Anyone running balancing beads?

About to get new tires and debating on running balancing beads vs wheel weights, the thick clay mud in Louisiana generally throws my tires off on the way home from a wheeling trip (closest self wash to the trails is a good 30-45 mins & potential to blast weights off).

I've seen a couple people have issues where they don't balance out, or they'll get slight vibrations when starting/stopping; anyone getting these issues? Or anyone having good results?

PFA

 

I’ve run ceramic beads on a couple of my Land Cruisers, 1993 FJ80 with 37x12.50r17 Falken MTs and my 1972 FJ40 35x10.00-16 TSL SX2 Super Swampers (bias ply tires). I noticed some vibrations when I first start driving or sometimes at certain speeds but it always seems to smooth out quickly. I like the beads for the ease of not dealing with rim weights for wheeling. I daily drove the 1993 for several years with beads and the current owner is still running them now.

 

I have them in my 18" tires now. I'm not sure I went with enough or if they work well with tires this large. Hopefully I can determine this with my next round of parts replacement. BUT, I ran them in my 06 Ram 3500, CRD, which had 17" tires. They worked fantastic in my Nitto's of Firestone's....
Some where I have them to put in my RV tires...14" rims on a travel trailer...

 

do you know how many ounces you used? I was recommended 14 oz but thinking about doing 16oz to be safe

 

so you used the ceramic beads that aren't contained in a bag? Just poured into the tire? I was looking at the counteract beads that come in a bag

 

I’ve always been curious about this. Any impact on tire monitors?

 

I know you have to have special TPMS sensors, or maybe valve stems with mesh over them so the beads don't get in the stem. I don't have TPMS anymore so I'm just gonna look into getting valve stems with some sort of mesh so when airing down/up the beads don't leave the tire

 

They come in little plastic ziplock bags but we just dump them in the tire loose. They work pretty well I started adding 2oz over the recommended when using heavy lug tires.

 

Had them initially on my KO2's. Tire shop put them in without me knowing. Called back as soon as I picked up my truck because it felt like they forgot to balance the tires.
Took it back immediately and had them perform a traditional balancing and never looked back.

 

I contact the company each time I need to use them in a different size tire.
I went with the lighter amount this time, which if I recall correctly, was 5oz per tire. I get the bags pre-measured per tire.

Some times the folks putting them in will throw the bags in, without opening the bags, as they will open them selves, and until they open the tire wont balance and you can feel it.

I may get another oz per tire....

It also depends on the tires. my Nittos were originally balanced with weights, and they were great as they needed very little weight. I ran them on H2 rims for the Dodge. It was a great combo

 

yep, I know this is possible, my boss has them in two cars, he's told me that when the truck sits for a couple days then you drive it'll be rough until everything heats up

 

ceramic beads?

 

Used them years ago in my diesel. Worked fine but just haven't considered it since. Good to know it's still an option.

 

Its true. also at slow speeds that don't allow the centrifugal force hold the beads in place. Was just too much vibration for me. I would be willing to give them a try in the future. I pay for a balancing every 5000 miles or so, and that would save quite a bit of money I suppose. I would also be curious on how the tires wear vs traditional balancing. Great thread BTW

 

how slow of a speed are we talking? My concern is that when I'm trail riding (5-20 mph) it'll be all over the place, but then again going that slow and being aired down I don't think the tires will be moving fast enough to cause a bunch of vibrations..?

can you use them if you air down?

 

Great question. Its my understanding (which could be wrong) that the way the beads work is, once the tire is spinning, the force generated forces the beads to evenly distribute against the inside wall of the tire, and thus balancing the tire as more beads go to lighter areas. If the tire isn't spinning fast enough to hold the beads in place, they just pool around the bottom or move around inside the tire instead of holding to the tire surface. Furthermore, its said that they only correct vertical imbalance and not lateral imbalance. Take short trip through google and read some of the info. I think application, tire size and average speeds all play a factor in this. For instance, if you are off-roading very often, it might be worth it so you don't have to constantly balance because of lost weights.

To answer your question about speed I think it pertains the the beads weight and the tire circumference. But I would think like stop and go city traffic would see the tire unbalanced more often than not.

 

yeah I've done a fair bit of research, I think the slow off road speeds are fine since I've never really started to get wheel shake until like 40 mph, so the crawling shouldn't be a problem. I did read that someone was saying they use it in their rock crawler, and the only issues at slow speeds they have is just hearing the beads roll around, but other than that they were good

This is the first I'm hearing of the lateral vs vertical imbalance; I'll have to take my chances I suppose, but generally I see the mud collect relatively evenly on the inner drum of the wheel

 

this will probably end up being a trial by fire lol

 

yeah I remember reading your post about the centramatic balancers, do you know what type of beads or brand you ran?

 

I’m running counteract in my tires right now. I just recently swapped my tires out last weekend and used counteract. I went with 8oz each tires as what counteract website chart has. I don’t really notice anything different or off during low mph 20-40mph or maybe I’m just not “focused” on that low side of the mph. At higher mph on freeways I do noticed a huge difference from before when I had some kind of sticky weights on the wheel. I mentioned some kind because my wheels and tires then were super hard to balance, I had almost half the inside barrel full of weights and by the time I left the shop all the weights were gone on the two front wheels because the calipers knocked them all off. Then eventually the rears after rotating tires. My wheels are 17x9 and tires are 37x12.5.

what I noticed on freeways was that my steering wheel doesn’t shake anymore between the 55-70mph range during acceleration and deceleration like it has before. Pretty easy to work with on the balancing beads and the truck has been pretty smooth on the street and freeway. I have not taken it out for any off-roading yet since i put it back up on jackstands to rebuild all of the shocks.

 

you left the counteract beads in the bag they come in?
And I'm assuming you have 37" all terrains if they only said 8 oz each tire?

 

I wonder how its gonna work at high speed rough roads, I send it pretty hard on dirt roads and trails so thats got me wondering if the bumping at 40-60mph will really throw the beads off

oh also did you keep the counteract beads in their bag? Or take them out and pour in?

 

Beads always seemed like a janky solution and I never had issues with balancing up to 40s, plus lots of hit or miss reviews. Though I understand your thought process of maintaining balance once there's mud and stuff on the tires.

 

Yeah the clear bags… supposedly it’s suppose to break open once it feels the energy of rotation, the bag is really fragile so if you accidentally drop that clear bag… just buy another one. I also did use the valve core that was included in each of the counteract bags.

37 M/T

 

oh weird, they were telling me 14oz bags per tire

sweet I didn't even know it came with cores as well

 

That seems way to much...Thats the amount for 4 tires in total at times

 

Now that you mentioned it I just checked myself on the site and it says 14oz per tire... Google did me wrong with this research this time... I followed some chart floating around that had Counteract name on it and I saw 8oz.

But no problems still with my experience lol