Balancing Front Wheels

I've been running the three piece Weld Alumastars front spindle-mounts for years but decided to go with the one piece five spoke Alumastars this year. I was able to balance the wheels by removing the hub of the three piece wheels and spin balance them or put them on my bubble balancer.

For the folks with one piece spindle mounts, how do you balance these or do you balance them at all? I talked with the Hoosier tech at the trailer in Pomona a couple of weeks ago and he said a lot of people don't balance the fronts? Never ran a car without balancing them so has me a little concerned. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Tom

 

We bubble balance our spindle mount front wheels/tires by removing the bearings and seals, and sliding them over the post on the balancer, we ran them unbalanced for one event, it tried to shake the wheel (butterfly) out of my hands, plus I could feel it in the handbrake lever

 

You need to remove the seals, clean all the grease out of the bearings and hubs, and put them back on the spindle dry. Put just enough tension on them so they spin real easy. Hold them in 1 position then let the tire go. The heavy side will roll to the bottom. Add a stick-on weight until the tire/wheel will stay in any position when you let it go. We did dragster wheels this way too.

 

balancing

Once the bearings are removed, they should fit on a digital balancer. Find a shop with a hand turned unit, not motorized.

 

I made some tooling for the anglia spindle wheels and do them on my balancing machine. Bubble or the static, spin, drop test works pretty well also.

Dave Koehler
http://www.koehlerinjection.com

 

I took mine to a high performance motorcycle shop and had them "high speed" (so they said) spin ballance mine.

 

Yes, I took mine to a motorcycle shop as well. Let me do it myself. Too easy.

 

Thanks guys, appreciate all the replies. Have quite a few bike shops around here, will try them out.

 

I can tell you this for a fact. An out of balanced front wheel can be so severe it will try to rip the wheel out of your hand.

 

Yep, agree on that...
We had huge problems with severe shake as a result of unbalanced front wheels.
It shook so bad after a 1/8 pass that I almost lost my vision and there was NO WAY I could hold the steering wheel..Not fun at all!!!!

Balancing the front wheels is a must!!!

 

Well, got them balanced today at a motorcycle shop. One was one ounce out and the other was 3/4 of an ounce out. Don't know how bad that would have been without the weights but I now have the peace of mind that I was looking for.