Sorry for the length of this post, but I have been down this road
without success. Here is my experience:
I'm happy we are onto this topic, because I have five, 20 year-old but
literally brand new, Dayton Chrome wires that are impossible to drive
on. I too searched for the elusive on-the-car balancer. I chased one of
these old "on the car balancers" all over the countryside, without
success.
Lots of people, (including myself) remember these balancers, and no
doubt there still are many gathering dust in the back of some old
service station or garage somewhere. But where? And am I the only wire
wheel owner with a balancing problem? I think not. In my own club, I see
wire wheels on a variety of LBC's, and when their owners are questioned,
I find most of them putt around below the vibration point. So they have
no problem.
I also found another type of balancer, a machine which had a plate
mounted on the spindle of the balancing machine shaft, to which the
wheel was bolted through the stud or bolt holes. There were many
configurations of wheel stud spacing and number available on this plate.
This machine was in the shop of renowned Ford and Cobra racing mechanic
Gus Zuidema in Massachusetts, but alas, he passed away before I could
get him to apply his magic to my wheels.
Then there is the RFV (Road Force Variation) balancing machine, which
measures the deflection of the wheel in a vertical plane as it is
rotates slowly on a spindle with another rotating shaft pressing against
the tire tread, the deflection measured by a sensitive computer. In the
process, this machine measures the side to side and vertical run-out of
the wheel rim.
The problem with this machine and wire wheels, is that it puts a 1500#
pressure on the wheel. In my quest to get my wheels to run true, I had
the shop replace my tires with new ones, and when the tires were off the
rim, I discovered a spec. sticker inside that warned against any weight
being applied to these rims greater than 950# ! This was after I had had
the procedure done, so I may have distorted my wheels. But this was the
last ditch effort to fix them, which it didn't, so I know the problem
was there before the RFV procedure. Nothing changed through this search
for balanced acceptability.
As I stated in a previous post, my solution was to replace these wire
wheels with new alloy Minilites. They are awesome. No more bounce up to
speeds I cannot reveal for fear of going to jail!
I hope someone on this list has an answer, because I would love to use
my wires occasionally. They change the look of the car in a very subtle
way that appeals to my co-pilot...
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-tigers@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-tigers@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Tony McNulty
Sent: October 31, 2005 8:19 AM
To: Tony Someone
Cc: Joey Hiykel; dave@munroe.ca; tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Wire Wheels/ balancing wires
As I recall, the strobe light balancing system was made by Alemite. The
only one I've ever seen was in Austin back in the late 60's. It worked
really well on my Tiger-- I don't understand why they never really
caught on.
Tony McNulty
B382001321
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