Patrick,
Also at Zeb Fraidy's recommendation, I had the Bridgestones and orginal
16.5 inch steel wheels on my coach trued and balance last year at Kesler
Tire & Alignment Service in Gaineveile, GA. This was after a few
attempts to get the wheels balanced by other dealers using the computer
balancers. Kesler does a lot of work on lager trucks and buses and the
GMC was an easy fix for them.
Leaving the wheels mounted on the coach and jacking it up so the wheels
were an inch or so of the shop floor, an electric motor was used to
spin the rear tires while excess rubber was shaved off the high points.
The GMC's engine and was started, the tranny shifted to drive, and the
front wheels were next spun and shaved. This resulted in round or
"trued" tires, front and rear.
With the wheels still mounted on the coach and using the same electric
motor to spin again them, the mechanic would carefully observe the
shaking caused by the still imbalanced wheels and tires by placing his
hand on the side of the coach and feeling the vibration. Then by some
manner of reasoning unclear to me, he would add and remove wheel weights
to the rim until the right combination resulted in a vibration free
spinning wheel. He also could observe whether there were any bent
wheels by this method, which fortunately there weren't.
This process proceeded wheel by wheel around the coach and took about
one hour to complete. The charge was $102. The result was and still is
a silky smooth ride on good pavement. (I still have road wander
problems but not due to unbalanced tires.)
I was quite pleased with the results but have to remember to mark the
wheels each time I take them off the coach to make sure they go back on
in same way to preserve the balance.
A word of caution is warranted with this discussion, however. In the
recent GMCMHI newsletter, a warning was given regarding using the
coach's engine and transmission to spin the front wheels. It was stated
that damage to the final drive's bearings or gears would result due to
unequal loads resulting from both front wheels not moving at the same
time. I don't know if I was just lucky or the wheels weren't spun fast
enoungh, but I took a 5,000 mile trip after the truing and balancing
with no problems noted with the final drive or transmission. However, I
have since replaced the 3.07 with a new 3.42 final drive so I really
can't say how it would have turned out. I'll certainly want to research
how to true and spin balance the front wheels on the coach safely in the
future, since I'm convienced this is good way to get a smooth ride using
the original equipement wheels. Any comments on this would be
appreciated.
Phil Stewart
Also at Zeb Fraidy's recommendation, I had the Bridgestones and orginal
16.5 inch steel wheels on my coach trued and balance last year at Kesler
Tire & Alignment Service in Gaineveile, GA. This was after a few
attempts to get the wheels balanced by other dealers using the computer
balancers. Kesler does a lot of work on lager trucks and buses and the
GMC was an easy fix for them.
Leaving the wheels mounted on the coach and jacking it up so the wheels
were an inch or so of the shop floor, an electric motor was used to
spin the rear tires while excess rubber was shaved off the high points.
The GMC's engine and was started, the tranny shifted to drive, and the
front wheels were next spun and shaved. This resulted in round or
"trued" tires, front and rear.
With the wheels still mounted on the coach and using the same electric
motor to spin again them, the mechanic would carefully observe the
shaking caused by the still imbalanced wheels and tires by placing his
hand on the side of the coach and feeling the vibration. Then by some
manner of reasoning unclear to me, he would add and remove wheel weights
to the rim until the right combination resulted in a vibration free
spinning wheel. He also could observe whether there were any bent
wheels by this method, which fortunately there weren't.
This process proceeded wheel by wheel around the coach and took about
one hour to complete. The charge was $102. The result was and still is
a silky smooth ride on good pavement. (I still have road wander
problems but not due to unbalanced tires.)
I was quite pleased with the results but have to remember to mark the
wheels each time I take them off the coach to make sure they go back on
in same way to preserve the balance.
A word of caution is warranted with this discussion, however. In the
recent GMCMHI newsletter, a warning was given regarding using the
coach's engine and transmission to spin the front wheels. It was stated
that damage to the final drive's bearings or gears would result due to
unequal loads resulting from both front wheels not moving at the same
time. I don't know if I was just lucky or the wheels weren't spun fast
enoungh, but I took a 5,000 mile trip after the truing and balancing
with no problems noted with the final drive or transmission. However, I
have since replaced the 3.07 with a new 3.42 final drive so I really
can't say how it would have turned out. I'll certainly want to research
how to true and spin balance the front wheels on the coach safely in the
future, since I'm convienced this is good way to get a smooth ride using
the original equipement wheels. Any comments on this would be
appreciated.
Phil Stewart
atri63
