Tire Balance with Beads

[henryj]

I have never had a problem with out of balance tires, but was looking for an alternative to the clamp on lead weights--designed for steel rims--that scratch and corrode Al rims. GM has mostly spec'd Al rims that take clamp on weights for the convenience of tire installers. My previous car, with 200,00 mi., went through several tire changes and the rims were badly corroded from the weights being a dirt magnet as well as scratching off the protective finish. I used stick on weights in the 80's--designed to be somewhat hidden on the inner part of the rim--but had mixed results as the balance wasn't perfect and some weights detached. Often as not the weight alone broke loose from the sticky backing leaving it on the wheel. I'd just as soon not have Al rims, but they are lighter, and in certain trim lines like my Sierra, come as standard equipment. I stumbled across Centramatic on a forum, but they are an expensive solution to what, for me, was strictly a cosmetic problem.

Further Googling turned up balancing beads.

Magnum Plus Balancing Compound

Counteract

Tire Balancing Products

Magnum is a local manufacturer so I decided to go with them, but they don't make it easy. The beads come as one bag/tire, but are sold by the case and about 4 different sizes of bags are needed to cover typical retail tire sizes. This is a big investment in inventory for a tire shop and a disincentive to their use. In addition, Magnum, their distributor and the retail shops do zero advertising. I had to phone the distributor to find the one retail tire shop in my 500,000+ population region that installs the beads.

The bead manufacturers seem to be targeting trucking companies--and probably advertize in trade magazines--and motorcycles. I'm not familiar with motorcycles--are their tires hard to balance?--but for truckers, a couple of bucks saved adds to the bottom line over millions of miles. The average retail customer simply is not the target market as they have no problems with balance, and, as the distributor also told me, there is no advantage in city driving.

I was still somewhat hesitant when I phoned the tire shop, but they assured me that an LT245 was a perfect size for beads and they actually used them on their service trucks. There is a $20 premium over the standard install/balance price so that was reasonable and I went ahead. The beads come in a heavier outer bag that protects a very flimsy inner plastic bag. The installer drops the inner bag into the tire, or may break the bag slightly with his fingers, and the whole install is much faster and simpler than the standard balance. The flimsy bag actually stays in the tire.

When driving, the beads quickly move around the circumference of the tire and concentrate in the light spots. As speed increases they jostle around somewhat to keep the balance. Once in place, centrifugal force keeps them there and they don't actually roll around inside the tire at all. Earlier versions apparently chipped and turned to powder, but the trucking companies seem to be the test that that problem has been solved. I have driven mostly on suburban roads and have gone from numerous stops at lights up to 45 mph with some up to 65 mph. The tires are perfectly balanced at any speed. Even accelerating slowly and holding at various speeds there is no imbalance. The past winter's numerous pot holes had absolutely no effect on balance. Finally, it's never fun washing GM's 8 bolt wheels, but not having the scummy weight there anymore almost made it a pleasure.

The one downside with beads is that they tend to get lost when the tire is dismounted to properly fix a puncture from the inside. My retailer said they would be able to save them because they are familiar with beads, but doubted anybody else would bother. I may go back and get a spare bag for our travels just in case. Also, for tires wider than 65 series, the side to side imbalance is too large for beads and they do a static balance first and then the beads can do the fine tuning.

A big advantage of beads--that only hit while I was reading more sites for this post--is that they balance the entire rotating assembly, not just the tire/wheel. I didn't get the beads for my new trailer tires as the retailer didn't think it was worth it for a trailer--what else is new?--or a smaller tire. I'll keep a close eye on them and have the beads retrofitted if necessary, but have always gotten very even wear on the previous 2 sets of tires.

Henry

[JohnB]

Hi Henry

We must be following the same logic path here..... Last weekend I installed Dyna Beads here myself in the TT tires. I have pics etc to go along with this to make a post as it was metal valve stems that started this saga. I wanted to do the tire balancing as the axle bearings and tires just plain run better. I have no one close in my area that has a hub for their tire balancing machine for lugcentric trailer wheels and they look at me in wonder why they cannot just use the punched steel hole in the middle. The metal valve stems was part of the ability to add a tire pressure monitoring system. I'll put that post up soon as it more deals metal valve stems, trailer tires and the issues and I'll add my Dnyabead info here.

I'll post the Dyna bead pics later tonight. Here is a U tube video showing the effect of the balancing beads.

Seeing is believing:

YouTube - DynaBeads demo video

More later.

John

[JohnB]

To add to Henry's great post

Below are some pics of the DnyaBead brand that I used. They are in Rochester NY. I used the the larger truck beads however Innovative Balancing has smaller beads that you can pour in the valve stem hole once the core is removed too. They then take a filter core stem so the fine beads do not get into the valve.

