>Where and what is this stuff as I've never heard of it before.
Its a dry white powder that goes inside the tire. Equal is the brand name
of the dry balancing material. The company and address are:
International Marketing Inc,
Professional Arts Bldg, Suite C,
P O Box B, Chambersburg PA 17201
800-233-7086
There is another product called Magnum that is made by Tech International.
I don't have their address but their phone number is 800-705-2205.
Neither company was very helpful when I called them. I ended up just
looking in the yellow pages for truck tire dealers and calling around until
I found someone who knew what I was talking about and was willing to work
on the motorhome.
>From what I understand, the way it works is that centrifugal force holds
the powder against the inside of the tire. The forces of the bouncing (if
the tire/wheel is not in balance) causes the powder to shift around until
there is no more bouncing. It doesn't sound like it would work very well.
It seems like bumps in the road would make it shift all over the place. But
I didn't notice any problem with the wheels feeling out of balance after
hitting bumps in the road.
Before I tried this I called Wes Caughlin and he told me about a procedure
where you measure the balance of the wheel, mount the tire and measure the
balance of the wheel/tire assembly, then dismount the tire and remount it
so the imbalance of the tire counteracts the imbalance of the wheel and
then do a normal wheel balance. This takes a special wheel balancing
machine and a lot of shop time. His first recommendation was just to get
rid of the steel wheels and use Alcoas. But I didn't want to spring for new
Alcoa wheels and new tires after just buying six new Michilan XPS-RIB tires.
I have to admit that I was very skeptical about using Equal but I thought I
would try it first because it was the cheapest solution. I figured that if
it didn't work I would not be out that much cash and could proceed from
there. Fortunately it worked.
So if you have wheel balance problems and try the dry balancing approach,
please post your results to the list. I think we would all like to know if
my situation was a flook or if this stuff works consistently. I would be
especially interested in hearing from anyone who tried it and it didn't work.
Here are a couple links that I used to help make the decision to try it.
The second is pretty long and doesn't mention wheel balancing until
somewhere in the middle of the article.
http://www.ccjmagazine.com/balance.htm
http://jppsosat.randolph.af.mil/transformer/issue14/vehmx.html
Dave,
73 Sequoia
Its a dry white powder that goes inside the tire. Equal is the brand name
of the dry balancing material. The company and address are:
International Marketing Inc,
Professional Arts Bldg, Suite C,
P O Box B, Chambersburg PA 17201
800-233-7086
There is another product called Magnum that is made by Tech International.
I don't have their address but their phone number is 800-705-2205.
Neither company was very helpful when I called them. I ended up just
looking in the yellow pages for truck tire dealers and calling around until
I found someone who knew what I was talking about and was willing to work
on the motorhome.
>From what I understand, the way it works is that centrifugal force holds
the powder against the inside of the tire. The forces of the bouncing (if
the tire/wheel is not in balance) causes the powder to shift around until
there is no more bouncing. It doesn't sound like it would work very well.
It seems like bumps in the road would make it shift all over the place. But
I didn't notice any problem with the wheels feeling out of balance after
hitting bumps in the road.
Before I tried this I called Wes Caughlin and he told me about a procedure
where you measure the balance of the wheel, mount the tire and measure the
balance of the wheel/tire assembly, then dismount the tire and remount it
so the imbalance of the tire counteracts the imbalance of the wheel and
then do a normal wheel balance. This takes a special wheel balancing
machine and a lot of shop time. His first recommendation was just to get
rid of the steel wheels and use Alcoas. But I didn't want to spring for new
Alcoa wheels and new tires after just buying six new Michilan XPS-RIB tires.
I have to admit that I was very skeptical about using Equal but I thought I
would try it first because it was the cheapest solution. I figured that if
it didn't work I would not be out that much cash and could proceed from
there. Fortunately it worked.
So if you have wheel balance problems and try the dry balancing approach,
please post your results to the list. I think we would all like to know if
my situation was a flook or if this stuff works consistently. I would be
especially interested in hearing from anyone who tried it and it didn't work.
Here are a couple links that I used to help make the decision to try it.
The second is pretty long and doesn't mention wheel balancing until
somewhere in the middle of the article.
http://www.ccjmagazine.com/balance.htm
http://jppsosat.randolph.af.mil/transformer/issue14/vehmx.html
Dave,
73 Sequoia
