Low Cost Dynamic Tire Balancing with Airsoft Pellets

[troyboy162]

Any updates? Ive got beadlocks, tires and .43g pellets on the way. I'm hoping 7 oz of the heavy stuff will be enough per tire. I figure adding more wont be horrible with the beadlock.

.43g cheapest I could find was here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Seanz0rz]

I almost drove off the road on the way to Mojave to make the shaking stop. I don't feel it is due to the airsoft though, as that shake has been there for a while but is getting worse. Driving it tomorrow, I'll report back tomorrow night.

[troyboy162]

thats weird.. I know you have new tierod ends, rack bushings and new a-arm bushings. not much left upfront to wiggle you'd think.

[Seanz0rz]

Yeah. Its driving me nuts. It comes and goes as I drive too, like a harmonic resonance type vibration. Only thing I can think of is the half shafts are not balanced. I know the alignment on my drivers front tire is off, I'll fix that next week. No money for yet another alignment only for them to fail to tighten the bolts.

[Seanz0rz]

I'd also go closer to 9 or 10 ounces for your tires.

[troyboy162]

Try aligning it yourself. I've had better tire wear and handling since i started doing my own. I wont be surprized if i end up at 9-10 oz, but im going to start low first.

[Seanz0rz]

It's a steering shake more than anything. I can tell the difference between an unbalanced tire and this. Tire makes the vehicle viberate up and down. This vibration manifests itself as a side to side vibe in the steering wheel. I'll start a new thread about it soon.

[troyboy162]

Well I took my first drive with the pellets last night. They sure do behave funny. I've gone up to 70 shake free, but its not always on point lol. One run up to 65 had some shake. I tapped the brakes and all was well lol. I think thst one was funny since they set into position during a sweeping accelerating corner. The load C tires are smooth anyhow so I think that cut some translation of road vibrations. Overall if they continue to provide this amount of ballence then I'll be far ahead of the game over my usual tire abuse and rare balance visits.

I have 7.4 ounces in each tire(480ish pellets). That's just the number that dividing the bottle up equally gave me. I'm a little concerned about the durability of the pellets I chose. If you hit one with a hammer at a speed you'd expect to oval out a plastic sphere, these pellets actually crush and split. Normal pellets are just plastic. These appear to be a powder bonded together with something. Life for the pellets is kinda rough inside the wheel so I will monitor any changes in balance in fear that they are disintegrating. I went with these pellets since they are 4 times the weight of the average pellet. I assumed that would be desirable to make the balance more accurate. That all goes out the window if they don't last. Typical .12 gram pellets have reports of zero degradation after 100k miles of use.

[Seanz0rz]

Mine (standard .12g) came out perfect after the miles I put on them.

They sure do work funny. The smoother the road the more out of balance the tire would be. I was aiming for bots dots on some roads to redistribute them.

[troyboy162]

haha yes I know what you mean. A small bump makes them right as rain again. Its hard to describe what its like driving with them since its completely transparent for the most part and a perfectly balanced tire isnt memorable. Every once and a great while you will feel a wobble. Its gone just as you realize its there by either a bump, change in speed, or direction.