The larger beads will not flow thru the valve stem core very well and they are made to put in the tire manually. They also do not need filter cores to prevent the valve stem issues since they are bigger.

I will some day soon go to a tire pressure monitoring system on the TT and went the larger beads due to a T Valve (valve stem) by Hawk systems that has 2 fill ports on the valve stem and didn't want to try and use the filter cores on those special valves. That entire T valve saga is another post.... soon to come.

So while I used the truck beads, others wanting to do this can use the smaller beads and just pour them in the valve stem and never take the tire off the camper. You do have to jack up the camper to take the weight off though as you have to let the air out first.

Like the type Henry bought DynaBeads come in a bag. You pick from a chart the amount of bead you need per the tire size. For many sizes they have pre-measured bags and you can drop them in the tire unmounted or pour the mini ones in thru the valve stem. In my case they did not have the big beads in 3 oz bags as the big beads are normally larger in qty for trucks or Motorhome RV's. I went for the slightly better pricing and weighed them out per tire myself.

So here are the pic's. What do these things look like? Here they are in a 10 oz bag that was partly used when I took the pic. The bag was filled solid just about when unopened.


I have a small scale I use to use to use for weighing back packing gear during my Scouting days so I put a plastic container on the scale, tare weigh the container to 0 and then add 3 oz. of beads.


This is what 3 oz's looks like


Then since I had the tire bead broke to do the valve stems I just poured them in.


They are really not hard to deal with, key is knowing and taking a little time. I bought 20 oz's worth enough to do 6.6 tires. I used 5 tires worth and have one spare tire fill to put in the camper if I need one on the road.

They cost me $46.15 including freight which comes out to $7.69 a tire. Since I did the work myself this was not that bad to get balanced TT tires. Like Henry said they help balance out TT brake drums that are not machined to run true as auto brake drums. From my thoughts a true in balance running tire lasts longer, (at least in theory if the cracks don't get us first or tire age...) but the axle bearings do not have all that pounding going on into them. From a machinery standpoint, running in balance is a good thing.

Due to circumstances I have not had a road test with these yet so I cannot report on the feel in truck if I can feel it that far back. Others who have used them in their campers have reported they do run well. And those who use them on motorcycles say they are very smooth. I have a camping buddy who has them in his bike.

There are some things to be cautious of if you have these in your tire. If you pull the valve stem core to let the air out of the tire, roll the tire so all the beads are on the other side (180 deg from) the valve stem. If you have the valve near the pile of beads and pull the core, some may fly out at you. Safety glasses are a must. I never had any issues with any beads coming out on the 5 tires I did, but I did this the they way the instructions cautioned about.

It is strange rolling the tire over to the camper and hearing this swoosh swoosh inside the tire....

Hope this helps

John

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Will hitting a bump in the road cause the beads to dislodge and then resettle? Maybe like feeling extra bumps until they do find their sweetspot again. MIght not be so noticeable on the TT as on the TV.

jim

[Trailblazer]

Wow! I have never heard of this before. Very interesting. I look forward to hearing about the road test results.

[SanDimasJoe]

John,
Are those metal valve stems stainless or brass. I too have a tire pressure monitoring syst. I found out that the rubber stems flex to much and bump against the rim. Some tire shops don't use metal stems and don't stock them.

Joe

[EMD_Driver]

Originally Posted by SanDimasJoe

Some tire shops don't use metal stems and don't stock them.

Joe

I just bought several metal stems at our local NAPA.. When I get enough of them, I'll have them on our entire fleet.

[kanyonkitty]

FLEET ??????? We have a "Fleet" ? Hum, 2 trucks and a 5th wheel equals a "fleet".

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by SanDimasJoe

John,
Are those metal valve stems stainless or brass. I too have a tire pressure monitoring syst. I found out that the rubber stems flex to much and bump against the rim. Some tire shops don't use metal stems and don't stock them.

Joe

Joe, I'll put up a post on this soon. I have 2 kinds, steel chrome plated and brass chrome plated. There is a heads up on using metal stems on trailer wheels and I'm sure rim size has a lot to do with the problems. I know my 15 inch ones where a bear....

[henryj]

A heads up for anyone contemplating the DIY pour in method with OEM style TPMS with aluminum valve stems like I have on the camper. These stems must have a nickel alloy (stainless steel) valve core as the standard steel core would cause bi-metallic corrosion. Certainly tire stores carry these, but, on the shelf at NAPA, you might have to look for them. I use an aftermarket system from Orange Electronics, but believe they supply at least some of the OEM stems as my local Canadian Tire store carries replacements.



The problem with the smallest Dynabeads is that they need a filtered valve core to keep the beads out of the valve stem. You would need to check whether this filtered core is stainless or use the larger beads, as John did, that are too big to get into the stem. It looks like John is in the enviable position of having a tire changer to break the bead. Most of the rest of us would need a tire shop.

