How long have you had airsoft bbs in your tires?

[Starscream]

I posted in another thread about this:

I had the generic green .12g BBs in my tires for... I dunno, a few months. 6 maybe. When I had my new tires mounted, there was a large green cloud that came blasting out of my tires and a fine powder inside. That's all that was left of the BBs.

I threw a weight some time recently so I'm gonna give them another shot. I may get the .2g just to try and avoid that again.

 

[lancey3]

Wow I'm very glad some seasoned and knowledgeable people stepped in. The first two pages made me want to shoot myself in the head.

On another note someone made a good point. Its kind of funny how skeptical people are, it is certainly not a new idea/concept.

BE OPEN MINDED.

.02

 

[muddeprived]

I will chime in here. I am a long-time user of Dynabeads from innovativebalancing.com and will never go back to traditional weight-balancing systems. I choose dynabeads over airsoft pellets because i don't have to mess with taking the tire off or unseating the bead. They go right into your valve stem and you are done. They also don't wear out or harm the tire. You can re-use them too. For $50, i can balance my tires for life, which is a good deal if you ask me.

I've used this method on my superswamper ltbs with great results. I've also used them on trxus mt's, which are known to be hard to balalance, and they rode great.

I have no experience with airsoft pellets but they do the exact same thing as dynabeads so either way, you are getting your tires re-balanced everytime you go faster than 25-30 mph. Because of this, your tire will run cooler and last longer.

 

[xjtrailrider]

One year, no issues. I used the "Airsoft" green pellets. I still hear them roll around in there at slow speed so I know they have not turned to dust.

I will ALWAYS balance my tires this way from now on. I'm impressed that my MT tires run out smooth to 65mph(I do not drive my trail rig any faster than that).

 

[rag]

18oz of bulk 6mm airsoft BBs per tire is the magical number at my dealership

.2 flavor i might add

our COATS machine is older than me and just not as accurate as it once was. so when we work on E-350s, F-350-450-550-650, Ford LFCs we toss in 18oz per tire regardless of load range. it works like a charm.

also, i used to be into Airsoft competitions and id just like to add a little tidbit. not all BBs are the same, some are junk and others are quality... then there is the glorified junk being sold as quality. I favored Excel BBs just because they were the only seamless BB i could find locally that would not leave my wallet crying. my old UTG shotgun would start smoking from the barrel after firing shitty out of round BBs, i later found out my machined barrel was causing too much friction on the crappy not so round BBs that the oil i used to lubricate it would burn off.

i do not run BBs on my truck but i do deal with them on a daily basis... so thats just my two cents

 

[WrenchMonkey]

From my experience doing this over the last 5 years, if the tires wont balance with internal balancing then there is other underlying issues, either worn components in the system or bad tires ie: (tread separation)

A big X2!

I was trying to track down and fix my death wobble without actually spending any money. Yeah, I know, great plan. I got it into my head that the tires were out of balance, and had heard everybody singing about the BBs.

Long story short, they made my problems PHENOMENALLY worse. It went from a serious annoyance to being completely undrivable. I had to get the BBs out of the tires just to be able to get to work.

BUT! As I eventually discovered, my drag link ends were shot. My tie rod ends were shot. My LCA bushings were (and still are!) shot.

The BBs may well balance tires. I can't say first-hand one way or the other, though I do believe the physics.

I can say that they will certainly NOT mask or compensate for other problems.

You actually have to fix what's broken.

And by "you," I mean "me."

Robert

 

[PurpleCherokee]

Just got new shoes, put six oz's of high density rounds in each = perfectly balanced :thumbup:

 

[jwtrapper]

I have ran 6 oz in a set of 32" BFG AT no problems
8 oz in my last set of 35" Xterrains no problems
and just put on a set of 35" Maxxis bighorns with 10 oz in each and they ballanced out fine. I even noticed a set of sticky weights on the inside of the rim that I need to remove and the tire is still ballanced out fine.

My buddy tried it on a set of 33" goodyear at tire on a 10 rim and it didn't work out for him. He had to have the tires ballance with lead weights.

 

[97XJ Jeeper]

I put 4oz in my 235s about 3 weeks ago, balanced great.

 

[scorpio_vette]

2 years. still good here.

 

[BruceB83]

Probably a silly question but this will work in passenger car tire too, right? I don't see why it wouldn't...I'm getting ready to put new tires on the wifes car and was thinking about trying it there too.

***EDIT*** Nevermind...answered my own question. Seems like you need a tall sidewall for it to work properly, something along the lines of at least a 70 or 75 profile.

 

[PurpleCherokee]

I'm not sure if that's the case... you might just have to use more, or heavier bb's, but it should work.

 

[T3hk1w1]

Alright, considering doing this myself when I upgrade tires. A couple people have mentioned that they use the .2 gram BBs, has anyone tried using the .24 gram BBs? I've got about 3K of them laying around....

