floating tire balancer ??

[thebannister8]

there was a recent post on using chevy rims on a ford and it got me thinking back to perhaps a method to balance the whole tire and rim reguardless of the machined( or hand ground) integritity of the 4 3/4 center hole...i didn't post there because i didn't know if the method i saw some 30 years ago was an old method or some hack kneed approach employed by the local tire guy...i had 2-3 sets of tires balanced there back in the day and all seemed fine...here's what he did and i wonder if this was standard...he had a large tub that held water( it didn't look home made and was not the same tub he used to check for leaks )...he'd lay the mounted tire in there with the outer hub face facing upward...he'd then lay different weights on the tire until he found the combo where the whole thing was floating level and that's where he mounted the weights

[chiggerranch69]

Balancing a tire like that would only provide static balance . Modern balancers provide dynamic balancing. Dynamic basically means it is balanced top to bottom AND inside to outside. If a wheel and tire is dynamically balanced then it is also static, but not the other way around.