Balancing my tires

[Penry1]

I’m looking at the harbor freight tire changer and bubble balancer because I’m tired of paying for the shop to do what I can. Is anybody else using this? I have a 2500 and the hub in the middle of the rim is about five inches across. I don’t believe this will work without some kind of bigger cone on the balancer. Has anybody had experience with this setup?

 

[ygmn]

Bubble balancer is really old school and does not work so well since it does not spin tires.

Find a local shop with hunter's ROAD FORCE balancer.

 

[ronthehandymanga]

Concur

 

[Tony Glenn]

I don’t think you will be happy with the results. Maybe look for a used balancer from a tire shop.

 

[07AVSS]

Bubble balance is next to useless on these truck tires. Road force is the only way to go unless you really like to shake and hear rattles...

 

[Trickster]

Tire balancing beads will do a better job at balancing than the bubble method.

 

[-JRW-]

Technically, with some rim protectors and the appropriate tire irons changing the tires is done fairly easily without a tire changer. That's with steel rims, no experience with alloy rims however. You'll build some sweat with a manual changer or doing it on the ground either way.

I watched a lot of videos concerning the HF tire changer and although it seems to work somewhat out of the box hardly anyone has great luck with it without some normal 'HF home improvements' done to them IE: welding and fab work. YMMV

I buy a lot of HF these days normally in the ICON or Badlands series as they seem to be somewhat better quality.

 

[Penry1]

Thanks for the replies, guys! I think I’ll let a shop do it for now and might try the hf machine on some trailer tires or something. Everything I have needs tires in the next year so I’ll check it out.

 

[-JRW-]

Just imagine all the tires a small acreage uses. lawn machines, yard carts with inflatables, trailers, bicycles, etc. Every acreage and larger needs their own tire changer, many times that is a larger child I guess I don't happen to have any of those around though.

Just off the top of my head I have 47+ tires needing attention here. It's a full time job at my speed. That's not including a few of the implements tires.

Needless to say, I have a lot of stuff with low or flat tires here.