Also, I'm not sure from looking at my picture whether the beads would pour through this Al valve stem. The screw attaches the sensor/battery from the inside of the rim to the stem. There is no obvious spot where the air/beads would come through. I emailed Dynabead and will post their response.

John, did you take any precautions to keep the Dynabeads from flying around and out during the initial blast of air to seat the tire against the rim? I believe this is why the beads are usually supplied in a measured quantity and placed bag and all into the tire.

Henry

[henryj]

It's not possible to pour Dynabeads through this type of TPMS valve stem where the sensor/battery is attached inside the wheel. Balancing beads do not affect TPMS in any way, they just need to be put directly into the tire after breaking the seal--not DIY for most people. The small beads need the replacement filtered valve core, the large beads John used don't. Just from reading more on Dynabeads website, I think the large beads are a better choice anyway. The small ones only advantage is the ability to pour them through the valve stem.

Henry

[MarkandKim]

I run Dynabeads in my motorcycle tire (I have a car tire on the rear) and I have not had any problems in in yet.I used the bigger beads and put them in when I had my tire mounted. The main reason I used them was I didnt like the way the clamp on weights looked on my aluminum rims.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by henryj

John, did you take any precautions to keep the Dynabeads from flying around and out during the initial blast of air to seat the tire against the rim? I believe this is why the beads are usually supplied in a measured quantity and placed bag and all into the tire.

Henry

Hi Henry

In my case I did not have any issues with flying beads or loosing beads. I’ll explain a little so we can see why as my situation may be a little different. On 4 of the 5 tires I did I only broke the one bead, the valve stem side. Again in my case there was 2 reasons I was doing this, upgrade to metal valve stems and while I had the bead broke, install the DnyaBeads. The opposite side of the tire was already sealed to the rim as I have 2 year old tires and this was not a new tire install.

I took the precautions that DynaBead stated when pulling the valve stem to have the beads 180 degrees away from the valve stem area. I had a heck of a time getting certain metal valve stems to seal up on a trailer wheel. So I had lot’s of practice…. breaking the valve stem side bead again with DnyaBeads in side. Each tire I deflated with beads inside the tire I made sure the bead pile was opposite the valve stem, had safety glasses on held my hand about 6 inches away from the stem air blast in case anything was to come flying out. Nothing ever did. I also did not loose any on the tire machine when I re-broke the one tire bead to the rim. But one needs to be careful as if you are not paying attention I can see these going all over. They lay in a pile and in the curvature of the tire. As long as you do not tip the tire to allow them to come out, they stay in.

The same precaution should be used when the tire is on the trailer. Both for adding air and if you ever pulled the valve stem for any reason. Have the stem on top (12:00) area and the beads will be on the bottom (06:00) area. Even airing down truck tire to a lower pressure woud be good to have the bead 180 from the stem.

On one tire I had to take the tire partly off the rim. My error, I forgot to put a rag over the broke tire bead when screwing on a metal valve stem nut on the inside of the rim. Darn if that little bugger of a nut didn’t drop right down into the tire. So I had to un-mount the top bead from the rim. This also was on a failed metal valve stem attempt so I had beads in the tire. On my machine the bottom bead breaker comes up any time you cycle the machine even if you are using the tire removal arm up top. In this case I ended up having both the top tire bead off the rim and the bottom bead broke. Basically the tire is ½ off the rim at this point. I lost about 3 beads as I was lifting the tire off the machine to place it on the ground before re-inflating. Again the beads sat in the curvature of the tire and I was seating both top and bottom tire beads in the same inflation.

You can see here the tire machine lifting the bead high up off the rim. A 180 degrees from here is where the pile of beads wsa at and did not come out.


Here is a top pic to help show what I’m talking about. The lower bead breaker in on the left and the bead pile was on the right end of the tire. So while the bead breaker lifted the tire high, the beads where not exposed to the rim.


To inflate, I have the tire down flat on the ground to help lift the tire to the bead and I have an inflation band that compresses the tire center to help force the tire to mate with the rim closer when starting inflating.


My style machine and that inflation band are old school. The new tire machines use air blasts under the rim on the tire machine to help start the inflation process. I do not know what those air blasts would do to loose Dynabeads in the tire. Maybe nothing, maybe fly around??

For a tire shop who does this for a living where time is money, having the beads in a drop in pre-weighed bag is fast and easy. It can be done with loose beads but it will take more time and more care. And I do not know if this would work loose on every tire there is. Low profile tires putting them in loose could be a challenge as there is not much curvature well in the tire for the beads to hide in.

