True your own tires? :)

[Alvin in AZ]

Yep, here's another crazy idea from Nuttyboy. :/

Called all over town asking for who to call and only found two guys that
knew what tire truing even was. :/ The one outfit I found that trued tires
was in the business of pre-truing tires. So they had to have the tire off
the wheel. Well heck, part of the effect is truing it as an assembly to be
round -and- concentric. I'm wondering if all those old half used-up tire
truing machines hadn't gone to Mexico?

Anyway, about ten years a go I tried to true tires myself and it didn't work
out so good. :/ But yesterday it worked out great.

The tricks are:
1) get a 36 grit blue/green sanding disk for your little hand grinder <--!!
2) figure out a way to spin the tire so you can mark it
3) get something solid so you can mark the tire with a lumber crayon
4) mark the tire, then stop it, then grind off the marks, over and over

#2 is easy for a 4wd or the rear tires on a 2wd

BTDT before for the front on a 2wd but need to experiment today to
rediscover (or even improve on) that old way I did it before.

No kidding, it worked out great (and smells kinda cool too.

But the most important part...
Anybody got any better ideas and/or improvements?

Alvin in AZ

 

[LEB Ben]

Most people think cutting rubber off the tire will kill tire life, but I've read seen that truing can INcrease tire life by 15-25%.


One question though Alvin, with your technique, how do you figure which part of the tire needs truing...or do you just uniformly grind the face? I guess what I'm asking is how do you know you're not taking too much? I suppose that's covered in steps three and 4, but I'm just having an issue visualizing it.

 

[flareside_thunder]

I'm probably slow but I don't understand what you mean in 3 and 4....

 

[Alvin in AZ]

I'm probably slow but I don't understand what you mean in 3 and 4....

#3) I used a stack of bricks and laid the lumber crayon on the top.

Work on the side of the tire that's "going up" for safety, so the tire can't get
something under it and drive itself off the blocks! LOL Just now thought of
that (it seemed so obvious to me yesterday in practice).

#4) While the tire was spinning at ~25 mph (the speedometer is reading even
tho the tires are off the ground) using the stuff in #3... color the high spots.

BTW, pull the gear shift lever out of 5th gear before turning off the engine.
No need for the clutch just jam into 2nd then jam it into 4th then 5th.

With an automatic you might have to wedge something in the carb/TB stop?

-----------

Ben, I've heard that about greater tire milage and it wouldn't surprise me if
it were true because of all the squirming around an out of round tire's face
does.

For me tho? I couldn't care less about tire mileage, I just want it to roll as
smooth as I can get it to roll. LOL

A firm feeling stiff suspension and smooth rolling tires and a drive shaft that
ain't vibrating either... now that all sounds like heaven to me.

Sculpting something has always been easy for me. I'm not sure what to tell
you about that part of it, it's just something I see too easy to describe it? :/

The grinding effect of the sanding wheel isn't that fast so that'll keep you
out of trouble. But no, there was a definite stretch of tire that was never
ground down, it was the low spot to begin with. I worked on the worst tire
and a "good" tire yesterday. The worst-first, and after 20-30 minutes was
-way-better- than the "good" one! LOL

---------------

I've stood there at a tire shops in years past and watched 'em take huge
super-bad-cupped (mud) tires off 4wd's and re-balance 'em and put 'em
back on! LMAO

Gawd, that's sick and twisted of the tire guys to do that to "the stupid" like
that. :/

Talked to one guy yesterday that knew about truing tires and told me they
("the stupid") just buy new tires now when they get cupped up like that. LOL
He thought it was dumber than hell too, but that's just the nature of the
brave new world we live in?

Alvin in AZ

 

[blacksnapon]

Here you go (and no rubber removal)

Start by spinning the tire/wheel combination (slowly is preferred). Assuming that no human can manufacture anything perfectly round, while spinning, mark the "egg" shape high spot of the wheel, then mark the high spot of the tire. Remove the tire from the wheel, then rotate the high spots 180 degrees from each other. You'll be suprised how much easier it balances and how much more "true" it is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Have pictures? I still don't understand it.

 

[Alvin in AZ]

Start by spinning the tire/wheel combination (slowly is preferred). ...while
spinning, mark the "egg" shape high spot of the wheel, then mark the high
spot of the tire. Remove the tire from the wheel, then rotate the high spots
180 degrees from each other.

x2

BTDT on steel wheels and crooked axles but there's nothing all that crooked
on my '91 Bronco with brand new alloy wheels. Yep, I carefully checked my
rear axles and they are straight as can be expected (not detectable).

