Yamaha TRX850 Enthusiasts Forum

All of us who ride bikes pay through the nose to buy tyres and have them fitted. Well I have a question for you all.
Why is that we never question the amount of weight needed to balance a tyre?
I recently had a race slick fitted to my bike and the previous tyre did not require any lead, where as this new tyre has needed close on half a house brick stuck to one part of the inside rim.

My question to the tyre shop is: When is a new tyre a reject or not??? I feel having to compesate with the amount of lead stuck to my rim was unaccecptable and requested another tyre as the previous one needed no lead. Even the one prior to that needed a very minimal spot of lead.

I think at the price motorcyclists have to pay for rubber now , we should expect better if not perfect qualitity in this day and age, not some way out hoop that should be shredded and start again.

rant over

Your bitchin shouldnt really be at the tyre shop it should be at the manufacturer.
I would be tempted to complain by mail and photograph.
If you get no good response, wear it half out and do a big stoppie on it.
Wear it another couple days and photgraph the low patch of tread "right near the weights" and demand a new one
There is not much between us and the road, it should be top notch quality

A tyre needs to be joined together and this will invariably result in a 'heavy' area. Likewise, modern high volume wheel production techniques rarely produce perfectly balanced wheels. Add in to the mix the weight of the valve stem and all of these 'heavy' points can rack up.

So it all depends on how the tyre is fitted. If the heavy point of the tyre is opposite the heavy point of the wheel, you will only need minimal weight. if they are together - well you get the picture.

FWIW, I never bother balancing the rear - only the fronts

. . . . . Back in the eighties, i worked with John Pace at Bob Jane Mermaid Beach doing motorcycle tyres only.
My practise was to rotate the tyre on the rim to find the weight 'sweet' spot.
then i would balance the wheel with minimum weight required if any.
If at this stage the tyre was not cooperating, off it would come and we'd send it back no question.
These days, maybe the shops are not so careful.
cheers
fung

[quote="fung These days, maybe the shops are not so careful.
[/quote]

Maybe? Very few shops that I have experienced give a crap anymore - and the smaller ones that did have been put out of business.

I used to work in waste disposal and would regularly see big containers full of tyres being tipped into landfill, brand new, but cut in half, presumably this was the rejects? have to say though, cant recall seeing bike tyres. It was Uniroyal factory, dont know if they made bike tyres or not, but dont recall seeing any....

I guess though there is not much point in balancing the rubber at the factory as who is to say the rim it is going onto is perfectly balanced, so its best left until rubber and rim are together as this wouild keep overall costs down, but there must be some sort of quality control right?

But.... if you have loads of weights at one part of the rim due to denser (spellchecker pls!) rubber does that mean as the tyre wears out that the tyre goes out of balance?

The bitchin should be a bit at the tyre shop as then they can in turn bitch at the manufacturer or broker, the shop have a bit more weight in what they say as they have the buying power, and also the power to stop using a particular brand, but agreed its not the tyre fitters fault there is a duff tyre.

fung wrote:. . . . . Back in the eighties, i worked with John Pace at Bob Jane Mermaid Beach doing motorcycle tyres only.
My practise was to rotate the tyre on the rim to find the weight 'sweet' spot.
then i would balance the wheel with minimum weight required if any.
If at this stage the tyre was not cooperating, off it would come and we'd send it back no question.
These days, maybe the shops are not so careful.
cheers
fung

Wow really? This must have required you to use the static balancing spindle / frame and then to `wrestle`/ spin the tyre around the rim until you got to a point whereby you were happy it was as good as you could get it?
Only then would you inflate / seat the tyre against the rim and set it running on the powered balancer for checking or not bother with that trusting the static spindle only? Can`t see many of the mercenary bike businesses or even trye depots allowing their employees to take that sort of time and attention to detail these days in all honesty Fung.
I change my own tyres at a pals business usually, and never bother checking them with a powered balancing machine. I`ve not had any problems as taking a little time to get it right you can static balance wheels and tyres just as good as any all singing and dancing powered machines as far as I`m concerned.
Edit:

For those unfamilier with what we`re talking about this might be of interest although I`m not sure I would trust plastic storage boxs to be particularly stable nor square / flat! :

http://hondashadowacetourer.yuku.com/to ... ncers.html

Edit 2:

Cal I think you`re right about Uniroyal, some race circuits buy up tyres that don`t pass the quality tests to build tyre bails / stacks / walls too. I saw a great deal of perfect and new `looking` tyre bails down at Croft and they were Uniroyal if my memory serves me correctly.

fung wrote:. . . . . Back in the eighties, i worked with John Pace at Bob Jane Mermaid Beach doing motorcycle tyres only.

Mate that guy was a legend!!!! I remember riding down to watch the 6 hour in 1980, and John Pace finished 2nd. Just check this page out below and take particular note of the helmet camera..hahahah

http://www.the6hour.com.au/content/history1980.html

Thanks for the feedback fellas. I think the shop being a Motorcycle tyre dealer should act and take it up with the tyre manufacturer not me. I think they, who fit tyres all day should realise a reject when the need to weigh it up so much to get balance. I am surprised that they would hand a wheel back like that and that I even would get to see it. IMO it should have been swapped before I even had a chance to say I dont want it.

Mincehead wrote:I change my own tyres at a pals business usually, and never bother checking them with a powered balancing machine. I`ve not had any problems as taking a little time to get it right you can static balance wheels and tyres just as good as any all singing and dancing powered machines as far as I`m concerned.

Mince, I dont balance my road bike tyres normally, however this is on my 1198 Ducati Track bike and I will be going to a Track about a 1000klm away from me that has a very high speed straight and first turn, in fact the fastest turn 1 in the country and the last thing I want is my eyeballs shaking in my head when I open the taps on the big dog.

Anyway, I guess I was vindicated as the second tyre they have fitted required No lead, surprise surprise ,

Interesting thread Stank, I have never thought about tyre balancing in those terms, e.g. too much lead etc.
With bus tyre fitting today they dump a bag of powder inside the tyre before it gets inflated... balanced.

ekoja wrote:Interesting thread Stank, I have never thought about tyre balancing in those terms, e.g. too much lead etc.
With bus tyre fitting today they dump a bag of powder inside the tyre before it gets inflated... balanced.

Yeh its a wonder they even bother with the speeds that a Bus would reach. However you would want no vibs on those steering wheels.

we had some tyre changing goop made up, that was pretty slippery.
so, if the tyre needed rotating on the rim, it was an easy job to crack the sidewall, grip the rim in the power jig and spin it.
once you do it a few times, you get a feel for how far the spin needs to be so it doesn't take long.
and yes static balancing was de rigeur with the more speedy machines with the trusty power balancer doing a fine job on the commuters etc.
cheers
fung

John still races a Katana in the classic racing and runs a Bob Jane outlet in Browns Plains i believe. i still have the sidi boots he used at honda in the shed.

Regarding balancing, I understand the static balancing and that when done with care a precision this can be quite effective. But I am assuming you would never be able to get the perfect balance between tyre and rim without adding weights (I could be very wrong). Regarding this a mate of mine is now trying the dynabeads concept...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq263AYgyYg

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/index.php

I understand that the last link is biased due to the employment of the 'sales pitch,' but it still seems like an interesting concept. Please feel free to indicate that I have been completely taken over by the 'sales pitch' and that it is all smoke and mirrors.

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