For the DIY’er, the smaller beads that pour in the valve stems is the way to go, but even then you still have to jack up the camper to get the weight off the tire. For anyone who has mounted or unmounted tires by hand or with a machine knows the animal a tire can be. Growing up as a kid on the farm, we never had a tire machine and did all our tire changing by hand for farm implaments. To break the bead we usually used a hydraulic bottle jack. Slide the tire under the back of the truck or tractor, put the jack in place and pushed down on the tire. Then we had special tires irons to help take the tire off the rim. I can attest that farm tires are more welded to the rim as there are no age limits to an implement tire that never goes down the highway. As long as it held air and went down the field at 5 mph we used it. 10 years later that bead is welded on…. For the truck tires that we went on the highway, they wear like everyone else does and the tire shop dealt with them. If you have dealt with mounting tires before, you can make your own choice how to do this. With that, yes for the vast majority of RV’ers, either use the pour in beads or go to your local tire shop to have them installed.

Thanks

John

[JohnB]

Adding to Henry's post on the trailer report from having Dnyabeads installed.

Since I added shocks this spring it is harder to tell the effect the Dynabeads are doing. I was only out once with shocks and no beads and the other 3 times had beads in.

I will say this, the tires run smooth by looking in the mirrors when I'm on a slight turn at speed. I can't feel any difference in the truck but again this truck with it's heavy suspension dampens out a lot all by itself to feel the effects of much of anything of the TT.

Seeing the smoothness does make me feel this was worth the upgrade just due to the better longer term mechanical life of the tires and wheel bearings. A balanced tire and now brake drum helped too turning 60mph is for sure a longer term setup then an unbalanced one.

I must admit it is still a strange sound when you roll the tire around to put it on. The swoosh, swoosh inside is noticeable. Very faint but you can hear it.

Between the shocks, EZ Flex and the beads she is a smooth running camper.

John

[henryj]

Since starting this thread more than 4 years ago, we have a new tt and tv. The tt has Dynabeads as I wasn't buying new tires, just adding beads to the OEM. The tv has Magnum beads as I bought Michelin M/S2 for it the next day and the tire shop supplied and installed the beads at no charge in lieu of balancing.

I've lost track of how many miles I've covered with balancing beads, but the 2014 Arctic Fox already has 25,000 miles, and the new--Mar. 23--truck has 10,000 miles. All told, I'm guessing 50,000 miles on 2 trucks and 40,000 on 2 trailers.

The beads have performed perfectly at all speeds and in all road and weather conditions. I'll not be returning to lead weights and spin balancing.

Two punctures were repaired by my local shop who have just started carrying beads. They were glad to know about the beads before breaking down the tire, but said they could handle it. They vacuumed the beads with a small hand vac and re-installed them after the repair, all without losing any or giving me any dirty looks. There was a $10 premium on the repair for the extra time and care with the tire machine.

Henry

[mainah]

I have got to ask how do you know the beads actually balanced the tires? When I use weights I know they are balanced before I even put them on.

[henryj]

I know they're balanced because I have 25,000 mi on the OEM Goodyear just on the current tt. They show no abnormal wear, but are down to 6 or 7/32. I will replace them before the next long trip. It's the first time I've miled out a set of tt tires before they aged out.

It makes no difference to me whether someone balances with beads, lead, bubble gum or nothing. Most tt's are built without balancing because that lack of precision fits the lack of precision everywhere else including the running gear. Thousands of owners never balance and have no problems--probably because they don't tow 25,000 mi in 2 yr and the tt manufacturers know that, so why bother.

I resurrected this thread because when someone like Jerry has an obvious balancing problem with lead weights, it makes no sense to go there again. Beads have a better chance of balancing his tire even if it has a bad wheel or poorly machined hubs and drums. Beads cost no more than a spin balance and aren't dependent on the skill of a tech who thinks its pointless to waste his time balancing a trailer wheel and he never heard of lug-centric wheels either.

[mainah]

Lead or steel weights are not the problem the operator of the machine is. If you own a camper and want to make it efficient to tow use radials and balance the wheels. I still have a problem with beads did when they first came out still do after using modern machines to balance tires I fail to see how the beads can be in different spots in a tire in a two plane dynamic balance. Lug concentric wheels are more about the fact that the hubs not having a centering hub (cheaper to make) thus leaving the lugs to center the wheel frankly a poor way of doing it this is why they tell you to retighten trailer wheels after X miles. The same machine doing the lug centers also does the hub center so there is no reason that a standard balancer can't center the wheels. I can see the beads in a large truck tire they are labor intensive to balance by machine and by comparison turn a lot slower than a 13” trailer wheel making the balance less critical. Either way one choses to balance a trailer tire ignoring it is a bad plan, not only does it ware the tire out it also is hard on the suspension parts. In the case of Jerry’s tire had I balanced the tire I probably would have dismounted the tire and mover it around the wheel to reduce the amount of weight in one spot I will admit I an anal about tire balance.