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Wheel Balancing

R

RFSchaller

Well Known Member
I'm doing my annual and decided to balance the tires. I got the HF motorcycle wheel balancer with a set of weights using double sided tape to fix them. The main wheels went fine, but how do you guys who are doing this balance the nose Wheel? There doesn't seem to be enough surface to work with to attach the weights. Are you guys using the clip type? If you are where are you getting them?
 
As I recall - -

I taped them in place to be sure I have them where I wanted them. I then GLUED them in place. 5 Minute epoxy if I recall from 5 - 6 years ago.
 
I once had fits trying to balance relatively new, good quality name brand tires. I fly mostly off of grass and knew I had not flat spotted the tires in any way. I spoke to the tire manufacturer at Oshkosh and they suspected that I had let the tires sit on the airplane for a while in one spot and they (the tires) were slightly deformed.....and recommended I fly a few times before trying to rebalance. This advice was proven correct. If you find yourself having to add lots of weight, you might need to go out and fly / land a few times and check again. Most mechanics I've seen use RTV to glue the weights on the wheels. Balancing the nose wheel helps reduce / eliminate "shimmy" on free castoring nose gears so don't give up.
 
RFSchaller said:
I'm doing my annual and decided to balance the tires. I got the HF motorcycle wheel balancer with a set of weights using double sided tape to fix them. The main wheels went fine, but how do you guys who are doing this balance the nose Wheel? There doesn't seem to be enough surface to work with to attach the weights. Are you guys using the clip type? If you are where are you getting them?
Click to expand...

Which balancer did you use? I only saw two HF balancers and they were static balancers. I'm surprised they work well with our small diameter tires.
 
tomkk said:
Which balancer did you use? I only saw two HF balancers and they were static balancers. I'm surprised they work well with our small diameter tires.
Click to expand...

Static balancing on light aircraft wheels/tires is a common practice and works quite well.
It may be because of the small diameter (compared to car tires) has a lower moment of inertia at a similar speed?

We use the H.F. motorcycle wheel balancer in our shop.

To balance the nose wheel on the RV-12, we stick the weights to the wheel inside of the pass through holes.
 
These are the ones I use. They are a .25 oz each and are small enough to peel and stick just about anywhere. They can be stacked on each other to.;)

http://www.amazon.com/Motion-Pro-Silver-Weights-Motorcycle/dp/B007KPTM02/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1425998918&sr=8-2&keywords=Motion+Pro+08-0454+Silver+Steel+Wheel+Weight

41jARQ5vtRL._SY355_.jpg
 
Thanks. I tried putting them inside the holes, but as Murphy would have it the solid structure is exactly where I want to put them. The RTV idea sounds interesting. The surface of the metal doesn't seem as "adhesive friendly" as the main wheels no matter how much degreasing I do.
 
Does the HF balancer do anything that having the wheel on the axle without the nut on would do? I don't get either wheel to move when I do this and I doubt that they are that good?
 
johnfurey said:
Does the HF balancer do anything that having the wheel on the axle without the nut on would do? I don't get either wheel to move when I do this and I doubt that they are that good?
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Yes.
The rotating mechanism of a good static balancer is ultra low friction.
The friction of conventional roller bearings with thick grease in them, (particularly the style on RV-12 wheels that have integral rubber seals) is much higher. You probably wouldn't detect even a badly out of balance wheel condition with the wheel installed.
 
Which balancer is best? The one with two uprights with an axle going thru it or the higher priced one that holds the wheel horizontal?
 
johnfurey said:
Which balancer is best? The one with two uprights with an axle going thru it or the higher priced one that holds the wheel horizontal?
Click to expand...

The only one we have used is the upright one with the the axle and coned adapters.

It has worked well for us.
 
Last edited:
Marc Parnes wheel balancer.
www.marcparnes.com

I have been using it for 10 years and it's quick and easy. I balance all my Aircraft tires.
Get the long axle. It works very well and I have used it for prop static balance too.
We use 1/4 oz. stick on weights. Once we know where we are putting the weights we clean that spot three times with laquer thinner. Stick the weights on and your good to go. We tap the weights to make sure the tape is completely pressed down. Never ever had one come off. They have always needed to be pried off to get them off. Normal weight for our LSA aircraft tires seem to be around 1/2 oz to 2 oz.
It can make a pretty significant difference in airframe vibration.
 
Today I epoxied the weights to the nose wheel rim. I plan on doing a few takeoff and landings without the wheel pants to see how they hold up. I'll post in a week or so and let everyone know how they held up.

BTW my nose wheel was so far out of balance that the heavy spot fell to the bottom on the axle just like it did on the balancer.

