Balancing weld wheels

[93/96 f-body]

I finally got my new tires & rims for my 93. I went with weld draglites. I've never owned any of these but when i had the tires mounted at NTB they said they could balance them due to the center compression ring in the rim centers floating around not giving them a true reading each time.Is there another way to balance them an older bubble balancer?

[Injuneer]

You can static balance them by putting the shanked lugs in the holes. I've found that to be satisfactory, but I don't generally drive on the street with the Welds.

Use tape-on internal weights, and cover them with duct tape. Make sure the weights are not put on in a location that will catch on the brake calipers.

I thought the shop that did mine told me that they could spin balance them with ferrules that hold the ring in place. But I only wanted a static balance.

[Joe 1320]

You can static balance them by putting the shanked lugs in the holes. I've found that to be satisfactory, but I don't generally drive on the street with the Welds.

Use tape-on internal weights, and cover them with duct tape. Make sure the weights are not put on in a location that will catch on the brake calipers.

I thought the shop that did mine told me that they could spin balance them with ferrules that hold the ring in place. But I only wanted a static balance.

That's the way mine are and I actually drive them on the street. No problems.

[93/96 f-body]

Thanks guys.I thought there should be some way to hold that ring and balance them.I'm going to take them to another well known shop.I wish i still had my zr1 rims for street use but the stock rims salad shooters will have to do for heavy use.

[fastTa]

Most of the knowledgeable tire techs will use loose valve stem's placed in each hole on the wheel helping to center the hub centric spacer/ring. It sounds like a crude way to do it, but it works quite well actually. Just suggest it to the tech and they will know what you are talking about as they have likely used this technique before

Most tire shops (even Discount Tire) don't have the proper hub centric locators on their balance machines. There are only two shops in the San Antonio area that have digital Coates type balancers. They are accurate within 0.5 grams. Call around and and find out who has this capacity in your area. The local speed shops will likely be able to point you in the right direction.

It is important to get the tires match mount balanced. Here is a quote from Tire Rack describing match mounting techniques:

Match mounting tires on wheels is a process where a tire's installed position on the wheel is specifically selected to help minimize the final combination's force variation and/or imbalance. One match mounting procedure aligns the tire's measured high point of radial force variation with the measured low point of the wheel's radial runout. The other simply aligns the tire's lightest spot with the wheel's heaviest spot.

The first procedure usually works best.

Also keep in mind that you need to use hub centric specific lug nuts. Hub centric type wheels like your Weld's do not have tapered lug stud holes, so you will not be able to use a non hub centric lug nut.