Static Wheel Balancer VS Jack Stands For Balancing Motorcycle Tires
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- Опубліковано 11 лют 2022
- To balance your tires at home, you will either have to buy a static wheel balancer or go with the somewhat debated method of just using jack stands.
I attempt to test for myself whether or not my jack stands can do the same job as my static balancer and find out if we have been wasting money buying fancy tools
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I've been using the jackstand method for 30 years, and it has always worked perfectly. For some reason you do have too much friction, which to me indicates you have a problem of some kind. Every wheel I have balanced using jackstands will continue rotating for over 10 minutes or so when given a good spin, and if it is not balanced, it will come to a stop, then turn backwards until the heavy spot is at the bottom. I mark the heavy spot and add a weight 180 degrees from it, and try again. Sometimes it takes only a tiny bit of weight, sometimes quite a bit. I just keep spinning the wheel/tire and waiting for it to stop. When it gets to the point where it stops in a different location every time, it's balanced. I am now 63, and no longer change my own tires, so I just let the shop balance them.
Wheel bearings do have more friction then those used on a balancer. To compensate, rotate the wheel axel back and forth while the wheel is being balanced - just around 10 deg. This breaks the static friction of the bearing and the wheel will balance perfectly every time.
@@williamdouglas8040 I don’t think he uses bearings, I go directly on Jack stands and it works well for me.
After I repaired a puncture on the front tyre of my GS550, I installed it back in the forks and balanced it before I refitted the brake calipers. It worked just fine.
That is what I experienced when trying to use the jackstand method. I thought there is something wrong with me. You convinced me to get a balancing stand.
I use this method but I use bearings where the rod meets the Jack stands. Also, be sure to remove the seals on those bearings if they have them so friction is reduced (the ones for the balancer, not your wheel bearings)
I use jack stands to balance my motorcycle tires/wheels but, I also use a
Marc Parnes balancing shaft. After doing a whole bunch of "digging" on
how to get the best results with DIY mounting and balancing I am very
confident with the setup I am using..... and the results show it. I started to
do Track Days last summer and knew that I would be changing tires a lot
more often. Although it's "easier" to have the local shop mount and balance
the tires it also would cost me a small fortune to go that route. It's a bit of
time and effort on my part but, the money saved and the satisfaction I get
from perfectly balanced tires/wheels is well worth it.
Thanks for posting up the video and keep yourself safe! 😃👍❤🏍
Randy
nice. it seems there is a better method than i tryed. ive learned a few tips from all u guys comments. good stuff. btw about the trackdays, ask your tire vendor about what they charge for trackside tire changes...most will do free if u buy their tires or they charge like 10-20 bucks per wheel.
@@nickbuchananracing Hey, thanks for the recommendation, I'll ask around on the next track day. 😃👍❤🏍
@@NHlocal youre welcome 👍
Curious how you know what side of the rim to add weight too?
@@markpasieka The heavy side always "falls" to the bottom. Add the proper amount of weights at the top(which is opposite the heavy side) to balance out the heavy side. 👍
I use the jackstand method but instead of using the axle I use a long 3/8 ratchet extension. Much less friction and wheel is very reactive to slight weight adjustments.
Thanks for that video . Definitely rethinking my setup.
I got a lot of tips from viewers on how do do it a little better than I did but like for real, cheap wheel balancers arent that much and if you change tires a few times in your lifetime...it seems like its worth it to just get a wheel balancer
Remove the rags, grease the shaft slightly, add a smidge of grease on the jack stand pads, and Bobs your uncle. I had a bike which always required a lot of weight and with this method I hit 120mph with no problems. Unbalanced and at 40+ it was a wild ride.
Thanks great video & comments
Excellent video! I believe the reason the jack stands do not work for your wheel is because the axel is fixed, requiring the wheel bearings to spin to balance the tire. However, the moto wheel bearings are heavily packed with thick grease causing the friction. You need a light weight bearing to do the gravity balancing, which is on the sides of your tool balancer, not a heavy weight bearing which is on the motorcycle wheel. You can see the issue at 9:21 when the wheel oscillates back and forth quickly when coming to a stop because of the heavy grease wheel bearing friction. Remember, it's not about the destination, it's about the ride baby!
