MG-Cars.info

Welcome to our Site for MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey Car Information.

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB Technical - wheel balance

anyone know of a shop in eastern Pa. or the Princeton, NJ area that can do wheel balance with the tire on the car?

Philip Collura

Philip,
Failing that, always make sure that you get to watch when the shop does the balancing. You can see the lower portion of the rim and check for run-out when they spin it up. As long as that is good, the results should be good.
David "lug-centric" Lieb
David Lieb

Phillip.
If they are the Rostyle wheels the shop has to have a special adaptor to mount the wheels on their machine. It looks like a spider and bolts to the existing bolt holes and them mounts on the machine. The holes in the middle of the wheels are not concentric with the rims.If you have a spare front hub then you can knock out the bearings and then it can be mounted that way on the balancer.
Sandy
SANDY SANDERS

"It looks like a spider and bolts to the existing bolt holes"

The first time I changed front tyres on my V8 the new ones were balanced like that but still wobbled badly. Repeated rebalancing made no difference, neither did (eventually) a new set of tyres. I looked hard for an on-car balancer for many years with no luck. After many years I found a general engineering balance specialist that also did wheels on-car, but at £50 per wheel. But at the same time I found a tyre place that has a 'road force balance' machine with a set of hubs and detacheable studs that mount the wheel much more accurately than that flaky 'jack of all wheels, master of none' thing with arms that swivel. At long last I have got rid of the wobble, and for about £15 per wheel.

I've heard of mounting *wire* wheels on an old splined hub with a spinner with the closing end ground off so it can be mounted on a conventional balance machine, but not thought about the same thing for a stud wheel. I'm sure I've got a couple of old hubs somewhere ... Even though wire wheels are centre-mounted and so you would think they would fit the machines, unless the machines have the correct *outer* cone for the outside of the wheel again they are not held correctly.
P Hunt

I have Minilite replicas originally with 175X14's. They're probably 15 years old now,but are true.

My problem started when mounted some 195x14 Michelins, maybe 5 years ago. Two shops balanced OK on the machine (recently using a spider) but I still got a shake around 65-70 mph.

A few years ago I found a shop on LI that did it on the car, and it was perfect. He told me that the only way to get a good balance with them was on the car. I was skeptical, but it seems he was correct.

After rotating the tires recently, I'm at squre one. This last shop has done my other two cars, no problems with them, so it's unique to the MG.

Wheel bearings are OK, so I'm looking for an on-the car-shop. it's pretty much a lost art.


Using a spare hub is worth a try.
Philip Collura

If rotating the tires put you back to square one, you have a problem with the car. Something in the rotating mass of one or more of your wheels is out of balance. Yes, the on the car balance will compensate for that, but you are only masking a deeper problem. If it is not coming up until 65-70mph, it is pretty close to true, but something is either bent or worn.

Can you tell whether it is in the front (more likely) or back? Which side? It is probable that only one wheel was really off before, so you could mark each of them as to the corner they were originally on (when everythign was happy), take them to a patient tire place and ask them to check the balance without changing anything. If you are lucky, three of them will be in balance and the fourth will tell you which corner of the car has a problem. Bent axle or spindle?
David "lost my balance" Lieb
David Lieb

With the V8 wheels and their sleeved wheel nuts instead of tapered I also use two lightly tightened Rostyle nuts on opposite studs to centre the V8 wheel on its studs before fitting and tightening, then replace the Rostyles with the other two V8 studs.

I not only mark each corner, but mark the stud to hole alignment, and the tyre to wheel side and alignment when I used to have the tyres taken off to replace spokes. I've never rotated tyres, it just wears them out more quickly. Each tyre has a certain 'set' to the road and wears any high spots down quite quickly, thereafter wear occurs relatively slowly. By rotating tyres you are compounding that as there are almost certainly more and higher high spots on a different axle which results in even more and faster wear.

P Hunt

I realize the original request was for a location in PA or NJ, but as a side note Discount Tire in Stillwater, MN responded to my request for proper balancing of MG Rostyle rims by ordering in several lug-centric adapters to do wheel balancing.

This cost Discount Tire a good chunk of change, and its made a world of difference in my ride.

But of note, is that as indicated above, watch the balancing if you are allowed to see just how true your rims are. I have 1 that is slightly out of round, but at least it balanced up; with the proper lug-centric adapters.

I know of at lease one T owner that has been there and he too is glad DT made the investment for us MG owners.
R.W Anderson

I will second the "attaboy" for Discount Tire. There is one a few miles from my house. They give me good prices for my tires, do good work, and they cheerfully mount my autocross tires onto my rims and balance them at a decent price even though neither tire nor rim was sold by them.
David "NFI" Lieb
David Lieb

Dave,

I should have mentioned I had all 4 balanced when I rotated the tires.

Definitely the front is the problem. When they were done on the car years ago I had only the front balanced.

I'm thinking like you, that it is the car. Counter to this though, the problem for sure started when I mounted the 195X14's. Never had a problem with the 175X14s.

Whatever it is, its subtle. Some people (for example my wife) wouldn't even notice. Guy that did it on the car years ago took about 5 minutes start to finish.

I might try again to have the two fronts checked & have them verified they are balanced before removing the weights.

Thinking of Paul's comment, I'm going to remove loosen and tighten the front lugs carefully, one wheel at a time. Maybe one wheel isn't isn't perfectly seated on the lugs.

Philip Collura

Here's my story on wheel balancing:

http://www.glenngoodspeed.com/volvo/WheelBalancing.htm

Enjoy! -G.
Glenn G

Philip,
Since you had them re-balanced when you rotated them (not quite sure why), all bets are off. Yes, I am sure you are seeing the problem on the front, as the rear suspension of these cars is not at all sensitive to imbalance (too much unsprung weight CAN be a benefit).
David "Good Luck!" Lieb
David Lieb

Glenn,

Impressive setup. Maybe I could stop by one weekend LOL.

Your comment on different shops balancing the same wheel differently I find interesting - I had the same experience a while back.

Other projects in the mill before I look at the MG again, if I come up with anything of interest I'll post it.

Thanks all

Philip Collura

This thread was discussed between 07/12/2009 and 14/12/2009

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archives. Join the live MG MGB Technical BBS now