TheSamba.com :: View topic

Tue Dec 27, 2016 12:01 pm

Has anyone found a reasonably priced wheel balancer adapter for balancing our wide 5 wheels?

Tue Dec 27, 2016 12:14 pm

Old front brake drum with some mods & balancing at a local machine shop.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:15 pm

... back in the mid-1960s, until the mid-1980s, I worked off and on for a Texaco repair shop in NJ... We had a Coates tire machine and a high speed balancer. Each machine had a steel VW wide five wheel adapter as one of every 4 cars on the road, in the northeast USA was an air cooled VW with the wide 5 pattern... I used their equipment until the 90s when I moved to Oklahoma and to this day, have never balanced new tires with a wide five wheel.

... here's what the landscape looked like on the Fort Lee NJ side of the George Washington Bridge, in the early 70s. VWs were everywhere.

Note, I bought a 1950 sunroof split for $250...

Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:16 pm

I got one of these years ago back when they were being made out of aluminum. Now, I think you only find them in steel, which IMHO, is the better way to go. However, cheap, they are not.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1476281

Tue Dec 27, 2016 2:06 pm

glutamodo wrote: I got one of these years ago back when they were being made out of aluminum. Now, I think you only find them in steel, which IMHO, is the better way to go. However, cheap, they are not.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1476281 +

This is the type of adapter you want to use. The other option - one that most established tire shops should have is the "fingers" adapter plate. Basically the same thing but it uses steel fingers that go in the lug holes and slide on from the front. No idea where you would get one though.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 2:07 pm

glutamodo wrote: I got one of these years ago back when they were being made out of aluminum. Now, I think you only find them in steel, which IMHO, is the better way to go. However, cheap, they are not.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1476281

$55 seems pretty reasonable to me for something made for such a small target market.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 2:53 pm

$55 sounds quite reasonable, since the only other one I came across is three times as much. Thanks, glutamodo.

I've been searching the classifieds for awhile; I just didn't search the right category. I just ordered one.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 3:11 pm

ZENVWDRIVER wrote: ... back in the mid-1960s, until the mid-1980s, I worked off and on for a Texaco repair shop in NJ... We had a Coates tire machine and a high speed balancer. Each machine had a steel VW wide five wheel adapter as one of every 4 cars on the road, in the northeast USA was an air cooled VW with the wide 5 pattern... I used their equipment until the 90s when I moved to Oklahoma and to this day, have never balanced new tires with a wide five wheel.

... here's what the landscape looked like on the Fort Lee NJ side of the George Washington Bridge, in the early 70s. VWs were everywhere.

Note, I bought a 1950 sunroof split for $250...

I grew up not too far from you, in Clark, N.J., where you couldn't throw a balled up sock (no rocks, they dent) without hitting two or three bugs.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 7:07 pm

I have one works great ..

Tue Dec 27, 2016 7:38 pm

Rickles wrote: Has anyone found a reasonably priced wheel balancer adapter for balancing our wide 5 wheels?

As said before. Find a good used front drum and leave the races in it. Take it to the tire people and have them balance the drum using stick on weights. Now mount your wheel to the drum that's still on the balance machine and balance the wheel. Repeat with the other three wheels in the same manner. This method is a easy, cheap and accurate and you don't need any exotic special tools or adaptors for a balance machine.
On the other hand if you want to waste your money have at it.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 7:56 pm

I ordered Rob's adapter a couple hours ago and already have a tracking number. That's fast service.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 8:41 pm

I made this 5-bolt wheel adapter for my Harbour Freight tire-changer, and it works just as well for balancing the mounted tires & wheels on the Harbour Freight bubble-balancer. Minimal investment, and works great!! Here's a pic of the adapter before it was finished. Remainder of pics in the gallery

Tue Dec 27, 2016 8:52 pm

Digger89L wrote: I made this 5-bolt wheel adapter for my Harbour Freight tire-changer, and it works just as well for balancing the mounted tires & wheels on the Harbour Freight bubble-balancer. Minimal investment, and works great!! Here's a pic of the adapter before it was finished. Remainder of pics in the gallery

A Harbor Freight or any other brand bubble balancer is a static balancer. What you need is a static/dynamic balancer. With a bubble balancer you can have a perfectly ZERO bubble and at certain frequencies/ speeds be way out of balance. About the only thing they are good for is cars of the 20's that don't go over 45mph, and that's not all of the cars of the 20's.

Tue Dec 27, 2016 9:33 pm

I bought this 60's Snap-on tire spinner a few years ago for $75 bucks. It's 120 volt. It still works great and spins the front tires up to 80mph on bugs.

In the early 80's I worked at a frame/alignment shop. We balanced tires on the cars with much larger tire spin up machines that were 240volt. The nice thing about balancing them on the car is that you balance the drum and hub caps as an assembly as well. On the front tires, you balance static (up and down) and dynamic (side to side). The rears only need to be balanced static since they don't turn. To balance the back tires, you use the engine and block one side of the rear wheel so you're only spinning up one rear tire. These cars are limited slip.