 

[PurpleCherokee]

Theoretically, the more, smaller, lighter bb's the better. That allows you to distribute their weight more evenly. I believe the reason people (myself included) use the "high-density" rounds is because they're generally put together better than their .12g counterparts and won't just disintegrate over a fairly short period of time.

 

[scorpio_vette]

if it works on antique cars and on motorcycles, then i don't see why you can't use it on a car.

and according to innovative tire balancing they offere listings for both of those.

and damn their prices are high. $13 for 8oz??? for $15 i can get a whole jar of airsofts that will do all 5 of my 33's.

 

[xj4fun]

I can't address BB's, but here are my experiences with two other common products.

I've been running both Dynabeads and Centramics for about 2 years. Others have already provided the technical reasons why this works. I'll just provide daily driving experience, noting the pros and cons I’ve run across.

In short, at higher speeds (above 35-40) over longer distances with few stops these work well. Hence the reason they are used by over-the-road truckers. It should also be noted neither product will correct lateral imbalance.

Dynabeads - http://www.innovativebalancing.com/

Pros
Flexibility, you can tailor the amount of product used to your tire size etc.
The larger the tire (within reason) the better they tend to work with the proper amount of product.
No wheel removal needed. Simply remove air from tire, pull the inner valve core and feed into tire

Cons
Does not work until speed increase above (roughly) 20 MPH. If your driving consists of primarily city driving (slow speeds with stop and goes) effectiveness will be greatly diminished.
On some installs you can hear a slight rumble of the beads until you get up to (roughly) 20 MPH.
Care must be taken when changing tires, otherwise you have beads all over the place.
Can be a pain to install within mounted tires.
At slower speeds hitting bumps can dislodge material resulting in temporary loss of balance.
Airing-down can be problematic as beads can cause issues with this.
I don't believe they can be used with run flat tires

Centramatic - http://www.centramatic.com/

Pros
Fast install on mounted tires, simply remove wheel, slap on to hub reinstall wheel.
No issue when changing tires, plates stay mounted on hubs as tires are changed.
Much less prone to slower speed bump issues that effect Dynabeads
Can be used with run flat tires

Cons
Becomes less effective as tire size grows.
You can't increase/decrease balancing media to tire size
Wheel bolt pattern must be know when ordering.
Must remove wheels to place on hubs
Reduces brake air cooling
Diameter sizing can cause interfere with rim and/or caliper clearance.
Does not work until speed increase above (roughly) 20 MPH. If your driving consists is primarily city driving (slow speeds with stop and goes) effectiveness will be greatly diminished.
On some installs you can hear a slight rumble of the beads until you get up to (roughly) 20 MPH.

I've tried these products both separately and together on the same vehicle with same tires. My personal belief is Centramatics becomes ineffective above 31's. On my 35's they appeared worthless.
On a small car, they might work very well.

Hope this helps...

 

[wazza]

i hav'nt used airsoft but intend to with a set of 31's ive got on the grand.

with the cherokee on 33's and a daily driver at the time, ive used a product called easy-balance, its a very fine powder that was blown into a flat tyre from a canister in the airline to reinflate..

i found it was great an felt the difference straight away!! i don't know howmuch they used per tyre but i would suspect the same in weight of whatever air soft pellets would be!
the only bad thing with it was offroad an constantly airing down the tyres, it got condensation in them which eventually rendered the powder useless

ive looked into it befor an if you wanted to, you could even use sand. aslong as its dry it will work the same as any other method.
so if the airsoft pellets do disintigrate, it doesn't matter as it will still work!!

 

[WrenchMonkey]

Care must be taken when changing tires, otherwise you have beads all over the place...

I'll disagree with this one bit.

When I removed mine, we had to actually scoop them out of the dismounted tire. You couldn't just dump em out, whichever way you'd turn the tire, they'd just roll to the bottom. Even dropping the tire, they'd jump and bounce, but wouldn't escape...

Of course, this was in a 35x12.50-15, so I had ten inches of sidewall keepin em in. But I bet they'd act the same in a smaller tire...

Robert

 

[Mc2KXJ]

Next time try using a shopvac but make sure you start with a clean bucket, if you plan on using them again anyway.

 

[PurpleCherokee]

So I got new tires, put 6oz's of the white "high density" rounds in each tire (stock), mounted em, didn't balance em (in faith that this would actually work), got death wobble about six months later (now) so I thought I'd rule out the easiest problem first, tire balancing. I could still hear them rollin around so I knew they hadn't disentigrated. So I threw them on a Hunter GSP9700 balancer that can be calibrated for internal weights and what not and was very relieved when a bunch of snake eyes popped up on screen tellin me that I was 100% in balance

So there, I hope this can provide some insight/reassurance to those of you who might be on the edge as I WAS