Rear wheels need balancing?
Outstanding HDF Member
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 2,590
Likes: 31
From: Western Illinois, land of bad roads, and corrupt politicians
Not good enough. I'm not going to try them until they hit bees knees status.
Road Captain
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 728
Likes: 25
From: griffin ga
alright I got new wheels tires,rotors ,& pulley from proformance machine on my softail a few yrs back... thay do not ballance any of there wheel & tire sets.....I had concerns with this.. the rep from proformance machine told me after thay install them to ride my bike... I figured it was going to be bad..it was much better than any stock wheels & tires I had ever had.. the wheels & tires have been on almost 2 yrs.. nearly time for a new rear tire..thay have been wearing perfectly..I also got new wheels & tires combo from jerry covington ..covington customs..on my 09 street glide..thay dont ballance them eather..it rides better than it ever did..agin the tires are doing great... so I have 2 bikes with no ballancing..now my big dogs had weights on the wheels...so i removed them & added the dyna beads.. I cant tell any differance..cept no ugly weights... just my thoughts on this..but proformance machine & jerry covington did tell me if I wasnt happy thay would make it right.. I have not had any issues... & I've had all my bikes over 100 mph... very smooth @ any speed...
Last edited by Eric Moore; Mar 8, 2012 at 03:27 PM.
Former Sponsor
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 10,968
Likes: 54
We balance every one of our wheels and tires here. If the customer requests wheel weights we use our electronic tire balancer. If they request Dyna beads they balance the tire and wheel dynamically as it spins. If you put a wheel on the tire balancer with Dyna beads the tire balancer will not indicate that the wheel needs to be balanced.
Former Sponsor
Joined: Aug 2005
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Grand HDF Member
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 4,598
Likes: 421
From: Lansing mi
I say not true. I would be very surprised if the rear wheel assembly did not need balanced. I change and balance my tires and can say in both tire replacements on my 09 FLHT a *lot* of weight was needed to balance the rear. On the first replacement around 9,500 miles I was mounting a factory Dunlop replacement and it was so far out I quit after adding 8 of the large 15 gram weights! This was, for me, a record for a motorcycle tire being out of balance! Fortunately I just tape the weights to see what's needed first, so I took the weights off, removed the tire off the wheel, and balanced just the wheel/pulley assembly by itself to find the heavy spot. It wasn't at the valve but that's not unusual, what was unusual was just the wheel/pulley alone was over 3 ounces out of balance. I re-mounted the tire aligning the lightest part of the tire with the known heaviest point of the wheel and still ended up having to add just over 3 ounces of weights.
To put this in perspective, on my other bikes including the Dyna, it's rare when more than one ounce is called for. Nevertheless I balance them to within 3 grams (about 1/10 ounce)
To put this in perspective, on my other bikes including the Dyna, it's rare when more than one ounce is called for. Nevertheless I balance them to within 3 grams (about 1/10 ounce)
I just had my rear wheel balanced with out the tire on it, took a bit over 3 oz to get it right, with the tire back on it's at 3 1/4 oz. I've had a lot of trouble with the weights falling off my RK both front and back.
By the end of last Summer all the weights was gone from the front and 4 was missing from the rear and my bike felt like I was driving over little ripples on the highway.
When my new weights start to fall off again, I'm going with the beads.
Former Sponsor
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 10,968
Likes: 54
There has been a lot of discussion as to the merit of the Dyna Beads here on the forums. It seems many people don't understand how this can actually work. We put them in all our bikes here at HogPro and 99% of our customers as well as nobody wants a big ugly wheel weight on a brand new rim. Our opinion is that they work very well and it is like riding on glass the ride is so smooth.
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Road Captain
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 670
Likes: 22
From: Umatilla, Fl
First of all your not balancing the tire, but the wheel assembly. Most wheels and tires have heavy spots, which means they have a corresponding light spot. The key to using miminal weights to balance the assembly is to match mount the assembly. First thing is to mount the tire and check the balance. Then after checking the balance rotate the tire 90 degrees counter clockwise and recheck the balance. If the weight increases rotate the tire clockwise back 90 degrees. Having been in the tire business for over 30 years this works regardless of the tire - passenger, light truck, large truck, motorcycle. If you find that a motorcycle assembly takes over 1 1/2 to 2 oz you need to do the match mounting. if that doesn't fix the problem then I would try a different tire.