Multiple Tire balance dots??

[redeye]

I'm having a problem with the balance of my new Bridgestone front tire. I know you have line a dot on the sidewall with the valve stem to balance the tire. My problem is there are 3 white dots & one yellow dot. Staring from the 9 o'clock position all the way up to the 12 o'clock position, with the yellow dot at 12 o'clock.

I contacted BikeBandit where I bought the tire & they said to line up the white dot. WHICH white dot?? I'm thinking I should use the single Yellow dot as the balance reference. Anybody else have this problem in seeing dots??

[macmac]

Just mount it and get 2 oz Dyna Beads and forget about it...

[redeye]

Originally Posted by macmac

Just mount it and get 2 oz Dyna Beads and forget about it...

WRONG. I put the beads in last week when I first mounted the tire. I rode the bike & above 30 the viberation comes in & at 65 it will shake your fillings lose.

[macmac]

Really? Thats different... Well then life is going to be bad for a while ain't it... Pull the ft wheel, break a bead off the rim and get the blasted beads out.

Get to Auto zone and buy some mag wheel stick weights with the glue backing.

Get 2 cheap wheel stands, and a set the wheel re seated on the stands with the axle in the bearings and spin the wheel.

With a crayon mark the light spot at the top 12:00 mid night and spin the wheel again. Do that many times and always mark the wheel.

When you have gathered many marks on one local place add a bit of weight and spin the wheel more. By doing this you can probably figure which dot is which dot first of all.

The thing is mostly these days tires are not out of spec very far.

Are you certain the rim and or tire runout is good?

If the rim is still on the bike a dial indicator would be a good test to do. If you don't have the tool a bucket, a pair of vise grips and a big nail can be made into a crude dial indicator.

You just won't have a means to measure it well.

[macmac]

I should have gone on more... The weights as used the first times anyway are to show how much weight the set up is off by.. I am hoping you can work out where the heavy / light spot is, and not install any metalic wheel weights, but that may not be the case.

If you find over 1 oz is off it may well be you will have to use metalic weights.

You could do this on the bike with the ft wheel off the deck, but with the beads in there, I don't know how you would go about gettting them out to start.

[redeye]

Originally Posted by macmac

I should have gone on more... The weights as used the first times anyway are to show how much weight the set up is off by.. I am hoping you can work out where the heavy / light spot is, and not install any metalic wheel weights, but that may not be the case.

If you find over 1 oz is off it may well be you will have to use metalic weights.

You could do this on the bike with the ft wheel off the deck, but with the beads in there, I don't know how you would go about gettting them out to start.

I just re-lined the valve stem to the yellow dot. If this doesn't work, I will remove the beads & follow your directions on balancing with wheel weights........

[macmac]

if you can raise the ft wheel spin it by hand as is on the bike. The calipers must be yanked, but that's just 2 bolts each. Spin it mark it a few times. See if there is a heavy place.

[redeye]

Success...I mounted the tire & wheel this morning. Took the bike out on the freeway & got up to 90 on the speedo. SMOOOTH. No vibration, no following the pavement seams or cracks, & no front end wobble when I let go of the handlebars....All I have to remember is YELLOW DOT and 2oz of Dyna Beads....-Rich

[phenrichs]

Wow, glad to hear you got it working. When you said the beads didn't work I was beginning to wonder if you got a bad tire.

Glad it worked out.

[redeye]

Originally Posted by OP

Wow, glad to hear you got it working. When you said the beads didn't work I was beginning to wonder if you got a bad tire.

Glad it worked out.

The problem was I lined the stem valve with a white dot that was about 4 inches from the yellow dot. I am guessing that this made the tire so out of balance the dyna beads could not correct the problem.....

[macmac]

I wish this was a standard. The rear i mounted had a number of dots and i selected the red one, and 2 oz of beads.. Hit it right the first time.

That dot wasn't in the place i could see it mounting the tire so with a carpenter combination square, I made another dot on the other side I could see.

I think most tires these days are normally very close and you almost shouldn't need to balance tires, bit not all of them are. I test them with a fake axle across 2 jack stands first because I know the ways of sneaky demons.

man you skip a detail and the demons know it.

[redeye]

I'm thinking in the future I will use the dot that is a different color from the others. The white dots may have been put there before BridgeStone found the true balance point......All is well in my world.