Tire Balancing / Equil

[leonw]

OK, so I bought the hardest tires to balance. Swamper Trxxus MT's. There are a lot of sticky weights on em and they still vibrate around 40. Anyone have a good recommendation on a shop they like for this, south hills area?

And does anyone have any input on Equil balancing powder? I have found people who swear by it. The only negatives I found were that they can clog your valves when airing down, and when aired down, water can get in and cause it to cake up. Any thoughts, recommendations?

[OverkillZJ]

I wouldn't suggest equal because of the water / valve clogging issues, but you may want to check out www.innovativebalancing.com - they use small plastic beads and special valve stems that fix the clogging / clumping problems. Seems to work well in everyones tires but mine, but my tires are very torn up.

[RalphDogg]

Your problem may not be in the tires. Depending on the amount of lift you have on your vehicle, it might be your pinion angle that is causing the vibrations. or one of your wheels could be bent (especially if you wheel your jeep) Steel wheels bend easily. Try putting your front wheels in the back.
Tires don't have to be 100% balanced. If you get them close, they won't cause vibrations. Always remember... if they are brand new tires they should not be that out of balance.

[OverkillZJ]

Your problem may not be in the tires. Depending on the amount of lift you have on your vehicle, it might be your pinion angle that is causing the vibrations. or one of your wheels could be bent (especially if you wheel your jeep) Steel wheels bend easily. Try putting your front wheels in the back.
Tires don't have to be 100% balanced. If you get them close, they won't cause vibrations. Always remember... if they are brand new tires they should not be that out of balance.

LOL, here goes:

My front pinion angles dead on, but it doesn't matter since I have locking hubs and the front shaft doesn't spin; my rear pinion angle is beautiful as well. My tires have several lugs missing and I'm running steel wheels that were the cheapest pieces of crap I could find. With the same wheels and tires before I destroyed them, Jeep would hit 110 riding perfectly smooth. That was fun (Kansas.)

My Jeeps abused, what can I say?

[leonw]

It's the tires alright. The tires and AE 589 rims are new. I am going to try a 5 wheel rotation this time around so I want to get em all balanced well. It seems to make sense for longer tire life unless I have one that is really out of whack, then I will keep that one on the spare.

As far as wheeling damage, I have only done a little monkeying around at construction sites to try them out and I haven't done anything to chop em up yet. the rims are still flawless and the rubber is all there. Besides, my old set of Canyon rims with BFG muds were balanced well and I didn't have any vibes whatsoever, so I don't think it's anything to do with my lift. I have 4wd Hardware's 3" lift with a 1" BL so nothing drastic.

I do like the sound of the innovative balancing beads. They are actually high density ceramic. I actually sprung for Equal powder some time ago but haven't tried it yet. It comes with new valves that are supposed to not clog. I wish I would have waited. I don't know if I should give it a try. The one thing I thought of is you have to go about 25 -35mph for any "internal centrifugal" balancing agent to distribute itself fully. So maybe I'll get vibration when I am slowing or starting?

I would have never bought the Trxxus if I knew they were this hard to balance.

[OverkillZJ]

Ralph - just realize you could've been talking to Leon and I or just Leon, My confused bad :)

[leonw]

Ha! Wait til you turn 40 and start to get Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

Now you have me all cornfused.

I don't want my front end components wearing prematurely from alot of vibration. Plus I got complacent with a set of muds on my ZJ once and allowed them to wear unevenly. Last time I let that happen. Tires ain't cheap, I need lots of life from that investment.

Should I try the Equal?