Tires and wheels – Page 14 – RoadTraveler.net

August 15, 2011February 3, 2012

Don’t Tolerate Half A Bubble Off

Cooper S/T 255/85R16D on bubble balancer

My friend Paul had a bubble balancer that his father purchased new about twenty years ago, and was willing to lend it to me. They used the balancer on a regular basis to maintain their tires when dad, mom, brother, and sister were all driving thousands of miles a month as couriers. It seemed like an interesting idea, and since I typically have my tires spin balanced using the static (single plane) method, which uses less weight and seems to work well for heavy light-truck RV tires (as they used to be called) I decided to give it a try.

This is one of those things that is better written about a few weeks after the exercise, as the hour-by-hour, day-by-day report would have been a bit too much to share, and would have covered your screen with dirt, sweat, and a few expletives. Like any new skill, there was a learning curve. I’d actually used a bubble balancer about twenty-five years ago when I briefly worked in a tire shop during my youth. Back then, the bubble balancer was only used for the thrifty folks who purchased a tire and didn’t want to pay for a machine spin balance. I didn’t bust tires long enough to become a bubble balance expert, and whatever knowledge I once had using a bubble balancer had long since faded and I was starting over.

Computers are surely a blessing and a curse, but when it comes to finding information the web is an invaluable resource. I can’t imagine having to go to a library and search through volumes of old books and magazines to find information on using a bubble balancer. Though like many things on the web, one must sift through the many of opinions hearsay to find proven techniques that work. It turns out there is more than one way to use a bubble balancer, and one of the methods was even patented!

August 10, 2011February 4, 2012

A New Tire or Two

Old TXR 255/85R16D spare and a Not so old Dick Cepek F-C II 285/75R16D

Several weeks ago I cut a sidewall on one of my LT285/75R16 Dick Cepek Fun Country II (FC II) tires. The story about the sidewall cut and trail will be told later, but with only three FC II treads on the 4Runner I was in need of at least one new tire. Since I had been running a close enough 255/85R16 spare, I decided to buy two FC II to insure I had the exact tire in the unlikely event I ruined another casing in the near future. My calculations indicated that if I rotated the older three tires on one side of the car, all with 3/32″ of wear, and the two new ones on the other side, the wear would even out over the next 30,000-miles.

Most tire warranties don’t cover off-road use. This is term is open to interpretation, as many state and county roads in the rural west are not paved but are still very clearly roads. Regardless, since the three older FC II treads had been purchased mail-order and were not covered under any road hazard warranty, I decided to buy the new tries mail-order as well. One of the local tire shops I do lots of business with would have mounted & balanced the new treads for a reasonable fee, but I decided to play with a little old school technology and balance them myself. It wasn’t easy.

August 5, 2011February 10, 2017

From The Wheels UP

I’ve yet to post anything of substance about tires, but amongst my gearhead buddies I have a well-earned reputation as a light-truck tire aficionado. This started a few years ago when I was writing several articles a year for the Power Stroke Registry magazine, including a few tire reviews. It continued with a new Jeep, then a couple Toyotas, and in addition to my own wear data I’m collecting information from a couple guys running my favorite tread. But this is not a post about tires, it’s even more primal than truck tires; it’s about wheels.

Unless you want to constantly swap new tires on one set of wheels, the best way to test tires is to have more wheels. We have plenty of spare wheels for the older trucks in our small fleet of 4x4s, but the newest rig had only the set it came with. I was not actively looking for wheels when my friend Charlie sent me a message saying there were some wheels for my truck on our local Craigslist.

According to the advertisement these Toyota take-off wheels were previously listed for $500.00, far too much money in my book and that’s why he hadn’t sold them. The seller’s ad also mentioned how much the wheels would cost new from a dealer, which is irrelevant. The seller now had the rims listed for $375.00 or-best-offer. This was still more than I was willing to pay, and the rims were located in about 60-miles away. Considering the time and gas it was going to consume to procure them, I was willing to offer him $250.00. Like another buddy said, “all he could say was no”.

Right before I picked up the phone my new voice of frugality—which has been fighting for a place in my head, and likes to spar with the devil of buy-it-now—whispered in my ear; “what if there is a better set for sale, you better be sure before you buy.” I proceeded to read through all of the results for Toyota wheels, looking for a better deal. On the sixth and last page, listed over a month prior, was a set of wheels for $300.00, or-best-offer. These were the same 18×8″ size, but a different style Toyota aluminum wheel which I actually preferred, and instead of 60-miles away they were literally 1.5-miles near.

So I called the guy, confirmed he still had the rims and told him my situation. Essentially that I wasn’t looking to buy wheels but a buddy had told me to look on Craig’s List, and with a chuckle said, “We all know what that can lead to”. The gentleman said he had actually forgot they were listed on Craig’s List until that very morning, they had been for sale for over a month, and he probably needed to re-list them. Like many he had removed them because he added a spacer lift and new aftermarket rims to his truck, after they logged a mere 13,000-miles. I asked him if he would consider $200.00 and he said sure. I went to the bank and a couple hours later I was giddy with new wheels.