air soft balancing

cranberry

New Member
Joined
May 31, 2009
Location
Charlotte
OK....so I'm tired of my TJ beating the hell out of me when I'm on road. I'm going to try the airsoft pellet technique to balance my wheels. I have 36" TSL's on 15' Aluminum wheels.
First question: How much weight of airsoft pellets will I need to get them to balance worth a crap?
Second question: I have Staun's internal beadlocks. Can I use the pellets to balance the wheels or will they get caught between the tire and the beadlock when I'm aired down and cause problems when I air back up?
I drop to around 6 or 7 psi when I'm on the trail.
 
I've got my 37's on recentered H1 wheels air soft BB balanced, and IMO it works great. I put in way more than the Innovative Balancing site suggests- like 18 oz per tire. No particular reason for that, other than I just had two big boxes of the BB's and I split them up equally five ways, which came out to 18 oz each. I don't have a definitive answer for you concerning the Staun's, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd be willing to bet that they'd be just fine. I just don't see the BB's damaging the Staun even if some of them were to somehow get in between the rim and the bead lock.
 
8 oz of coolant works pretty well too. Much more quieter too.
 
I definately agree with the anti-freeze, it works.
 
I am also contemplating the airsoft balancing method. One thing that makes me apprehensive about using coolant, or water/coolant mix is the rust factor. Won't the liquid in the wheel cause rust on the inside of my steel wheel?
 
FYI

there is a Air Soft booth at the local flea market, He has loads of the the stuff, Well talking to him he has air soft bbs that have been shot and become out of round so he can't resell them as good bbs, But he would sell them for a use like this for real cheap, Might contact your airsoft dealers and see if you can save some cash, Mine new were like $22. Might have save $10 with him.

But had a few of us got some, it would have been a much better savings.
 
BigClay said:
I am also contemplating the airsoft balancing method. One thing that makes me apprehensive about using coolant, or water/coolant mix is the rust factor. Won't the liquid in the wheel cause rust on the inside of my steel wheel?
Click to expand...

Shouldn't if you use straight-up ethyline glycol.

The only thing I worry about is the mess you deal with if you have to unmount the tire.
i can't decide which is worse, getting antifreeze all over the place or a million BBs.
 
The airsoft pellets are spec'd by weight (g's)...so you can count them and have an idea of the weight. I'll be using them whenever I step up to 35's. Got a couple of containers of old pellets left over from college. ;)
 
I've used the antifreeze/water mixture. One of the properties of the antifreeze is a anti-corrosive, so I wouldn't worry about rust. I didn't used a very scientific method, about half a coke bottle of 50/50 mix into each tire, so about 10oz. per tire. It's also easier to put the mixture into an already mounted tire than with bb's.
Used the spout off a gear oil bottle, and a small vacuum line, pulled the core out of the valve stem, and forced the liquid into a deflated tire. Then aired up and went home with no vibes on the 35's.


edit: That's 10 liquid oz, water is CLOSE to a 1:1 ratio when converting volume to weight, I'm sure antifreeze is slightly more dense, so 10 oz of 50/50 probably weighs between 10-11 oz
 
Your Hot Dog Guy! said:
I definately agree with the anti-freeze, it works.
Click to expand...

Truth... your old Boggers rode smoother than most Caddies!

Chris_M said:
I've used the antifreeze/water mixture. One of the properties of the antifreeze is a anti-corrosive, so I wouldn't worry about rust. I didn't used a very scientific method, about half a coke bottle of 50/50 mix into each tire, so about 10oz. per tire. It's also easier to put the mixture into an already mounted tire than with bb's.
Used the spout off a gear oil bottle, and a small vacuum line, pulled the core out of the valve stem, and forced the liquid into a deflated tire. Then aired up and went home with no vibes on the 35's.


edit: That's 10 liquid oz, water is CLOSE to a 1:1 ratio when converting volume to weight, I'm sure antifreeze is slightly more dense, so 10 oz of 50/50 probably weighs between 10-11 oz
Click to expand...

I used YHDG's "scientific approach", except I was out of olive jars and had to use a Miller High-Life bottle!
Ended up pulling the cores until the Swampers were flat, connected the vac tube to the stem & the other into the bottle... jacked the tire up and it was mysteriously sucked 12 (liquid) Oz's into the tire! See?... Science!:lol:
 
Balancing

My 37 military oz have started to shake a little so i read this thread did like yall have done put about 3/4 of a 16oz bottle of water and antifreeze mix in each tire really didnt make that much of a difference? Can i put them on a spin balancer and get an accurate measure? Spun them before the antifreeze and they all came up 9.99 oz it rides pretty good just trying to fine tune them got any ideas?
 
I'm about to try the bb method. I have 35x12.5 bfg mt's on 15x10 steel rims and have nasty shaking with stick on weights.

Should I remove the stick on weights before I put in the bb's?
 
O.K. I give up, How does BB's rolling around "balance" the tire. the whole point of balancing a tire is positioning the weight where the tire needs it.

Once you are up to speed the BB's will be randomly slung against the inside of the tread. How does this work?
 
I see now, that's pretty cool.
 
I've been running the Airsoft method for about 6 months. I used the "premium" bbs because I had heard of the others splitting in half after a while. I run bias 42s on beat up beadlocks and mine ride fairly smoot to 70 mph.
 
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