Wheel Balancing

SoCal 182 Driver

SoCal 182 Driver

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SoCal 182 Driver
I have a wheel that feels like it's out of balance. Has anyone used one of these static bubble balancers (with stick-on weights) to successfully balance an airplane wheel? (Cessna 182, if it matters.)

Thanks!

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First jack up your tire an 1/8” off the ground. Then spin it by hand and see if it is true, another words round. If it is not true and round then you should consider replacing it. Or you can try a belt sander to get it true and round.
You can balance a tire but if it is out of round then it will never run smoothly.
 
I use a simple little device called a Beemer Balancer, for motorcycle wheels.

Here’s a video. You can see the amount of weight it took to get one of my little Sky Arrow 5” mains to balance:

 
Or you can always try a tiny bit harder to avoid flat spotting the tire and creating an imbalance. :biggrin:
 
RyanShort1 said:
Or you can always try a tiny bit harder to avoid flat spotting the tire and creating an imbalance. :biggrin:
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Considering you don't know me or my competency, that's pretty much a useless comment.

The tire has been inspected. No flat spots.
 
FastEddieB said:
I use a simple little device called a Beemer Balancer, for motorcycle wheels.

Here’s a video. You can see the amount of weight it took to get one of my little Sky Arrow 5” mains to balance:

Click to expand...
Looks like Beemer Balancer is no longer around. :(
 
Yes, one of those will balance any tire quite effectively.
 
SoCal 182 Driver said:
I have a wheel that feels like it's out of balance. Has anyone used one of these static bubble balancers (with stick-on weights) to successfully balance an airplane wheel? (Cessna 182, if it matters.)

Thanks!

View attachment 127251
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I looked at those when I was looking for a balancer a while back...ISTR adapters for the hub were an issue. I rolled my own (no pun intended) that looks alot like this Desser version:

tirebalancer_dtr_med.jpg

It's pretty simple to make and use and works well if my experience is any indication.

Most any Van's discussion forum will have plenty of info and opinions on balancers (and gear leg stiffeners) as a couple of models shake on landing rollout like dogs ****ting peach pits if the balance is off.

Nauga,
slightly off center
 
Dan Thomas said:
Note the name of it: Static Tire Balancer. It will not fix nosewheel shimmy except by unlikely accident. OK for the mains.
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Good point. I’ve used it on 3 or 4 airplanes, but not in an attempt to eliminate a shimmy. It’s quick and easy. Definitely can tell a difference, at least with the 172. Doubt they’ve ever been balanced previously. The tires were at about 1/2 life when I pulled the wheels to clean and pack bearings. While I had them off I decided to check the static balance just to see. They were considerably off. Got them dialed in perfectly with just a small amount of stick on weight. Recommend cleaning the wheel really well first. Then add a little RTV around the edges of the weight to help ensure adhesion.
 
Self-balancing? Uh, no. Self-unbalancing? Sure.

You can line up the red dot with the valve stem of the tube and hope for the best with a new tire. Kinda works most of the time. I found a go-kart wheel balancer on eBay that works well for a static balance for very little $$$. If you're trying to fix a shimmy problem, take it to a motorcycle shop or someplace that can do a dynamic balance on a small wheel. Static balance will probably not be enough.

C.
 
camorton said:
Self-balancing? Uh, no. Self-unbalancing? Sure.
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The "self-balancing" idea comes from the assumption that the wheel always stops heavy side down in flight, and so gets scrubbed off to get the tire closer to balance.

But a good mechanic doesn't leave the bearings that loose. It can lead to other problems, including nosewheel shimmy and bearing wear. There needs to be some preload on the bearings, and so that wheel isn't going to conveniently stop with the heavy side down.

It also assumes that only the heavy side gets scrubbed. But the heavy side, if it does go to the bottom, touches and get scrubbed a little, but at least another 90° of tire rotation is going to get scrubbed, too, maybe harder as the weight comes on the tire. So the heavy spot just shifts somewhere else instead of being eliminated.

I have found good-quality aircraft tires out-of-round. Brand new. A cheap car tire is better than that. And our aircraft tires are still bias-ply, 50 years after radial tires pushed bias-ply out of the car market. And we still use tubes, of all things. Cars dumped those in 1955. A homebuilder can buy tubeless wheels from Beringer:https://www.beringer-aero.com/en/products
Brakes, too.
 
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