Dyna Beads questions...

R Q

R Q

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2005
Location
Charlotte
What is your experience with the beads to balance your tires?
Have you solved any issues? If so what?
Are they any better than taking the tire and having it balanced?

BTW I have 15" beadlocks and 36" IROKS. Tires are centered on rims. Rims were new before welding on beadlock rings by a master welder.
 
I used air soft BBs in mine. I thought they did a good job balancing the tires. Then I popped a bead once, all the BBs came out and I didn't replace them; I didn't notice a difference. So take that for what it is worth.
 
ive road motorcycles with them in and it actually worked good in them....but then again thats a big difference from what youre running
 
The shop that mounted my 35's used them. They dont make any noise at low speeds like airsoft beads or bb's. Main benefit IMO is they continuously work to balance throughout the life of the tire so no need to ever have them rebalanced.
 
I'd either use those or air soft BBs. I just like the air softs because you can get them just about anywhere and they're pretty cheap.
 
My brother ran air soft BB's on his old truck on 33's. He said he loved them above 35 or until you hit a crack in the road. Below 35 they didn't work for him (not enough wheel speed?) and any major crack/pothole would jar the tires and throw the BB's around, he said it took a bit for everything to settle back down and 're-balance'. Other than those 2 things, he recommended them.
 
i bought counteract for my 38s but havnt ran those yet so idk? ran two golf balls in each tire in my old 38.5s and like Lurch830 said above 30 or so they worked great, hit a pothole at 60 and you would have to slow down and the speed back up for them to re-balance, but they were quieter than the air softs BBs at parking lot speed, b/c i guess the golf balls were heavy enough to stay on the bottom of the tires, I hope the counteract will be the best of both worlds??????
 
IMHO any internal balance method is better than a wheel balance for what we do for a couple reasons.
1) Its pretty easy to knock a weight off off-road
2) Off road tires are notorious for chunking. Even a BFG AT/MT will shed (albeit smaller) chunks of rubber more so than a smoother profile car tire. When these chunks of rubber are removed the centrifugal balance instantly changes. If you dont go back and have your weights moved or adjusted you are no longer in balance. A good internal balance will instantly adjust for you.

For me...Im a much larger fan of antifreeze and water than any pellet. Frankly I dont think air softs are dense enough. Last time I balanced a 38 and a steel rim I need 12+ ounces...thats a LOT of airsoft and then you get into a surface area discussion..or if you want to go super nerd you get into innerharmonic dynamics of the hard substrates banging of each other...

One final side note. About 80% of the tires I see balanced are actually done incorrectly. While I was in college I worked at a Sears tire center for 4 years and as a result Ive balanced a few 1000 tires. About half of that time I was doing those wrong myself. Then we hired a 60 some odd year old african american guy who if you looked at him you would have though he was an idiot. However he was retired from GM and his sole focus for the last 20 years had been ride quality and tire dynamics. He dropped out of high school but after working his way up through GM had went back to school and ultimatley had a Masters in Engineering and had worked with Coates and anohter manufacturer whose name escapes me DEVELOPING balance machines.
So all these qualifications what is my point?
We've all seen the balance machine where it spins around and then shows the tech how much weight to add and then you rotate the tire until the arrow is at the top and then add the weight there, right? Well the next step is spin again and make sure its balanced. Many times its not. From there how many times have you seen a tire guy add another weight 30, 60 or 75 degrees around the rim. This is where he screwed up, the second time. He screwed up the first time in his weight placement. He was not perfectly vertical when he added the weight which is what caused the error. This old guy could tell you within half an inh how far to move it based off the results, and while never that good over time I learned pretty well how much repositioning to do. It was amazing the difference it actually made, of course on a swamper you are never going to feel this level of difference but on his retirement gift cadillac he taught several of us young know it alls the difference.

Anyway...sorry for the long unrequested tangent...just felt like sharing today I suppose.
 
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When I balance a tire with rim weights, I won't put it back on if it won't balance with weights in only one location. You can slide the weight around, step up to the next weight, or even spin the tire on the rim. I've even started back over and had them come out fine the second go around.


I DID notice a difference in how well the airsoft BBs worked when I used the heaviest ones available at my local WalMart. Don't quite remember the weight per BB, but they were the green ones in a 10,000 ct container. I had used lighter ones previously and it just takes up too much area. I completely agree on that.

I actually have Liquid Balance in the front tires of my K30 right now. Can't say that it works any better than the BBs did, but plenty of truckers that come through the local Colony Tire swear by it. At least it has a nice cooling effect inside the tire and helps regulate temperature and reduce friction/heat buildup.
 
