Rumor or myth?

1996 Scorpion · Jun 2, 2011

Today at work a co-worker was telling me a buddy of his always had trouble keeping his 44" mud boggers balanced. The trick he learned was that if you put 5 golf balls inside each tire it would balance the tire out as the wheel would spin, throwing the golf balls into the unbalanced spots.

Is this pure rumor or myth? I'm curious on this because my 40" swampers are a pain to keep balanced.

01dmax · Jun 2, 2011

i would say this is a rumor have u tries equal like the big trucks run ive always had good luck with that even tho the boggers i had were only 33s

crowz · Jun 2, 2011

Knee jerk reaction was to call bs then I remembered reading about the auto balancing rims you can buy.

Basically they have liquid or ball bearings depending on the make and they go to the unbalanced spot auto balancing. Sounds to me like the golf balls might just work in large tires.

01dmax · Jun 2, 2011

wow maybe i jumped the gun a little. but wouldnt you hear them bouncing around in there at low speeds?

crowz · Jun 2, 2011

In 44's? Iffy. Smaller tires probably.

crowz · Jun 2, 2011

Found this :

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/GolfBalls.pdf

These golf balls were ruined by running inside
a truck tire for several thousand miles. They
also probably did irreparable damage to the
tire.
The objects you see are beat-up, dirty and misshapen. How did they get that way?
By rolling around inside a truck tire for several thousand miles.
The user had a ride disturbance and heard that a few golf balls inside his tires would correct
it, by automatically positioning themselves to counteract the vibration.
We often hear of home-brew solutions like these, but we can’t recommend them. Here’s why:
First, in this case, it didn’t work very well. The ride disturbance and vibration continued.
Second, notice how dirty and black these golf balls are? What’s covering their surfaces is
rubber, of course – from the innerliner of the tire.
The innerliner is a specially made, multilayer component, with the important job of preventing
air from getting through it and escaping. The rubber dust coating these golf balls came from
their banging into the innerliner, probably damaging it.
We’re not sure what caused the balls to change shape so radically. Perhaps high heat and
high-speed collisions with the wheels?
Anyway, as we said, we can’t recommend golf balls as a means of balancing truck tires. So
far as we can tell, they don’t work, and could seriously damage your tires.

crowz · Jun 2, 2011

I think I found what you want....

http://www.magnumbalance.com/Tech%20Bulletin.htm

WHY MICROBEADS?

The theory of balancing tires by installing moveable balancing material inside the tire was first established back in the fifties. Early versions included using liquids, metal shot and even golf balls. Balancing truck tires however did not really start to catch on until the eighties, when roads and rigs had improved to such a degree that balancing truck tires to maximize tread life was beginning to make good economic sense.

The introduction of tire balancing compounds in the late eighties overcame the economic disadvantage of fixed weight balancing for truck tires, which requires that the tires should be rebalanced at regular intervals of about 30,000 miles,
M. & R. Tire Products Inc. patented the use of microbeads in a tire balancing compound in 1992. Until that time, the most successful dry balancing product was a finely-ground granulated material that was installed in the tire. However, we felt that microbeads could improve on the use of a granulated material as a balancing material in two areas – flowability and durability. Flowability, because we felt that the better the material moved in response to the forces of imbalance generated inside the tire, the quicker it would neutralize the imbalance and give a smooth ride. (To understand more about the importance of free flowability of a balancing material, just watch our 4-min video – How Magnum Plus Works - on this website).

BALANCE MUDDER TIRES
Magnum Plus tire balancing compound can be used to successfully balance many hard-to-balance tires, such as heavy-lug off-road mudder tires.

With many larger mudder tires, the amount of imbalance can vary tremendously between tires, which makes it difficult to predict the correct amount of Magnum Plus to use. In these cases, a useful method is to determine the amount of static imbalance in the tire and rim assembly, and then to install approximately the same amount of Magnum Plus. If the static imbalance falls between two packet sizes, then choose the smaller quantity.

If you do not have an electronic tire balancer, you can use a simple bubble balancer. Just place the tire assembly on the balancer, then place some packets of Magnum around the side of the tire, until the bubble is centred - then go with that amount of Magnum Plus balancing compound.

bluedge8 · Jun 2, 2011

Crowz you beat me to it.

cfdeng7 · Jun 2, 2011

I know a guy who throws small ball bearings in. I've. Ridden in his truck and they feel balanced.

davey99ps · Jun 2, 2011

I knew a guy that did the golf ball trick, I never rode in his truck before he did it but afterward it seemed fairly smooth. I've had great luck using eqaul, an after what crowz posted, I would just use eqaul. Tires are expensive, I'd rather not take a chance ruining them cuz of some dumb golf balls when eqaul is only $30-40 from what i remember. Just make sure you get the proper amount for the size tire your running

RedSmokey · Jun 2, 2011

Im hoping to try a set of these soon. http://shop.strictlydiesel.com/store.php/products/SRW_Balancers

rc4wd · Jun 2, 2011

I've ran the same 4 golf balls in 3 sets of tires on 2 different trucks over the last 100k miles or so and none of the balls look like that and never had any problems with any of the tires I had em in. I only use one ball per tire and it works out pretty good plus my father in law runs the same thing in his semi and has never had any problems out of them.

broodu · Jun 4, 2011

im considering trying the air soft bb's for my 40" boggers

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/BigTirechart.htm

1996 Scorpion · Jun 4, 2011

Thanks guys! There is a lot of great info in here you guys have given me. I'm going to look into the microbeads. Oh and instead of starting another thread I have one last quick question.

These are the new tires I'm looking at getting

http://www.michelintruck.com/michelintruck/tires-retreads/tireInfo.do?tread=X One XDN2

Will a super single rim for a pickup work for this tire or will I need to have it specially machined to accept the semi tire? I'm looking at the American Force Classic Super single for my wheel of choice.

I've come to really hate mud terrain tires, I can't stand the ride they give, and at 65 mph with the windows down it sounds sounds like an Alaskan Bush plane in flight. Also paying almost 3,000 in tires that last me about 35k miles isn't worth it anymore for the sake of looking cool.

Sorry rant over.

SKIRK · Jun 4, 2011

Check your local commercial tire store they should carry a bag of beads you can put inside the tire that will ballance them out for you. They are called Dyna Beads.

Rubenk · Jun 4, 2011

We have ran 3 or 5 golf balls(per tire) in hundreds of over the road truck tires all with no issues. Never had a driver complain about balance issues, so I reckon it worked. The golf balls never looked beat up either, just smooth. Also, we never re-used the balls when changing tires.

Erikclaw · Jun 6, 2011

RedSmokey said:
Im hoping to try a set of these soon. http://shop.strictlydiesel.com/store.php/products/SRW_Balancers

I actually have that setup on another truck. It has been parked for quite a while but it seems to help. 40" boggers ride smooth, but I didn't have a lot of miles on these tires when it got parked.

chappy · Jun 7, 2011

Swampers are a pain to keep balanced for sure. I gave up trying years ago and just quit running them on the street. Even when perfectly balanced they ride crappy. They sure do look cool though and get through just about everything.

Dieselcraft · Jun 8, 2011

Iv seen guys balance 22.5s with those bags of small plastic beeds
Customers said it worked

Erikclaw · Jun 8, 2011

chappy said:
Swampers are a pain to keep balanced for sure. I gave up trying years ago and just quit running them on the street. Even when perfectly balanced they ride crappy. They sure do look cool though and get through just about everything.

And you hear them coming a mile away.