Does anyone have advice on purchasing a used tire machine? I'm curious on what the best budget machine would need to be outfitted with, or what to look for in a used machine.
TIA
Milan

 

My friends and I bought one a while back. We bought it new. Biggest issue is that it is a pain in the *** to mount slicks and brand new Hoosiers. If you're just getting it to mount street tires then it should be fine but in almost every case if it hadn't been two or three of us working on at least one of the tires out of four it wouldn't have gotten mounted. I have found that I could not mount my tires by myself. We bought an atlas tire machine and a spin balance machine. Like I said works great for street tires. Slick's not so much.

 

What I did was buy a quality brand used machine air driven with parts still available. I went with hunter tire machine and balancer.

There are accessories that make tire mounting easy. I'm small and old and I mount Hoosiers as that is what my class races on.

There are other tricks to help mount like using cheap hair spray, bead sealer, no soaps except to dismount, bead holders, different tire iron shapes, leave tires in sun before mounting.

There is a mounting learning curve! It takes a while to do it easy like the tire shop guys. There is more technique there than first appears.

Newer machines make job easier but cost more. Some even lift the tire.

 

IMO...
Stick with a name brand machine, not made in China. The more rigid the workings are, the better it'll handle stiff sidewalls.
Hunter, Corghi, Coates. Service and parts are readily available if needed.
Ditto for a balancer. Snap On had a manually operated spin balancer a while back that worked super well and was cheap...
Equipment is available used at huge discounts from new, I bought my stuff off ebay. If you find them close to home you can inspect them in person and pick them up, they're damn heavy and shipping might be a killer. Make sure the tire machine will handle low profile tires, and rims as big as you might encounter. Mine does 12 wide no problem, but 13... not-so-well.
Handy tools to have! Might not pay for themselves for quite a while, but it's sure nice not needing to farm stuff out. Also a lot easier to justify flipping the tires on the rims when it doesn't cost $100 to it.

 

I bought a used Corghi years ago for $700 when I was racing.. Like many of the older machines, it's strains to do wide slicks and R comps, however I can do the C5Z rears I run square without too much trouble by myself. . I added an H channel to increase capacity which works well, but I don't use it on anything wider than 10.5 rims these days. Also, the current "run flat" tires and matching rims are nearly impossible to do on a machine like this and requires a modern machine with a second bead mandrel. Many tire shops upgrade often and are a good source for used machines. I'd be surprised if anything worthwhile could be had for less than $1000 these days used.

 

Hunter TC325's can be had all day long used for 1000. These machines are used by the hoosier guys running on air compressors trackside at most of the SCCA majors events. That is why I bought one. The hoosier guys doing this stuff all day long are skilled and need just a couple tire irons. I use a bead holder, 2 tire irons and soften my tires int he sun before mounting. I have no trouble mounting at all this way. The air driven machines also have few moving parts. They last forever and need zero maintenance.

 

^Like he said above...there are tools out there to hold down stiff sidewall tires....plus using dual spoons helps as well. It's an acquired/learned technique to get it right. I bought a used machine and tire balancer for 1100.00 as a pair...took me a bit to get the hang of it back in the day, but once I had the stuff in place, became easy as pie.

 

I'd pay $1000 in a heartbeat for that. Any tips on were to look? Heck, I'm tempted to pay a lot more for a lot less (new atlas wd41).

 

Just take your time they always seem to come up for sale. My will be forsale in a few years when I retire from the racing and just do trackdays. For now the changer has been a great purchase because I extend tire life flipping the tires on wheels. If running light race tires like hoosiers I find you don't even have to balance them. You can't balance a flipped tire so you only get that golden performance and golden vibration free feel on your first heat cycle. Hoosiers are really special when balanced and 1st heat cycle. You feel like superman behind the wheel but it is really all tire.

 

Anyone have any experience with the Derek Weaver machines?

 

"Just take your time" and "can be had all day long" are not the same

you made me too optimistic as I'm trying to make something happen in the next few weeks. That TC325 did look nice though, I'd be real happy if I end up with one of those.

 

From what I've seen they're great for a home garage. You can put cup 2's on our rims with one for sure. I'd get the x-898xs with the assist arm and one of their balancers. That's what I'm planning to buy once I get my garage built. I changed a set of cups on Monday for my 19z on a machine that wasn't as capable as the Weaver and it took an hour to mount and balance the 4 tires. It was hot and I had to have a little help on the rears because I ran out of steam...

 

This one? https://www.derekweaver.com/rodders-...ist-arm-combo/


Anyone have any other thoughts on Balancers?

 

Here's what I'm doing https://www.derekweaver.com/rodders-...ple-combo-6-a/ they have sales so that's the best time to buy but this will do the job.

 

 

Yes. Everyone should have a balancer if they mount tires because that is what is expected. That is what I do on every new mounted tire. Reality? Only new tires get balanced. I go through about 8 sets of hoosiers/season. I'm not a big tire user either. But what I have learned is the tread surface is thin and light.

------The thinner and lighter the less balance you need.

Racers jump curbs. In fact we attack them. We bend wheels. A bent wheel can feel out of round. About 20 thou out and most people can feel that at 100mph. 40 out and grandma can feel it. Most of us have bent wheels and that accounts for a lot of the "balance" weight we need.

-----its not the tire but the wheel that needs balance

The reason most of us buy mounters and balancers is because we are **** or cheap and want to flip tires to extend life.

------you can never balance a flipped tire in a meaningful way because of the tread distortion, tire pick-up, and wheel imbalance

Conclusions:
--The smoothest your car will feel is with new tires newly balanced.
--about 3 oz of tire weight added is likely to be a bent wheel at least 20 thou out of round.
--balancing a new tire is great for 5 minutes then it does not matter especially if you flip tires
--90% of all the balance you need is balancing just the wheel. But balancing a new wheel tire combo is confidence inspiring nirvana
--thin race tires are most immune to wheel tire imbalance and any imbalance does not significantly effect lap time.
--drivers need to learn to drive through imbalance. imbalance is more a car confidence thing than car fault.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

What's nirvana is throwing a freshly mounted wheel/tire up on the balancer and it comes up 0.00 0.00

 

One thing Carl didn't mention in his informative post is tire slip on the rim. . I've measured this a few times and the minimum is about 1", sometimes more. This is with 100-150 Treadwear R comps that were mounted without any tire lubricant. In my mind 1" of tire turn negates any benefit from a wheel balance. These pics show the movement after one session on brand new Maxxis RC1's. The crayon mark was lined up with the valve stem. Over the years I've become less sensitive to out of balance, flat spotted tires, and the accumulation of OPR that I usually only balance my street car wheels/tires. I also agree, good race rubber takes very little wieght to balance on a true (not bent), quality rim.

 

I agree. I think you're wasting time balancing track tires. I do it anyway but after the first session it's all over. Since I use cups I try to put 500 miles or so on them before I track them. They seem to last longer but that might be all in my head too.

 

On tire movement you guys are right! Totally useless when I travel race and have hoosier mount hoosier tires trackside. However, when I mount the same hoosiers with cheap hairspray I get zero tire slip on rim. ZERO!