Just passing it on: I was able to push the tail to the hangar floor and put a 15 pound weight on each side of the horizontal stab to keep the nose wheel clear to work on it.

Rich
 
Scotty - we have the HF motorcycle balancer. How do you balance the main wheel tires with the wheel off? I understand the bearings full of grease are probably too much friction for the balancer, so how do you do it?

Bob
 
Correct. The wheel "locks" to the axle. The axle then sits on two larger diameter but narrow rollers on each end and rotates on them. I put a tiny drop of oil on my rollers which then spreads/transfers to the axle surface as well. Seems to me my wheels rotate very easily and show the heavy axis of the wheel and tire with high accuracy.


Lee...
 
Slide the metal cones along the metal shaft to lock rim with tire and bearings installed in place in the middle of the shaft.
Then shaft will rotate on small bearing as seen in pic. The heaviest part of the tire will fall to the 1230 position.
Then place weights at the 12 o'clock position until the tire will not rotate at all in any position. ;) This must be done inside with no wind blowing on balancer.:p
image_12894.jpg
 
Just go down to the auto parts supply house. They should have all you want or stop by a Discout tire and see if they would give you a few or sell you a few 1/4 oz. stick on weights.
 
Update

I have the standard Condor tire shipped from Vans. About 500 landings mostly on grass so they look like new. I was able to balance one tire easily with 1oz of wt. The other would not come close with 4oz so I rotated the tire on the rim and the heavy spot followed the tire. Yesterday I did a few landings and taxied back and forth for a while and still no change so I guess I live with it until the tire is worn out or replace it now.
 
Likely best to do - -

If you are on a fairly smooth surface, you will know it soon. Balancing is a good idea.
 
I finally got my annual done and took the plane up for a test flight. I can't believe what a difference balancing the nose wheel made. The prop wobble after lift off is completely gone. Anyone with a shimmy or prop wobble should definitely try balancing the wheels.

Thanks for the suggestion!
 
RFSchaller said:
I finally got my annual done and took the plane up for a test flight. I can't believe what a difference balancing the nose wheel made. The prop wobble after lift off is completely gone. Anyone with a shimmy or prop wobble should definitely try balancing the wheels.

Thanks for the suggestion!
Click to expand...

I don't understand the link between prop wobble and unbalanced nose wheel. Can you elaborate?
 
I initially reported a wobble right after takeoff as seen on the spinner, but I could not reproduce it in flight at any RPM. One of the blog members told me It typically comes from the nose wheel being out of balance and passing through resonance at liftoff. He suggested a soft field technique which confirmed it was nose wheel related, and told me to balance the nose wheel. It worked like a champ. My nose wheel was so out of balance that it would rotate on the axle when I had the weight off it. It took a full ounce of weight to balance it.
 
WingedFrog said:
I don't understand the link between prop wobble and unbalanced nose wheel. Can you elaborate?
Click to expand...

The preferred method for takeoff on all Vans tricycle gear RVs is a softfield takeoff. It reduces maintenance on the Nosewheel and strut fatigued.;) When you use the normal Factory built method of rotating the aircraft a 50-55 kts as the nosewheel becomes airborne it even increases RPM slightly higher. We as RVers have no gas-struct shimmy dampeners on our aircraft. So if you don't have a balanced tire assembly it may start to shake or shimmy at high speed thus sending all that energy up the tubular strut into the fire wall on liftoff and then into the engine mount causing the engine to oscillate into an oval pattern noted visually compared to cowl alignment. Only lasts about 5 to 10 seconds.:eek: Maintenance items that may occur over a long period of time, strut bolts loosing, cracks in wheel fork, cracks in edges of firewall, cracks in cowl where it touches the firewall, etc, etc. :(
 
Snowflake said:
Another option for wheel balancing is to try Dynabeads.

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/

They've been discussed here before, and good results reported:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=82109&highlight=dynabeads
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One negative with dynabeads (maybe minimal but still a difference compared to traditional balancing) in an aircraft tire is that on landing the wheel assembly spins up very quickly so there is a period of time on every landing that the wheel is not yet balanced.
With as simple as it is to statically balance (which is more than adequate), I have never seen what benefits the dynabeads have (particularly with the effort involved to extract them every time a tube is replaced, etc).
 
Left wheel shaking

I finally got tired of the left wheel shaking so I made a simple tire balancer by cutting an aluminum shaft to fit through the wheel then set the ends of the shaft on flat surfaces and see which way it rolls. I could not believe that it took 1.5 ounces to keep it from always rolling to the one side. Wow, no wonder it shook. I want to thank everyone who posted their homemade tire balancers so I could make one for myself. :)
 
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