tire weights

[cadman]

i had a new front tire mounted last saturday and i was wonderng if 3.5 oz. of balancing weight was alot..i have ridden several times since the install, the tire feels great as far as turning and cornering but after reaching ~65MPH i feel a bit of a wobble forget about any speed in the tripple digits...

thanks guys

alan

 

[SkooterG]

Yes. That is an excessive amount of weight IMHO. That works out to 105g which I am more familiar with. Wow!

Obviously, less weight is better, especially on the front. I once needed 55g to balance a rear tire. I called the tire rep (Avon), and he told me 50-60g should be the max to balance the tire. He actually offered to send a replacement tire for me. I told him I would try it first. Well, I rode that tire for 11,000 miles with no issues.

But.......105g for a FRONT tire?!?!?! No way I would ever personally accept that.

Are you sure it's actually 3.5oz/105g?

BTW, cool avatar and great place you live. It's been a long time since I was in Pensacola, but one of my favorites. Is McGuire's Irish Pub still a happening place? Are drunken fools still kissing the moose? Chan's?

Are you in the naval aviation field by any chance?

Good luck with that tire. I would get it replaced.

 

[MCRIDER007]

You didn't say what kind of tire it was but before I would ask for a new tire I would want to know how much weight it takes to balance the rim without the tire and whether the heavy spot on the rim is at the valve stem or somewhere else.

After having a bad experience with a front tire (which turned out to be defective) I now verify the heavy spot on the rim on all the tires I change. If the tire doesn't have a mark for the light spot (like an Avon) then it is a four step process to balance the rim without the tire, mount the tire and use the balancer to find the light spot on the tire, break the bead and rotate the tire to line up the tire's light spot with the rim's heavy spot, and balance the rim and tire together. If you do everything right, the weights will go either on the rim's heavy spot or directly opposite. Its a pain in the butt but saves a lot of weights.

 

[cadman]

mcrider007,

i did not say the tire type, its a conti road attack. i'm pretty sure the shop did not take the time to balance out the rim as you do. i did stop by the shop this evening after work and spoke to the owner. friday i will take the wheel off and take it to him. he said he'd do what ever it takes to make it right. its just a pain in the tush to do something twice.

scooterg,

dang the more i think of i am not sure..i do know that i took out my 1/4 oz. weights an placed 14 of the 1/4's next to what the shop applied...i too do not accept that much weight for any tire...

i have been in the "cradle of naval avation" for 35+ yrs. so the blue angles are part of my life here..i am a cad designer for a paper mill in the area.

Mcguire's ROCKS, i think the moose is on its 1000th set of retreaded lips..chans is no loger at the mall, the owner moved it out off of 9-mile road and its a "college bar" been there a few times, but not really my type of place...

i'll know more about the tire after work friday...

thanks for for all of your input guys!!

 

[MCRIDER007]

i did not say the tire type, its a conti road attack. i'm pretty sure the shop did not take the time to balance out the rim as you do. i did stop by the shop this evening after work and spoke to the owner. friday i will take the wheel off and take it to him. he said he'd do what ever it takes to make it right. its just a pain in the tush to do something twice.

Thanks for the feedback, please let us know the outcome. My experience to date, which is limited, is that FJR front rims are usually within 10-20g and front tires (Avon, Strada, and BT021) are within 10-30g so if you offset the heavy and light spots very little weight is required. I try to balance to within an eighth ounce which is probably overkill since the shops are usually within a half ounce.

A couple of weeks ago I changed the OEM front tire (BT020) for a friend and noticed that it did not have any weights at all. When I put it on the balancer it was off by 3/4 of an ounce -- and he had never had a problem with it.

 

[Zorlac]

I attempted to coarse balance a rear Concours tire by ignoring the balance dot and rotating it around the rim before seating the bead, I then needed a large amount of weight to get it to balance so I scrapped that idea and just lined up the dot with the valve stem and it balanced with maybe 10 grams.

105g lumped in just one spot isn't right, especially on the front.

 

[JR'SFJR]

For me, normally between zero wt. added to a max of 1 oz.(28 grams I believe)

 

[4KLESS]

I'm on my second Road Attack front and neither one has taken over an ounce to balance. This is obvious, but make sure there aren't any other weights somewhere; it's not unheard of for someone to neglect to remove the previous weights before balancing a freshly mounted tire. If there are no other weights, have them rotate it 180 degrees on the rim, then re-balance. If it takes over 1.5 ounces I'd opt for a replacement tire.

 

[cadman]

Outcome of my tire saga:

They put the weighs on the very outside of the rim, i right in front of one of the three spars (spokes), which was causing a pulsing feeling like a pedulum effect after achiving any speeed over 50 MPH.

I was wrong in thinking that they applied 3.5 oz of weight on the rim, it was 35 grams...I asked the fella rotate the tire 180 degrees, the weight felll to 22 grams, and i had them put the weight on the inner most part of the rim..i am very happpy with the results.