Anyone seen either of these?? Cheap I know, and not 'optimal' but I'm curious if anyone has seen either in action and/or used them. Not saying it would make a wheel 'perfect' in balance, but curious none the less...


http://www.harborfreight.com/c...9741

http://www.harborfreight.com/c...4542


AGAIN I know it isn't the $1000 machine, but for those of you who mount race tires every few weeks, do you have cheap/free access to a changer? have you thought about this route? Just fishing for opinions and information, for those of us without $$$

 

Trust me you'd be better off getting in good with a local tire/wheel shop that caters to autox/road racers. Preferably one with a Hunter brand tire machine.

I've tried a manual mounter similar to the one you listed (it costed a lot more, was a little more robust in contruction, but basically the same). Unless you're part gorilla and don't care about your rims, you will not be able dismount most performance/low profile/race tires or damage your rims in the process. I tried mounting a 205-50-15 Hoosier A3S03 onto a 15x6.5 wheel. It took quite a while to get one bead on the rim, but the second was not going on no matter what. The type of tires used for competition(DOT-R's)/performance (low profile, stiff sidewall or usually both) will be a pain. I've heard stories from fellow competitors ranging from some shops having problems mounting just Falkens to having to cut off Hoosiers, and they used power mounters (usually not a Hunter though)...

Plus you'd need to add in the cost of a valve stem tool, spare valves, wheel weights, tire mounting "soap" (or make your own with soapy water), tire spoon and some form of compressed air (tires will be at 0psi). Also you need to mount that thing somewhere you have room to move around it 360 degrees and securely enough so you can put your back into it. There's also some caution to be had when inflating the tire and getting the beads to "set". A shop is supposed to inflate the freshly mounted tire inside a cage, just in case it explodes/dismounts, it won't do so in the tech's face...

I will say that same mounter is a breeze if you are working on a truck/suv tire. I.e. something that has a relatively huge aspect ratio and very soft sidewalls. That helps when you're stretching the bead over the rim. I used the same mounter to dismount/mount a mid-90's Tahoe tire/rim and it was easy.


Modified by XrcR6 at 10:55 PM 4/16/2004

 

Any comments on the balancer then ?

 

 

portable huh??
i use the other ones every day

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bassicfun &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any comments on the balancer then ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Oh sorry bout that, yeah I did try that same design balancer. It gets you in the ballpark. Granted I tried these on autox rims that didn't see the higher speeds where balance/unbalanced really is noticeable. I checked a few street wheels that were balanced by a shop and the bubble/bullseye reading seemed to concur.

My balancer didn't come with any instructions, but it seemed pretty straight forward, get the bubble in the bullseye. If the bubble is off one direction, apply weights to the opposite side, etc. It just takes some time/trial and error, since you really aren't sure how much weight is needed initially. So you end up spending time mocking up increments of weights with scotch tape. You also need to make sure you mock up the weight in the approximate area it will be finally placed. Don't lay it on the sidewall or on the spoke, as that changes the leverage it exerts, so you may actually need more/less weight. It also would take a couple passes of measuring/balancing, then resetting the wheel/tire on the balancer and measuring/balancing again, etc.

So in general I think this stuff is fine if you have plenty of time and applications where total precision isn't necessary (farm/ranch/tow vehicle).