-----------------

Getting the tire up to a pretty good speed -for marking- I believe is part of
what makes this new process work so good. Just got done putting a home
made grinder up against a (front 2wd) tire and it spins it fast enough to be
kinda scary sounding. LOL The one I used is similar to this one...

http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/grinder.jpg

I made a point of using the "back side" so the face of the tire wasn't coming
"down" against the grind stone.

Nuttyboy in AZ

 

[Alvin in AZ]

Have pictures? I still don't understand it.

http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/file12/tiretruing1.jpg
http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/file12/tiretruing2.jpg
...yep, now I do.

Alvin in AZ
ps- Took 16 minutes to take the pictures, load 'em, re-scale 'em and
post 'em to my website using FTP also SSH to change the permission.
pps- In the meantime realized I need to go for a drive and "un-flat
spot" the tires before marking 'em and grinding on 'em. LOL
ppps- That's something the "old pros" would require before truing tires
or they had a cage to put them in and it'd roll 'em and warm 'em up.

 

[Ridgerunner]

http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/file12/tiretruing1.jpg
http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/file12/tiretruing2.jpg
...yep, now I do.

Alvin in AZ
ps- Took 19 minutes to take the pictures, load 'em, re-scale 'em and
post 'em to my website using FTP also SSH to change the permission.

Thanks.........

 

[blacksnapon]

I've used the slow marking method (otherwise known as tire matching) many times. I usually mount them up on a wheel balancer and spin them by hand. I used it once on some 44 inchers that couldn't be balanced previously, and removed a pound of weight from a couple of them.

 

[Alvin in AZ]

A few updates.

http://www.panix.com/~alvinj/file12/tiretruing1.jpg

Ok, forget about the other picture, there is no need for the "knife grinder"
to turn the tire anymore. I pushed the front disc brake farther the next
time and tapped it back with the handle of a hammer and made it spin so
easy that the 4+1/2" hand-grinder could turn the tire at a good 30mph by
itself. Makes it handy as anything since you are already there sitting on
a milk basket and using the little hand grinder and all anyway.

Shaking to beat hell at 60 to 65mph to smooth as anything at 95+mph!
How's that sound to ya? ...and that was with a home balancing job.

Last one is the yellow lumber crayon kinda sucks since it's too hard for
tires and needs too much pressure to mark the tire good. Went to a tire
shop and they gave me a better crayon it's like those used by junk yards
to write on windshields, I guess?

------------------------

Now that I got all that typed out... going to go out and get busy truing
the 235/85-16E's on my '75 F150. I figure there won't be a need to
re-balance them, they're pretty dangged good at 75 mph already. ??

All I can say is it works great, but ain't real easy to do, you should figure
on working at it a little bit or don't even try it. :/ Years of "wear resistant
technology" is working against you here, see?

Alvin in AZ

 

[73F100Shortbed]

Got a cam to make a youtube video? I think I would understand your method much easier

 

[Alvin in AZ]

Got a cam to make a youtube video?
I think I would understand your method much easier

Sorry I don't know how to do that. LOL No kidding.
If my oldest son wasn't a geek, I'd have no pictures at all.

The best way to understand it is to get out there and give it a try!

The explanation on how to get the front wheels with disc brakes to
spin free will suddenly become obvious ...and so on, as you run into
one little problem after another, the descriptions here will then seem
obvious as anything to you.

-------------------

Took the weights off the rear tires of the '75 after truing the tires
and that baby ran much smoother at 75mph (on blocks than it did
before, so I did something right. I half assed balanced the front
tires right in place, after truing them and they took less weight than
before.

Alvin in AZ
ps- the white paint stick worked great but about used-up on 4 tires

 

[73F100Shortbed]

Ok I will try it when my tires get messed up

 

[Alvin in AZ]

Ok I will try it when my tires get messed up

Good plan.

 

[Alvin in AZ]

I've got a 10 mile stretch of brand new pavement on I-10 to test on.
But that brand new pavement also lets the harmonics in your vehicle
really get going too, because a rough road can interrupt and/or cover
up some of them.

Now my '75 F150 now rolls smooth as anything at 85+mph. There's a
lot of -cars- out there that vibrate more, no kidding, it's that smooth.

I plumb forgot how cool it was to drive on trued tires! LOL

Alvin in AZ