C'est une superbe démonstration pour laquelle je vous remercie
de rien 👍🇨🇵
I have done a few that I just pulled the brake caliper off and jack the bike up and balance it on the bike
Great video! Thank you
youre welcome 👍
Nicely done video. I'm going to give away my age a little here. Back in the 70's a dealer would mount and balance a tire for $15. (chrome weights if needed) I'm sure dealers charge much more now. I hate the thought of buying a balancer, but it seems the better way to go, unless someone has a solution to what you are showing here. I guess if you do a few wheels, and some for your buddies, it is money well spent for the balancer. Thanks for taking the time to do this video.
Mike
Im glad you liked it, nice wheel balancers are quite pricey, but there are some cheap balancers for around 50 dollars on amazon. not the best but still better than the alternative. - Nick Buchanan
70 $ to mount and balance two bike tires. i just bought a bead breaker and i already have jack stands haha. ive used a 4×4 with a wedge to break the beads for years and jack stands but ive only been doing it since the mid to late 70s
As someone suggested, two standard ball races that fit the axle, remove the seals and wash the grease out, add very light oil. Use two axle stands, bar stools, whatever.This would work perfectly and cheaper than a dedicated stand. The question is how much out of balance does the wheel need to be before you can feel it
Im probably going to use the jack stand method but i have a set of bearing rollers im going to put on top of them that will fix the friction issue
ive used with success jack stands. getting ready to do it again.
This used to work on my old BMW (/6 series). You could try taking out the wheel bearings, wash them in solvent and add thin synthetic oil. When you are done, repack you bearings and off you go. Still not simple but you would get a bearing repack out of the deal.
Usually I use a static wheel balancer but didn’t have one so I used a broom handle and with two bar stools. Worked great.
I own a static balancer and an electronic wheel balancer with motorcycle adapter (and car adapter). I can get wheels pretty close with a static balance but only of the tire is in good shape. If I've got a tire that is a bit out of round the electronic balancer does a better job. The static balancer is great for lacing up wheels too, so I'd consider a must have tool if you do everything yourself.
Yes! Ive had the balancer for years now and just recently got a dirtbike and realized how nice it is to have for trueing the spoked wheels. Must have for sure
awesome video
thanks!
I use the MC lift stand on a level surface. Works as it should.
My first wheel balancing my buddy grabbed two folding chairs
It does seem like the wheel bearings are going to provide far more friction than the static wheel balancer bearings will. I always use the static balancer method. I suppose under primitive circumstances someone could try the jack stand or footpeg method and it possibly might be better than nothing but it's not going to be all that accurate.
I have always used the axel and two cinder blocks.
I've seen good wheel bearings that were free enough to turn without turning the axle on the wheel balancer. I've had to balance a wheel while on the road and the axle method worked fine, but by all means, if a balancing stand is available, go with it.
mine usually do a little bit when i use my static balancer
I just used two chairs and it works. You have a friction problem on your jack stands.
Brilliant
get some old open no cage bearings, wash any grease out of them and put in some light oil like 0w30 or even silikone spray and put the axle through them on the jackstands ... best you will ever get at balancing in this method, sometimes friction is too high and you loose 30°degrees or something wich is annoying to put the weight on the wrong spot, rebuild it to the bike and get shaking ....
How do you determine what side of the rim to add weight too?
looking at the way the wheel stops spinning at around 6:50 while you're saying how good your wheel bearings are - they're not. The wheel stops quite abruptly which tells that there's some friction in your axle/bearing setup.
All that using the balancing stand does is 1) make it a little easier by providing a longer axle for the wheel. 2) swap the bearings that the wheel is rotating on from the ones in the wheel to the ones on the stand. If the bearings in your wheel were in good condition then there's no difference.
