Wheel Balancing

[Tony Griffiths]

Has anyone found it necessary to balance A7 wheels? If so, have you used stick-on weights or the wrap-around-the-spoke type?

[Reckless Rat]

Never bothered in over 40 years. Mind you, I think it's not really relevant if you don't go over 45-50mph. Imbalance seems to manifest itself around 70mph.

[Tony Griffiths]

Me neither, though I now have one wheel that does swing, with some energy, to the lowest point. The others are all pretty much OK.

[Chris KC]

I can vouch for the fact that they can get a bit skittish at speed! But have never really tried to find a place that had the capability to balance them, assuming it would be problematic with most modern equipment.

[`Gordonhbm]

I have used Dynabeads (https://www.dynabeads.co.uk) on my previous vintage car. I found they worked very well balancing the wheel.tyre and brake drum every time you drove the car and reached 20mph. The only criticism I can think of is where the wheel starts to go out of balance due to some developing mechanical fault developing and might reduce the symptoms eg wheel nut failure.

[Howard Wright]

Me neither, though I now have one wheel that does swing, with some energy, to the lowest point. The others are all pretty much OK.

Hi Tony

Just a thought…is the wheel out of balance or off centre? Might be worth checking.

Cheers

Howard

[Nick Salmon]

Never done so, and never had cause to think I should Tony.

[John Cornforth]

All cars are different, but if you take a typical example of unsprung mass resonance of 14 cycles per second and Ruby sized tyres with 800 revs per mile, any unbalance won't cause pronounced shaking till you reach about 60 mph.

Nobody seemed to bother much about wheel balancing when top speeds were 40 to 50 mph

Having said that, it would still feel nicer to have things balanced, epecially if for some reason the wheel/tyre was a long way out. With slender tyres and central weight placement, static balancing should be enough.

I can feel an experiment coming on with an old hub, bearings and stub axle clamped in the vice.

[Peter Naulls]

Slightly off-topic but the only problem I've had is with hubs that don't fit square to the half-shaft. That can give a discernible shimmy at certain speeds.