Does anybody else not balance tires. I haven't balanced the last 3 rear tires and I really can't tell a difference.

 

I haven’t balanced my current front tire or the past two rear tires that I’ve had. I am running custom billet aluminum wheels, so there may me a difference if you’re running the stock cast aluminum wheels. My tires have worn very well and I don’t notice any vibration, even at interstate speeds. I’m going to need a new front tire soon and I don’t have any plans to balance that one.

 

I do balance my tires...

But that said, on my Duece the rear wheel is hard to keep weights on at high speeds due to the configuration of the wheel. There is no flat surface perpendicular to the vertical centerline of the wheel to apply the weights to. On every road trip I've been on with that bike the weights have come off (until I started bonding them on with RTV rather than relying on the tape). I've never been able to tell the weights came off until I looked and saw them missing. By ride quality, I could never tell.

So I'm kinda with you on your observation.

 

I balanced my tires by first mounting them with the balance dot aligned with the air valve on the rim, and then doing a 'static' balance by spinning the wheel and seeing where it stops. Add weights if required.

Works for me.

 

Two words - Dyna Beads

Or similar product, I will never add wheel weights to motorcycle wheels again, or most any wheel for that matter unless it has TP sensors.

 

I've balanced every motorcycle of my own forever and aligning the dot with the valve stem is a complete fallacy.

Unless you check the balance of the wheel first and find the actual heavy point of the wheel, aligning the dot with the valve stem may or may not help, and will actually hurt in many (if not most) cases.

Not one of the wheels (4) on my current bikes is heaviest at the valve stem. In the attached pics (rear wheel from my 2011 Limited) you can see the valve stem is nearly 180 degrees from the actual heavy point.

 

So how about some more pics and a little explanation of your balancing device. And I agree, you need to know the heavy spot of the wheel before you can begin to balance a tire.

 

The balancing stand is just something I slapped together out of some wood scraps, a few nuts and bolts, and four very low rolling resistance, precision ball bearings (see pic “Front Tire change 003”, to the right of tire changer). One side saddle is fixed, the other adjustable up and down (you can see the slots for adjustment in pic “Front Tire Change 008”). This was necessary to accommodate use of the original front axle which has a step in the diameter from one end to the other (see pics “Front Tire Change 007 & 008”). The rear axle is a constant diameter so that adjustability is not necessary for the rear. I have since machined a straight bar with a constant diameter that I use for both the front and rear. The only other thing that can’t be seen in any of the pics is some lag screws in the bottom that I use for leveling the balancing stand before use.

 

Nice job on balancing stand! The glare off those wheels made it hard to look at though!!

 

I balance with ride-on. Is it just snake oil? I don't know seems to work OK and suppose to fix a nail puncture etc.