25 years ago when i worked at toyota, we did a lot of lifts and tires. when we would do tires (on trucks) if it required more than 3oz of weight, we had to break down the tire and spin it on the rim and try again. sometimes it would take 2 or 3 times but if you were persistent you could usually get it down to barely any weight.
 
transman731 said:
25 years ago when i worked at toyota, we did a lot of lifts and tires. when we would do tires (on trucks) if it required more than 3oz of weight, we had to break down the tire and spin it on the rim and try again. sometimes it would take 2 or 3 times but if you were persistent you could usually get it down to barely any weight.
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This. I'm too lazy to do it myself, but 95% of the time there is a sweet spot between rim and tire balance that will get you right on the money. I've ran 35's, 36's, and 38's unbalanced, and they typically felt as good or better than a "balanced" set from the tire place.
 
transman731 said:
25 years ago when i worked at toyota, we did a lot of lifts and tires. when we would do tires (on trucks) if it required more than 3oz of weight, we had to break down the tire and spin it on the rim and try again. sometimes it would take 2 or 3 times but if you were persistent you could usually get it down to barely any weight.
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When I put tires on in high school, most of the tires came with a white or orange dot. I was always told that dot is supposed to line up with the valve stem. If the tire took a lot of weight, we'd break it down and turn it 180*, and try again. Usually that worked. And we mounted a lot of the good ol' Wild Country RVTs.
 
On many recommendations, I used soft beads [green], in a New set of 33x15s, 8oz.s. Had 1 or 2 tires, slightly off, but it was the best balance I've ever had! What if I had used 9-10 oz? Mounted a set of 35s, with 10oz., & they seem perfect! Bought 205x75x14, street tires, for my Celica, & it's Good up to 75mph. I have Not experienced any problems, when going slow,or hitting bumps/cracks.
 
rodney eppes said:
On many recommendations, I used soft beads [green], in a New set of 33x15s, 8oz.s. Had 1 or 2 tires, slightly off, but it was the best balance I've ever had! What if I had used 9-10 oz? Mounted a set of 35s, with 10oz., & they seem perfect! Bought 205x75x14, street tires, for my Celica, & it's Good up to 75mph. I have Not experienced any problems, when going slow,or hitting bumps/cracks.
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Rodney, are you talking about airsoft beads or actual Dyna beads?
 
Probably air softs. The ones I use are green too.
 
I just got off the phone with the people at Innovative/Dyna Beads. They are very knowledgeable and can talk in simple terms lol. After talking about my issues she thinks I have a lateral issue but should try some internal weights anyway. She said it's most likely a very thick/heavy part of the sidewall of the tire compounded by the beadlocks.
I asked about using airsoft or other beads and she said it didn't matter, weight is weight, whether it be sand, golf balls, or airsoft beads.
What a PITA! All I want to do is occasionally drive the Jeepster to a club meeting, out for dinner on a nice day, and be able to drive safely on state roads near the trails.
 
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i would say this. I ran air soft in my 33's for a long time. It never had that fine tune feel, but also never gave me death wobble. I then transitioned to a static balance (one weight on the inside of the rim) and it was the smoothest i had ever had it. I think the concept is great and the beads should work well, just the air-soft beads are not heavy enough for the large tires, 'cause my 35's sucked with them in. I put probably 12-14 ounces in each tire too. I think if i ran actual BB's it would have been more effective, but i have been pretty satisfied with just a clip on weight on the inside.
 
Another vote for antifreeze. Its really easy to do, and you can get a lot more mass in there. Plus imagine if you lose a bead offroad, you don't have pellets going all over the place. People generally have antifreeze on hand anyway.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Another vote for antifreeze. Its really easy to do, and you can get a lot more mass in there. Plus imagine if you lose a bead offroad, you don't have pellets going all over the place. People generally have antifreeze on hand anyway.
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But using antifreeze you can't plug the tire if you punch a hole in it
 
Sure you can. Some A/F may/will likely spill out if the hole is down the first time it stops..but when I ran water/AF in a street rig I kept the adapter in the glove box and could fill up at any water hose.

Water (and A/F) molecule size is much smaller than N,H,O air...if they dont leak by the plug thw water wont either
 
R Q said:
But using antifreeze you can't plug the tire if you punch a hole in it
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?? why not? Just wait long enough for the glue to set before you speed off again?
As long as you're not trying to put a plug in the bottom of the tire (just roll it forward til its up high) its not like there would be antifreeze squirting out the hole
 
Ron said:
Sure you can. Some A/F may/will likely spill out if the hole is down the first time it stops..but when I ran water/AF in a street rig I kept the adapter in the glove box and could fill up at any water hose.

Water (and A/F) molecule size is much smaller than N,H,O air...if they dont leak by the plug thw water wont either
Click to expand...

what is this adapter you mention? Something that threads onto the valve stem?
 
I used real deal Dyna Beads in my 38s and it is the best balance I have ever had on a big offroad tire, I love them and have no issues at any speeds, used 10oz in each one.
 
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