mcar00

When tracking does anyone notice their tires have moved on their rims? The problem is the wheels getting out of balance. I guess the fronts move due to braking on soft tires and the rears due to acceleration. I marked mine and they moved about 6 inches after a few sessions. I was told that one solution is to balance the wheels and tires independently of each other so that it doesn't matter where the tire ends up on the wheel. Anyone balance a tire only before, and if so, how did you secure the weights? Also, has anyone tried to only balance the wheels without tires on them, and if so, was that enough to prevent any vibration through the steering wheel? Thanks guys.

AU N EGL

Yup, Mine do all the time. SO I dont even balance the rears anymore

rasrboy

Solution! Who ever does your tire mounting, make sure they DO NOT put any tire paste (Lube) on when mounting. They may take some PSI to seat but they will be a lot better. Try this on your next set and then mark it and recheck. Should be very little movement if any. Static balance and put stick on weights in center of wheel with FOIL tape which you can purchase at the Home Depot in the plumbing section I believe.

Aaron Quine
Kumho Tire (Motorsports Division)

MAC95 6SPD

They always move. After 6 to 10 inches I would rebalance if there was any vibration. We always mount the tire dry but they still move.
Mat

anotherone

dang, I never heard of that; thanks good info!

Humanoid 2.0

Do like the drag racers do and use glue or screw your tires to the wheel.

davidfarmer

I don't work for Kumho, but I don't think I could pay my tire guys enough to NOT use lube. It often takes 3 of them just to get some of these low profile/stiff sidewall tires mounted With lube.

Good idea though......

rasrboy

Your tire guy just doesn't have the finess then. I am just saying this cause I have mounted 1,000's (Not hundreds) of tires this way (even low profile) and barely got any movement including cars making 600 plus horsepower where they are known to spin on the rim.

When those tires spin on the rim,tenths of a second can add up over time. To each his own, just trying to help out a forum friend.

Send your tires my way David and I'll mount them.

Aaron

fatbillybob

I have my own tire mounting machine. The trick is the right tools to help the tire on the rim and using cheap hairspray! Wet hairspray is slick as can be and helps the tire go on the rim like soap, it drys and helps the tire stick to the rim so it won't move, There is no water in the tire to mess with your hot air pressures at on the track either.

Dry mount is good too if you got some finesse or some tires are just a bit easier to mount than others on a certain wheel. In my hands sometimes I just can't do it and I stress the bead and fear tire damage because my machine is strong and can rip a tire in half. Trackside performace the yokohama slick seller guys use lard when dry mount is asked for. They say it burns off a few laps later and will not make your tires slip but I have not used that method. I never use soap and water but I have used euro dry lube and that works good too no slipping and is made for tire mounting. It goes away really quick and will not mess with tire pressures at tempurature. I find hairspray more slick so I use hairspray otehrwise its euro dry lube.

You can also buy tire markers and can mark the postions of tires relative to points on the wheel to check them for slip. You can mark off wear areas to see how much you are rolling over a bead, and of course mark left rear right front etc... Tire crayons are pretty useful. Hope that helps.

anotherone

Whoda thunk,good info thanks.

mcar00

All great information! Thanks guys!

davidfarmer

you guys don't live out in the boonies like I do...... It was only recently that their balancers had an 18" setting.........

I must say, this is good information when the NITROGEN post comes up again. Dry mounting tires helps reduce pressure build more than Nitrogen/dry air most likely.

fatbillybob

Once I started using hairspray my tire pressures got instantly more stable. Its the water from mounting that really screws up tire pressures and once it is in there you never get it out. This is especially bad when 3 guys try to mount a tire and they are throwing huge amounts of soap in there. I got this slick tool from hunter which encourages a sidewall to fold just a bit to tease a bead on the rim. I can't mount a tire without it and it works on our stiff sidewall race tires. This tool does what the 3 guys are doing basically massaing the sidewall to tease it on the wheel.

This will sound crazy but I used to try and find a guy with a good dynamic balancer and force him to enter in all my tire wheel data and dynamic balance my wheel/tire combo. Then I started static balancing with a bubble balancer and I could tell no difference. Now I do something even more weird. I dynamic balance the wheel only using a metal valve stem in the wheel because I have had rubber ones fail on me. Then I mount my own tires and skip the static balance and guess what....they work fine just as well as if I did the proper dynamic balance of the wheel tire complex.

You are lucky your tire guys finally have an 18" setting . That means they are tyring to dynamic balance your setup and trying to do right by you. 99% of tire monkeys just throw a tire on the spin balance and press a button. When that happens the machine defaults to static balance. Under those conditions you may as well use a 50 dollar bubble balance at home.