My method after slapping some new rubbers on is I usually just grab a couple lawn chairs and a pressure washer wand and balance them
Out quick n dirty like that
so it all depends on the bearing resistance... if you have new wheel bearings it will function as good as the balancer contraption. if not then ofcourse the wheel balancer "wins", at least that is what I found.
That's not accurate. A brand new wheel bearing or any bearing for that matter, always has more friction. Then a worn out bearing. Tighter tolerances and plenty of grease makes it tacky and sticky, causing more resistance due to surface tension. Have u ever packed wheel bearings on a car before? Ever clean them completely out with solvent. Then dry them off, and spin them in ur hand? They spin much more freely. This is obviously without load tho. If you have a load on new bearing they spin as they were intended. A wore out bearing is going to have multiple bearings not even touching the race. And the fact that there's likely Lil grease left. Is what makes them spin freely. New thick tacky grease, along with every single bearing/ball or roller touching the race. Makes it stiffer ie more resistance. You gotta also understand that each bearing is having to roll over the grease on the race. So when it's free wheeling in the balancer. It's going to seem stiff. However when it's got weight on it, it'll be able to overcome the resistance of the grease. Not trying to be a know it all. Only trying to help. I've worked in a auto shop and a diesel shop and now in a motorcycle shop. So I've been around a lot of new, used and worn bearings..
You don’t want it to settle at bottom after adding weights, that means to much weight, you want it to not move from 3 o’clock or 9 o’clock.
OMG, put some angle iron on the jack stands so the axle can roll. And don't hurt yourself when it rolls too far.
Mate issue was you used axle, wheel won't move without locking cone. Wheel slides on axle
Ceramic tire balancing beads inside the tire before blowing tire up works . Put about 2 oz in through valve stem , the centrifugal force causes beads to settle in the out of balance spot each time you speed up . Never used on rear tire only front . I may try them in rear next change just to see / 08 FatBob slightly modified .
I had the ceramic beads once. They were terrible on speeds near 120km/h and above. Worst balancing that I've experienced on any bike. I had them removed and rebalanced with weights= smooth as butter. The shop said I was the first person unhappy with them, but they mostly worked with cruisers and mine was an fz1. I would never do them again.
I think that beads work alot better if it's a good quality tire. I used them in the rear of my Michelin pilot power tire and they worked good all the way through 160mph. I don't think I'm going to do that again though .
I think what it's showing is that Jack stands and other methods without the extra friction bearings may work. Your just not gonna get as percice of a balance in your tire. If your ok with so so use the Jack stands. If not suck it up and buy a balancer or have someone professional do it. You can use a belt to remove an oil filter, they've made tools that work a lot better 😂
Well put my man. 👍 After trying it and reading all the comments and advice. What i could have done better is warm up the bearings and maybe pop the seals and put some extra lube in there.
My balancer didn't come with a stand, so I have to put the bearings on top of jack stands. The wheel bearings have too much friction.
hmm. what kind of balancer did you buy? like what brand?
Yeah great video , I don't have a garage to keep a wheel balancer,so it's going to be an hour's worth of labour.
Jack stand method always works for me. I think you have another issue going on.
Maybe...have to revisit one day and try better
I used a cardboard box and a guitar combo instead of jackstands. It would take forever to stop oscillating. Maby my wheel was extremely unbalanced 🤔
Luckily I dont drive very fast..
maybe..ill try it again someday and see if I can do better to make them work.
How come you didn't go to Tractor Supply and buy a couple bearings that would slide over the axle.. Then place them on the jack stands..
because most people wouldnt do that and I wanted this to be a demo of what most people would do if they chose jackstands vs static balancer. but yes that would help
JIm, is that the ticket? Or just an observation? I really do not want to buy something else to put in my garage!!! thanks
@@dancheatham5106I'm going to try it soon with some rollers that have bearings. I suspect it will work well but if it does not I'll buy a balancer. Only $55
There is a thing about bearings everybody forget. Bearings may not rotate freely without clamping load of axle nut. It is possible that cones of the wheel balancer just creates a small preload enough to free bearings. It depends maybe how bearings were installed. If you press them a little bit too much, they rotate not well because of the side load. But minimal axial preload is enough to eliminate friction. On my bike I even see it when installing front wheel. It suddenly starts to rotate when I begin tightening the axle (yes, I have unbalanced wheels because it is a dirt bike, so I can notice this effect)
isnt the main issue grease in the roller bearings?
