I am considering using Airsoft Pellets in my AEV Beadlocks and MT ATZ 35" tires I am getting, is anyone else using Airsoft Pellets in thier tires? I am going to get the .20g 6mm pellets and drop about 8 oz in each tire.

 

sorry to bother but what is this all about?

 

There are people doing this because they feel that large tires are hard to balance with small wheels. The balancing weights are placed on the wheel and are further away from the tire's diameter as you get larger sized tires.

http://4x4trailhunters.com/article.php?id=18



With that said, I dont think doing this is really worth it. Also I dont think you'll have much problems balancing a good wheel like an AEV and if you dont go with cheapo tires, I doubt you'll need "a lot" of weight to balance them. Go with Toyo's or BFG's.

 

Personally I would guess that your 35s would balance out fine. If you are going to do it, I would get a spin balance, mark the tire and wheel, and then add the pellets. After the pellets are in, you can re seat the bead with the marks lined up. It should be the best of both worlds.

Outside links to other 4x4 boards are discouraged, but for those that think this is nuts google

airsoft pellets tire balancing

for pages and pages of results. I could not find one person that had actually done it that had a specific problem. I'll take a wild guess and say that the density of these pellets makes them require slightly more volume than suggested on the innovative web page.

 

While i was quite impressed by the idea of internal media balancing and understand the physics behind it.. i have to say that i would steer clear of it. The idea of a permanent balance also sounded great, however, after having my 35's balanced for the 7th time yes thats right seven times. they are finally balanced. So hear me out.

balance #1 I started at NTB with stock rims and 35x12.50x17 dick cepek mud countrys. They balanced them with lead weights and told me they did the best that they could. Apparently that NTB can't do very well cuz the jeep shook like all hell at all speeds.

#2 within a few days i braught it to safeway tire in cleveland and had them do a powder balance, the stuff is called EQUAL and it goes inside the tire, its a dry siliconized polymer and their charts said to use 4-6oz... we used six still shook better than before but still shook.

#3 went back to safeway tire since they said it had to be bent rims even though they appeared fine to everyone, so five new rims and over $1000.00 later we re-powder balanced them since they claim once you remove the tire from the rim its not salvagable.. again it still shook,

#4 i contacted innovative solutions, the company that makes dynabeads and asked them about their product, they were very helpul and said to use 10 oz as 6 was definately not enough for for that tire. in an effort to save some cash, i baught the extra EQUAL from a trucker store and added four more ounces to each tire through the valve stem... what a pain in the ass that was. anyway, they now had 10 oz. per tire and were riding much better, but still shaking. biggest issue i noticed throughout all the balances was around 40 mph the steering wheel would chug back and forth a bit and it would occasionally turn into a mild death wobble. at this point i checked, rechecked and retorqued the entire suspension. with no progrees. i ordered adjustable lower control arms, set the caster, redid the alignment and still no improvement.

#5 so i took it to a place that has the dynabeads in stock and had the equal in all five tires shop vac-ed out and had 12 ounces of dynabeads put in each tire. the death wobble got a lot worse and a lot more frequent. again i rechecked the suspension, adjusted toe, rotated tires etc etc. eventually i got a combination that helped, but still had the shake, especially when it got cold.

#6 back to the dynabead place to have lead weights added to the tires via the reccomendation of the the dynabead rep on the phone which helped tremendously. but of course it still shook. So this morning i took it for

#7 went to an offroad place that had wieghts as big as 6 oz. in one weight and had all five tires shop vac-ed out again, and had them lead weight balance all five tires and finally, after almost two months of driving with the shakes, the jeep drives like a DREAM!!! No more shake, no more wobble, and before i could only hit about 75 before the jeep would start to vibrate so bad my teeth were about to fall out, now i can hit 85 and it still rides smooth as can be.

so my overall take on the the internal media balancing is not to bother. The EQUAL worked a lot better than the dynabeads as its less dense and can static cling in place, the dynabeads are solid ceramic and bounce like crazy... so what do you think happens when you hit a hard bump in the road, they bounce around inside the tire and throw the balance way out of wack until to come to a stop and they settle at the bottom.

In the beginning i was really happy with the EQUAL Powder balance, only because i didn't know any better. I thought since it was my first time riding on 35's that they were just rougher than the old 33's i used to have. Plus it is a very aggressive tire etc etc.. but the colder it gets outside the more the internal media balance stuff acts up. sometimes it works and the next day or next mile even down the road it wouldn't balance hardly at all. Now that the tires are lead weight balanced and i can see how nice they ride, i know that i will never again be using anything inside the tires other than air or nitrogen. In the end, its entirely up to you and if you have the equipment to mount and dismount your own tires, then i say it might be worth a shot, maybe it will work for you.

but i know i've spent like 1100 on rims, 200 on adjustable lower arms a total of 600 on balance jobs so a total of $1800.00 because i didn't just go to a good shop that has experience with heavy off road tires to start with. If i had just gone to the offroad shop in the first place, i could have saved a lot of dough... if i would have gone to them anytime sooner than i did i would have saved money. But like i said, its up to you, maybe the internal balance thing will work for you or for your tires, but i can tell you from experience that it most definately wont do the trick for Dick Cepek 35x12.50x17 Mud Country tires. Good luck on whatever route you go.

 

Dude please for all of us hit the effing return button once in a while.

 

Gonna be honest. I didn't read this. Way too much words and not enough spacing

 

lol....ditto

 

actually some of this doesn t surpise me. i do medium truck tires (tractor trailer) for a living and have been for 7 years. we used to (before equal balance) run 4 or 5 golf balls in the steer tires of trucks. surpisingly enough this really does work. but like i said in a post before, spin balance and equal both have pros and cons. it depends on the owner and what they like.

 

x2!