My local Discount Tire mounted 4 new tires on my wide 5 rims on my 67 bug. They had the correct cone adapters for their balancing machine. I took it on the freeway after they were done and I was not happy with the shaking and vibrations that I could feel in the seat and in the steering wheel. When I got home, I spun the tires up on the bug with that little Snap-on spinner. They were all WAY off and I had to rebalance all 4 tires. I took it for a second freeway run after I balanced them on the car and it was nice and smooth.

I've yet to see a new tire balancer machine be anywhere as accurate as the old school way of balancing tires on the vehicle. The old timers were pretty smart. :)

Tue Dec 27, 2016 9:55 pm

wcfvw69 wrote:

I bought this 60's Snap-on tire spinner a few years ago for $75 bucks. It's 120 volt. It still works great and spins the front tires up to 80mph on bugs.

In the early 80's I worked at a frame/alignment shop. We balanced tires on the cars with much larger tire spin up machines that were 240volt. The nice thing about balancing them on the car is that you balance the drum and hub caps as an assembly as well. On the front tires, you balance static (up and down) and dynamic (side to side). The rears only need to be balanced static since they don't turn. To balance the back tires, you use the engine and block one side of the rear wheel so you're only spinning up one rear tire. These cars are limited slip.

My local Discount Tire mounted 4 new tires on my wide 5 rims on my 67 bug. They had the correct cone adapters for their balancing machine. I took it on the freeway after they were done and I was not happy with the shaking and vibrations that I could feel in the seat and in the steering wheel. When I got home, I spun the tires up on the bug with that little Snap-on spinner. They were all WAY off and I had to rebalance all 4 tires. I took it for a second freeway run after I balanced them on the car and it was nice and smooth.

I've yet to see a new tire balancer machine be anywhere as accurate as the old school way of balancing tires on the vehicle. The old timers were pretty smart. :)

You can NOT spin balance a car from the rear with a spool or a limited slip or other names for Limited slip like Safe T Track, Pos A traction, Sure Grip. Anti-Spin.
You CAN spin balance from a rear with a OPEN differential , commonly known as a Peg Leg Differential.

Wed Dec 28, 2016 5:22 am

Precision Matters also sells them.

http://www.precisionmatters.biz/wheel-balancing-adapter.php

Wed Dec 28, 2016 6:13 am

Helfen wrote:
A Harbor Freight or any other brand bubble balancer is a static balancer. What you need is a static/dynamic balancer. With a bubble balancer you can have a perfectly ZERO bubble and at certain frequencies/ speeds be way out of balance. About the only thing they are good for is cars of the 20's that don't go over 45mph, and that's not all of the cars of the 20's.
a bubble balancer works fine on stock narrow VW tires
heck some of the time you don't need to balance them at all :wink:

Wed Dec 28, 2016 6:59 am

Mmmmmm. The Clark White Diamond.. Fried Taylor Ham on toast, salt, pepper and a smidge of Ketchup PLEASE.....
geeeez... I miss Jersey food..

As a tech, I have daily access to just about any automotive tool I need....including a super duper balancer.
For years.. for my old "wide fives" I used an old drum that I machined true and balanced.
It worked fine but with any tire and wheel.. they require maintenance balancing. ..
So the vw fire drill.. take off the wheel, bolt it to the "balance" drum.. check and balance as required.. not a hard job.. but ... it was a process.

The issue.. with any balancing.... a drum/disc on the car may be slightly out of balance too.. so anything that is balanced off the car.. now really makes no difference.. because you just mounted a balanced wheel to an unbalanced drum/disc..

Enter the old.. older... method.. On Car Wheel Balancing.
Basically a tool that mounted to the wheel and a separate "spinner" to match the wheel to highway speed.. I wont get into the extreme time consuming details of how it operates.. .. but.. its (was) one of the best ways to balance a wheel/tire/drum/disc as an assembly..

That was then..

This is now.. welcome to the future.. of the past 8-[ :-s
When the trucking industry made the switch (way back) .. .. I made the switch.. and for narrow wheels and tires... wont ever go back..
No more clip on..stick on weights for my wide fives.. :wink:

Install beads... and done.. They provide a constant and fully dynamic balance.. each time you drive..
Best thing I ever did to improve my old Vw's "feel"..

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=503595

.

Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:17 am

60ragtop wrote: a bubble balancer works fine on stock narrow VW tires
heck some of the time you don't need to balance them at all :wink:

Ironic that I should start this thread because my 67 has no wheel weights and has absolutely no vibration even at 65 mph.

When I worked in a gas station back in the late 60's, all we had was a bubble balancer and wide 5 adapter. We never had complaints, even on the big cars.

Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:20 am

No problems.. 8-[ ... then why start the thread??? #-o :lol:

^ the reason you never had complaints.. with the bubble dinosaur balancer..

Tires were tall and squishy.. most suspensions were squishy, had lots of components to suck them up.. .. and most imbalances that WERE there.. were not transmitted..

Its all about the way a "frequency" is transmitted.. Some imbalances simply cant be felt.. but.. they are there..

Try that bubble balance on a newer car and lower profiles.. and .. its going back in the shop for a rebalance..

Static balancing .. has its place.. but.. its no where near the best..

.