Maybe. After trying a few other wheels ive haf better results depending on how perefect the wheel bearings were
Just go to your local bearing shop. Buy 4, 2" diameter premium, un shielded bearings. Wash the hell out of the bearing with brake cleaner and air compressor. (no oil at all)
Mount 2 bearings onto a piece of wood and mount the piece of wood to another piece of wood that was slid Down into each jack stand.
Now use your bike axle as normal as the pivot like the video said.
If you want to be ultra precise, (optional) get 4, 4" or 5" bearings (non-heavy duty type that are only 1/4" wide) and clean them (no oil at all) if the center hole id of the 5" bearing is let's say 3/4", buy 4 more 3/4" od bearings, with an ID of let's say 1/4", and put them inside the big bearing, then mount them to the the wood like before.
Now, since the 5" od bearings are way to huge to properly hold the bike axle, you just offset the bearings, and push them closer together. Probably just shim with wood.
I don't know what bearings are available at what size, but basically you want big, greasless wheels or bearings.
Or just get small bearings and get your buddy to machine 6" diameter aluminum solid wheels and put the bearings into them. Then do the offset trick.
that could work. skateboard bearing cold be useful. they are small and cheap
how much of a difference would that super precise method change the location and amount of wheel weigh you put on?
I guess it depends how sensitive your balancer is. down to 0.1 of an ounce? 0.01 of an ounce? Would a rider even feel the difference at 65mph? It would be interesting to test this.
@@Knights2theEnd don't know. All I know, the bigger the aluminum wheel wrapped around a little bearing, the better. The aluminum wheel puts leverage on the little bearing. So, if there was a little nub of dust in the bearing, the radius of the wheel would torque the outer race, over the dust nib.
The smaller the bearing, the more it sucks
@@Knights2theEnd Not a snowball's chance in hell anyone is going to tell .1 of an ounce especially on a street bike.
I used bearings from inline skates, but with just the jack stands result was the same (with good wheel bearings ofcourse)
The jackstand method is supposed to roll the supporting bar back and forth on the jackstand, so this is not the true jackstand method.
guess i got it wrong. oops. i tried
Technically the jack stand method wouldn't work because if it did then you could do the same method with the wheel on the bike and we all know that doesn't work.
basically. i got a few tips from people in the comments on how to improve but its not a perfect set up no matter how much you try.
I was gonna go on a rant, but its pointless. People are gonna do what their gonna do. Riding a bike is more dangerous than a car. You should take more care of the tires and parts of your bike. Somethings you can do clever little tricks on, and you really just shouldn't. Just my thoughts on it, now im only a 43 yr old licensed mechanic i dont know everything
Your wheel bearings are awfully tight. First thing I would try is to warm the bearings with a heat gun and see if that improves the sticktion of the grease in the bearings. I'll bet it improves drastically. New bearings can be tight this way and bringing them up to temp can let them move more freely.
Would have been nice if you showed us the imbalance without any weights , using the static balancer! Cmon
I suppose thats a good point. I do use the same wheel and tire for my other video for using a static balancer. You can see how it is with no weights at the start of that video. Good input. Thanks for the advice👍
Warm wheel bearings will have less friction and the grease will not be solid. Get your girlfriend/wife/sister's hair dryer and warm them up first.
You make a good point, was winter time when I did this....
Ok bro. Will do
Use a smaller diameter bolt , you got too much friction using your axle bolt. Jack stand balancing is accurate if you know what your doing bro.
Then you've got too much friction in use.