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Balance tires with ceramic beads?

Twisted Copper

NAXJA Member #962
I was curious to see if anyone has tried this method of tire balancing. I tried a search on here but found nothing.

This product seems at first to be a gimmick, but I did a search on Google and found alot of info on it, one example being a couple of forums discussing it. An RV site (of all places) had a good thread with a couple of folks praising it, but who knows they may own the company or something lol.

The idea is to knock off the weights, put these ceramic beads in the tires and they will constantly balance the tires, so you'll always have a perfect balance and never need to put them on the machine again.


Tell me your thoughts, experiences, etc. The "bees knees" or just bunk?:
http://www.innovativebalancing.com/
 
Another term for this stuff would be "Equal" - I've seen reports of people that love it and others that think it's the spawn of the devil....
 
Check out expeditionexchange.com for equal. They sell it with a screened valve stem so that the beads don't foul the sealing of the valve when you air down. The stuff seems to be about the same size as some of the bead blasting media. I tried the equal in an unbalanced tire and it seemed to do the trick. I'm going to give the glass beads a try pretty soon.
 
I've been running it for a while now and love it. no clumping issues at all. I am removing the screeened valve cores as they take forever to air down.
 
if you've never heard of this concept, do a little searching on PBB (www.pirate4x4.com/forum) for BB or golf-ball balancing.

I use 5 golf balls in each of my 35" MTRs. It works great if I air them up to 30+ psi, less than that and I think the flat spot at the bottom makes them bounce. There are a lot of different things you could use, including liquid. perhaps an enviro-friendly anti-freeze...?
 
Ive seen this discused on pirate, but I havent really read up on it to much. I would think that whatever you put in your tires, bbs, glof balls, water, etc, would make them heat up. Or have the tire wear out from the inside. Is this a problem?
 
Well this site has filtered valve cores too. They said you can run without them, but you'd have to make sure you blast a little air into the tire before checking pressure to avoid clogging the valve stem.

As for wearing the tire and damaging the wheels, that is why this product uses ceramic (at least that's what their site says).

I didn't want to use BB's because I figured they would eventually take the inside of my wheels down to bare metal, opening them up to rust. Golf balls might be a bit big for my 245/75/16's, but that's a good idea for a bigger mudder!

I guess I'm going to give this one a try, it's not very expensive so what the heck.
 
A guy in our club is the service manager for a (big truck) truck tire center. He uses these in his 35" BFG (road tires) and loves it, but suggests that it may not be a good idea on an off road tire, due to the chance of some of the media getting into the bead area when aired down. ,
 
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