Road Force Balancing

This is a bit of a public service announcement. I have an original pair of 15 x 4" Cragar SS wheels. They came with our '63 Fury when we bought it. They are in great shape, but I could never find a shop that could balance them correctly. A friend put the wheels on his balance machine without tires and told me that they were assembled a-symetrically. The center of the wheel is not true, and essentially is egg-shaped. I ran into a guy at the Vargo Reunion last year that was a Cragar nut. Told him my problem. He advised having my tires "Road Force Balanced". I never heard of this, but looked up a shop that had one and low and behold...They run round and true.

This technique uses a machine that is able to put force onto the tire when balancing. This acts as the weight of the car as it's going down the road. They find the heavy spot on the rim and match it with the light side of the tire. Saved me from getting rid of these cool wheels. Hopefully this will help someone out there that has the same problem.

Absolutely! That's the ONLY way to have them balanced correctly. Most dealers have the machines and most tire stores do not because they are prohibitively expensive but no question it is worth the extra cash

When I worked for a dealer we had the Hunter balancer and the machine to mount tires. We were required to use the road force/ match mount on all vehicles. Porsche owners are picky about vibrations at 100 plus MPH. Did a set of BFG 35s on my truck and it rode like a Caddy and the tires last much longer. The local discount tire has them but the kids using it are either not trained to use it or dont care. I asked for a match mount and watched them but it wasnt done. You need to mount and ballance, get your readings mark the tire and rim then take it back to the mounting machine and spin the tire on the rim to line up your marks. Plus you can test a bare rim for being bent or out of round ect. Cant remember what the specs were but the machine would red flag it if out. Wish I had the pair but $15 grand is out of my budget. There is also a function for tire /rim placement on the vehicle for least vibration or least pull IIRC, been a while. My alingment guy has the Hunter lazer machine and I asked why he dont do tires . Dosent want to compete with the tire shops as they send him lots of work. I call BS.

I use this equipment daily in my personal shop. It helps band-aid tire problems and yes it can be used to help offset a tire with higher rolling resistance for a pulling issue.

You can balance a spinning square but you wouldn't want to drive on one.