RT front tire balancing

[h0gr1der]

I looked around my home town, said the heck with it and bought a tire mounting machine. No Mar is having a clearance sale on the Cycle Hill https://www.nomartirechanger.com/Cycle_Hill_Tire_Changer_p/tc-ch100.htm for $434 to your door. One thing that kicked it over the top over the Harbor Freight is it comes with the NoMar Bar and the non scratch rim grabbers. Also going to get a balancing shaft from http://www.marcparnes.com . He has one for the Spyder for $115. I'm all in now!

 

[jcthorne]

I looked around my home town, said the heck with it and bought a tire mounting machine. No Mar is having a clearance sale on the Cycle Hill https://www.nomartirechanger.com/Cycle_Hill_Tire_Changer_p/tc-ch100.htm for $434 to your door. One thing that kicked it over the top over the Harbor Freight is it comes with the NoMar Bar and the non scratch rim grabbers. Also going to get a balancing shaft from http://www.marcparnes.com . He has one for the Spyder for $115. I'm all in now!

I bought one of those and had a very bad time with it. Useless on spyder wheels as it simplly could not grip the wheel strong enough to allow you to work the bead over the rim edge. Ended up costing me hundreds of bucks to send it back and pay restocking fees for a contraption that did not do what it was advertised to do. The customer support was useless. Watch the videos...does not help when the unit will not hold the wheel and just bends/breaks when trying to tighten the clamps sufficiently to do so. Poor quality, poor support.

For a few bucks more, we went with a Ranger tire machine and could not be more pleased with the unit or the support. From the first tire, it just worked. Avoid the NoMar junk.

 

[dg110270]

Where did you get the hub cone?

 

[ecarrion]

I ended up buying the hub cone to fit my wheel and take it with me to the tire shop. This way I get the tires balanced and not have to take it to all the tire shops in the area to tell me the same thing.

I also found some Motorcycle shops are charging way to much to change and balance tires.

Triker...do you have a p/n for the hub cone?

 

[Wildrice]

I have an old, basic, bubble balancer that the fronts fit on. It's not the one that harbor freight sells but it looks just like it. It works very well and I'm sure the one from harbor does also.

Bubble balancers work just fine on 98% of tires. That's what racing bike use.

 

[trikermutha]

Triker...do you have a p/n for the hub cone?

Let me check. believe I got off ebay with a 40mm hole and outside was small like 2 to 3 inches??

 

[Madison Sully]

I made them track down the "tech" who mounted them, and he told me they never balance Spyder wheels...."they are so small, they don't need it"!!!

I hope that "tech" is out of your life forever. I balance scooter tires down to 12" diameter, because they go up to 90 MPH.
MV^2/R is the relevant equation; the small R is about proportional to the small M, it's the V-squared that gets you.
Point: It's not the size of the rubber, it's the speed of the deed. (I just made that up.)

 

[stmike 1800]

My son use to have a shop ,he kept the snap on tire machine and balancer .

 

[PMK]

My son use to have a shop ,he kept the snap on tire machine and balancer .

Not sure which model Snap On balancer he has. My Snap On balancer has three modes. Static, Dynamic, and Fine.

Static places weight along the rims centerline. Yes static can provide rotational balance but fails to provide side to side balance to eliminate precession.

If carefully done, you can dynamic balance Spyder front tires. For this I purchased weights pre-painted to match the rims color, black on our Spyder. The weights are then placed at the rims edge, just inside of the flange. On the outside you place them between the spokes.

I have dynamic balanced a bunch of Spyder front wheels, even the RT622 trailer wheels. The method works very well if done correctly AND the tire is not defective.

 

[PMK]

Triker...do you have a p/n for the hub cone?

You may need to know the tire balancer make and model in order to purchase the adapter cone. A good shop should have no issues having the proper adapter. In the past folks here inquired if the shop had the ability to balance Smart Car wheels, seems that adapter works on the Spyder also.

 

[rpopdan]

The Centramatic wheel balancers from Lamonster work great on my 2015 RT-S. Just don't forget to remove all the old weights.

 

[Sarge]

I had pulled the tire/wheels off my Spyder and took them to Discount Tire in Burlington, NC where I was having my truck tires balanced and rotated. I bought the two Hankook tires there and they could not mount or balance them because they said they didn't have the small cone needed for the Spyder wheels. I then went to two more tire shops in Burlington and got the same story.

Honda, Sea-Doo and Can-Am of Winston Salem, NC
https://www.hondaws.com/


TIRES! Mega kudos to Honda, Sea Do and Can-Am of Winston Salem, NC! A Platinum dealer and the largest in the tri-state area. Their top Spyder Technician, Steve, has been working on Spyders since they first came out in 2008. He's a great guy and will take the time to talk to the customer and show them what he's doing. Although they are 1.25 hours and about 65 miles from the house, I rode there and had them install a pair of Hankook Ventus V4 ES - 175/55R15 77T Tires I had purchased from Discount Tire. They also performed a belt alignment and 3-wheel laser alignment. WOW! What a difference! It's like a completely different machine now. No more shake or wobble in the handlebars or mirrors. Although the stock Kendas only had 3k on them, I told them to trash 'em.

AND ... they offer Military/Veteran discounts.

 

[PMK]

The Centramatic wheel balancers from Lamonster work great on my 2015 RT-S. Just don't forget to remove all the old weights.

We do not run the Centramatics on our machine, but a while back the discussions leaned towards using quality tires that were well balanced, and let the Centramatics fine balance them. Apparently, there is a limit to how much imbalance a Centramatic will correct.

 

[jcthorne]

The Centramatic wheel balancers from Lamonster work great on my 2015 RT-S. Just don't forget to remove all the old weights.

NO. Do not remove old weights. The tire/wheel assembly needs to be balanced first, then apply the Centramatics. The small centramatics used for Spyders can only handle about 2 oz of imbalance.