--- In
DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, David Underbakke wrote:
> Do replacement tires and tubes require any balancing?
>
> I get the impression you just buy and install tires and tubes without any
> efforts to balance the tires?
I always balance. I rarely need to add any weights to the front wheel, but the rear wheel
generally requires significant weight. If you're really anal, balance the wheel first, then
mount the tube and tire and balance the whole assembly. My KLR has high-quality
bearings which allow me to balance to within the lightest weight I have on the wheels' own
bearings using the bike as a truing stand (I take off the brake caliper first of course as
well as the speedo gear up front and the chain for the back), but if you have newer
bearings with stiffer grease in them or it's cold enough to make your bearings stiff, there
are other ways to do it.
How to: Get assortment of stick-on wheel weights from your local shop or from Fred @
Arrowhead Motorsports. Spin wheel slowly. Let go. It'll settle to its heaviest spot. Add
weight to side of wheel opposite heaviest spot (use duct tape to temporarily attach weights
to begin with). Spin again. Eventually it'll either balance, or the area where you've been
adding weights will become the heaviest (in that case take one weight off unless it is just
barely heavier). It's generally considered better to stagger the weights on opposite sides of
the wheel when you finally go to mount them permanently, then top them with duct tape
to make sure they don't come off (they have a very sticky double-sided tape on them, but
on the front wheel especially this is woefully inadequate to keep wheel weights from
becoming flying bullets).
Note that this doesn't balance wheels in the theoretically best manner (which requires
dynamic spin balancing to balance the wheel in a horizontal as well as vertical plane), but
is close enough for KLR work. We just don't ride our KLR's fast enough to get *too* anal.
Not to mention that our skinny little wheels have precious little horizontal plane
.
Note: In a pinch, e.g. if you're on the road and lack wheel weights, just use duct tape and
coins out of your pocket. There's nothing special about the lead stick-on wheel weights
other than the fact that lead is heavier than copper and thus it's easier to get enough
weight on the wheel to balance it. And finally, if you don't balance, you'll have a lumpier
ride and vibration at higher speed but it'll have no affect at slower speeds, so if you have
to do an emergency tube swap in the field, don't sweat it. And BTW, I personally find that
it's tires, not tubes, that need the balancing, so if the tire didn't slip on the rim, changing
out the tube is unlikely to change the balance enough to matter.