WHEEL BALANCE ACCURACY



PURPOSE


This section contains tips and procedures for achieving accurate wheel balance. Steering wheel vibration and/or body shake can result if any of these procedures are not carefully observed.
1.Wheels and tyres must be properly mounted on a balancer in order to achieve correct balance. Centering the wheel on the shaft of the balancer is essential for proper mounting.
2.Off-the-car wheel balancers must be calibrated periodically to ensure good balancing results. An inaccurately calibrated balancer could cause unnecessary replacement of tyres, shocks, suspension components, or steering components.
Check your balancer’s calibration approximately every 100 balances. Your wheel balancer’s instruction manual should include calibration procedures. If the calibration procedures specifically for your balancer are missing, use the generic steps in this section for zero calibration, static balance, and dynamic balance checks. The wheel balancer calibration checks are also described in the flowchart. (Refer to ).

PROCEDURE <BALANCING TIPS>


1.Confirm that the balancer’s cone and the wheel mounting cone are undamaged and free of dirt and rust.
2.On this vehicle, the wheel’s centre hole on the hub side has a chamfered edge. Use a back-mounting cone on your wheel balancer to centre the wheel on the balancer shaft.
3.Install a wheel mounting cone. The appropriate size cone for this vehicle is 67.0 mm.
4.Before balancing the wheel, remove any wheel weights from both sides. Also check both sides for any damage.
5.When installing wheel weights, hammer them at a straight (not diagonal) angle.



<CONFIRMING PROPER BALANCE>


1.After balancing the wheel, loosen the wing nut and turn the wheel 180° against the balancer’s hub. Then re-tighten the wing nut and check the balance again. Repeat wheel balance if necessary.
2.Turn the wheel again 180° against the balancer’s hub. If the wheel becomes out-of-balance each time it is turned against the balancer’s hub, the wheel balancer may require calibration.

<WHEEL BALANCER CALIBRATION CHECKS>


1.Mount an undamaged original-equipment alloy rim and tyre assembly (wheel) onto your off-the-car wheel balancer. Balance the wheel.
2.<<Zero Calibration Check>>
Loosen the balancer wing nut, rotate the wheel a half-turn (180°), and retighten the nut. Recheck the balance.

3.Loosen the balancer wing nut, rotate the wheel 1/4 turn (90°), and retighten the nut. Recheck the wheel balance.

4.<<Static Balance Check>>
Attach a 5 g weight to the outer rim. Recheck the balancer. The balancer should detect 5 ± 2 g of imbalance 170 to 190° away from the 5 g weight.

5.<<Dynamic Balance Check>>
Attach a 5 g weight to the inner rim at 180° opposite the 5 g weight that was added in Step 4. Recheck the balance. The balancer should detect 5 ± 2 g of imbalance 170 to 190° away from both the inner and outer 5 g weights.


WHEEL BALANCER CALIBRATION CHECKING FLOW CHART