel off and this is what I found . Basically the weights were counter acting each other. I took them all off and it balanced out with 1.5oz the other wheel had 6.75 I balanced it out with .75 and they ride smooth. So in this case good enough is good enough.
 
I had many tires balanced on bubble machines years ago. Just not as reliable as the spin balance machines of today.
 
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