Equal tire balancing

Lin · June 16, 2011, 12:29:28 PM

John,

I have forgotten what the total weight of the ball is, but the balancers are meant to do the complete job- not merely a supplement. Here is a link to some tech info on their website. I believe the studies are independent.

http://www.centramatic.com/Page.aspx?page=Tech%20Facts

Busted Knuckle · June 16, 2011, 03:41:00 PM

Over the years I have either bought buses that had golf balls in them, or tried "Equal & Counter Act" and have had some success with all. But these days we just have them traditionally spin balanced with traditional weights!

BK

buddydawg · June 16, 2011, 03:44:34 PM

I just bought 2 steer tires and had them balanced with the traditional lead weights. Rides like a dream.

chev49 · June 16, 2011, 08:42:47 PM

I just balance steers n not worry too much about the rest... course i started driving trucks in 1961 and since then have been used to bouncing along for the first 5 miles...

chev49 · June 16, 2011, 08:45:16 PM

guess how easy the steering was in the 1940 and 1950 trucks....

TomC · June 16, 2011, 09:48:55 PM

My first truck, a 1980 Kenworth 86" Aerodyne cabover had no power steering since it had only a 151" wheelbase, and the factory was reluctant to put power steering on such a short truck for stability reasons. Hence, you learned to keep the front tire pressure up and grease the king pins often. It really wasn't that bad-I drove it for 8 years and 680,000 miles before getting my next truck. Just had to roll a bit and could turn the wheel-no such thing as turning the wheel when standing still. But-I'll take power steering anyday! Good Luck, TomC

John316 · June 17, 2011, 05:21:16 AM

Quote from: RichardEntrekin on June 15, 2011, 02:33:51 PM
John,

Not disputing your assertion that Equal gave you a problem, but it's not something I hear often. Would you mind sharing what the failure mode was? What happened? What did you see when the tire was dismounted?

Thanks

Richard,

This is how we found that out. We had been running regular old weights, for balancing. It was working out well. We had to get a flat fixed a some tire shop somewhere, while we were on the road. They didn't have the balancing machine, so they put equal in, which was fine by us. We started to notice cupping on the tires. We broke them down, and got rid of the equal. Replaced the tires, and weight balanced them.

Voila, no more issues at all. No more cupping, nothing. That was on the steer. It started to do the same on the tag, but we got smart then.

Thanks,

John