[Healeys] Wire Wheel Balancer

Mon May 15 17:52:25 MDT 2023

Bob,

I borrowed a balancing stand from the machine shop that did the work on my
Healey engine. They use the balancer for large grinding wheels. Pictures
attached. I used fridge magnets to statically balance the drum. Kept adding
weight and moving around until the drum was stable through 360 degrees. The
balancing stand was very sensitive. I weighed the fridge magnets on a small
digital scale to figure out how much weight to add and used 1/4" diameter
solid lead wire for the weight and glued it behind the rib with JB Weld.
Available at any good fishing gear store.

That worked for the first drum but the second drum was so out of balance I
had to remove part of the rib on the heavy side and add lead weight on the
light side. As you get further away from the heavy or light spot there are
diminishing returns to adding or subtracting weight.

It sounds way more complicated than it was but the key piece of kit is the
balancing stand.

Let me know if you would like any more information.

Harold

On Mon, May 15, 2023 at 2:36 PM Bob Haskell <rchaskell at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Harold,
>
> How did you balance the drums - add or remove material? Care to provide
> any details?
>
> Bob Haskell
> Austin-Healey 3000 roadster registrar
>
> On 5/15/23 11:32, Harold Manifold wrote:
>
> Another consideration for balancing the rear tires is the brake drums. I
> have the original BMC brake drums and was surprised at how out of balance
> they were. I static balanced the brake drums to go with the
> separately balanced wheels and tires. No vibrations, shimmies or skuttle
> shakes so far.
>
> Harold
>
> On Mon, May 15, 2023 at 12:34 AM <greylinn at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Here in Brisbane there’s at least one place (near me) that does on-car
>> balancing. The wheels on my 100 don’t have a central hole, so can’t be
>> balanced on a regular machine. That said, the last set of Khumo Ecowing
>> ES31s I bought are fine with no balancing!
>>
>>
>>
>> Peter Linn
>>
>> Brisbane
>>
>> BN1 Holden V6
>>
>> MG TC special
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Healeys <healeys-bounces at autox.team.net> *On Behalf Of *m.g.sharp---
>> via Healeys
>> *Sent:* Monday, May 15, 2023 1:07 PM
>> *To:* 'Harold Manifold' <manifold at telus.net>; 'HealeyRick' <
>> healeyrik at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* 'Healeys' <healeys at autox.team.net>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Healeys] Wire Wheel Balancer
>>
>>
>>
>> I made up my own adaptor using a used hub and knock-off (spinner).  I had
>> a machinist mount the hub on the lathe and ensure that it was true on the
>> inside edges (where the bearings fit) and had him put a slight chamfer on
>> the edges to provide better registration for the standard cones on a modern
>> balancer.  Then we machined the centre out of the spinner so  that when the
>> wheel is mounted on the hub and the spinner is tightened, the outer cone on
>> the balancer fits through it and registers on the hub.  That part is a
>> little tricky as if you machine the hole too big, the spinner will end up
>> in two pieces – measure carefully!  Hub and spinner was $25 at a swap meet
>> and machining was $50.  I believe this adaptor will work on any post-war
>> wire wheels except the Jags, which had different hubs.  Worked a treat on
>> my TC wheels.  Healey is running vibration-free- so leaving it alone for
>> now.
>>
>>
>>
>> I too liked on-wheel balancing and in my simple thinking it balanced the
>> drum or disk at the same time – as long as you remembered to mark the
>> position of the wheels when you took them off and did not rotate them (to a
>> different position on the car)!  That is likely one reason  they are not
>> used anymore, because if your drums were out of balance and you added
>> weights to the wheel that balanced them out, then every time you removed
>> the wheel, you’d loose the balance, unless it went back in exactly the same
>> position.   Anyhow it’s a moot point as I have not seen an on-wheel
>> balancer for decades.   I imagine that disks run very true anyhow, but when
>> I balanced the drums on the TC  they were significantly off.  I hear
>> balancing Healey drums brings good results, but never felt the need as my
>> BT7 has always run pretty smooth.  If anyone in Ontario (Canada) wants
>> drums balanced, Garland and Sons in Scarborough did great work for me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Mirek
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Healeys <healeys-bounces at autox.team.net> *On Behalf Of *Harold
>> Manifold
>> *Sent:* Thursday, May 11, 2023 11:35 AM
>> *To:* HealeyRick <healeyrik at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Healeys <healeys at autox.team.net>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Healeys] Wire Wheel Balancer
>>
>>
>>
>> It looks like the kit is designed to follow the Dunlop/MWS
>> recommendations for balancing. See attached. It should be a good piece of
>> kit.
>>
>>
>>
>> Harold
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 11, 2023 at 8:28 AM HealeyRick via Healeys <
>> healeys at autox.team.net> wrote:
>>
>> AH Spares just sent out this email about a wire wheel balancer kit to
>> mount the wheels on a modern balancing machine.  What are your thoughts?
>> https://www.ahspares.co.uk/austin-healey/big-healey/wheels/wire-wheel-balancing-kit.aspx?utm_medium=email-1st&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
>>
>>
>>
>> Rick Neville aka "HealeyRick"
>>
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