Arizona Rock Crawling Daily Driver

Took it to Big O today and the guy at the counter was a total idiot. He told me “sounds like you gots the death wobbles that ain’t tires”. Oh really? So why Did I have no death wobble a week ago? How did discount tire give me death wobble? He said they won’t even try balancing them because they have some cupping. They will never run smooth he said. Then why did they run smooth a week ago? Frustrating…
 
Took it to Big O today and the guy at the counter was a total idiot. He told me “sounds like you gots the death wobbles that ain’t tires”. Oh really? So why Did I have no death wobble a week ago? How did discount tire give me death wobble? He said they won’t even try balancing them because they have some cupping. They will never run smooth he said. Then why did they run smooth a week ago? Frustrating…

That sucks. Try calling the Discount on Warner and Cooper. Not exactly close to you, and I don't run 35's but I've been going there for years and they have their act together. May be worth a shot.
 
Took it to Big O today and the guy at the counter was a total idiot. He told me “sounds like you gots the death wobbles that ain’t tires”. Oh really? So why Did I have no death wobble a week ago? How did discount tire give me death wobble? He said they won’t even try balancing them because they have some cupping. They will never run smooth he said. Then why did they run smooth a week ago? Frustrating…

Hopefully you can find someone competent.

Can't remember, do you have Centramatics?
 
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Yeah I do

15's or larger? i suspected when i got mine 15" they are not quite enough to do the job alone, but might could be an aid to the troubles you're having now. 1 might figure those should be helping.
if anybody is going up in rim size and thinkin about these things might it be wiser to opt for the largest units that can be fit

and TBH mine feel/sound like they have a handful of rice in there, i sure don't feel the oil they claim the beads float in.
 
Called tire pros (same shop my dad has gotten good balances from). They sounded skeptical and said they would put my tires on their machine. They said if it zeros which it probably will then they aren’t touching them. First wheel goes on. Calls for 19 oz. Guy comes back and says he doesn’t know how or why these were balanced the way they were but they aren’t right. He said to get that tire balanced correctly he’d have to spin the tire on the wheel. I asked him nicely to please to do that and balance them all. Fingers crossed!
 
Called tire pros (same shop my dad has gotten good balances from). They sounded skeptical and said they would put my tires on their machine. They said if it zeros which it probably will then they aren’t touching them. First wheel goes on. Calls for 19 oz. Guy comes back and says he doesn’t know how or why these were balanced the way they were but they aren’t right. He said to get that tire balanced correctly he’d have to spin the tire on the wheel. I asked him nicely to please to do that and balance them all. Fingers crossed!

to get the ugly spot opposite the valve probably.

i got a peek at the owners race cars today and they use the sticky back flat leads on the inside face of the rim....anyway, they take some silver tape and put it over those to keep them from coming off and/or lifting and catching. i'll ask the mechanic if it's a specific tape next time i see him, certainly looks like it is.. but a good idea to help ensure they stay.
 
to get the ugly spot opposite the valve probably.

i got a peek at the owners race cars today and they use the sticky back flat leads on the inside face of the rim....anyway, they take some silver tape and put it over those to keep them from coming off and/or lifting and catching. i'll ask the mechanic if it's a specific tape next time i see him, certainly looks like it is.. but a good idea to help ensure they stay.

Most of that stuff is a conversion type pressure sensitive adhesive that takes a bit of time to cure to full strength. The tape will hold it until the tire spins and then that force compresses them and works betterer. If you have tried to remove old sticky weights, it makes a lot more sense.
 
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Most of that stuff is a conversion type pressure sensitive adhesive that takes a bit of time to cure to full strength. The tape will hold it until the tire spins and then that force compresses them and works betterer. If you have tried to remove old sticky weights, it makes a lot more sense.

it looks like some sort of foil tape. IDK it tapers the ends and sides of the pieces and keeps them tight n clean. thought it might be a OK idea maybe help keep them from being sheared loose by stuck debris in the tight areas we have on 15" rims or around BBK's.
 
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The balance is much better. It’s not perfect. They spun the tires on the wheels 180* to use less weights. They cut the amount of weights in half so there’s just one small group now. They said the tires are definitely out of round, especially one the back ones which I can feel. At the very least I’m not getting a giant steering wheel wobble anymore. Every once in a while I can feel a baby shimmy in the steering wheel when going over lumpy roads, but I don’t think I’m the only MTR owner with that problem.
 
to get the ugly spot opposite the valve probably.

i got a peek at the owners race cars today and they use the sticky back flat leads on the inside face of the rim....anyway, they take some silver tape and put it over those to keep them from coming off and/or lifting and catching. i'll ask the mechanic if it's a specific tape next time i see him, certainly looks like it is.. but a good idea to help ensure they stay.

Most likely something like this https://www.summitracing.com/parts/isc-rtaf3150
 
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I have just been thinking that a 15" diameter that's not even 1" wide can't correct a ~35" diameter at 12.5" wide. Maybe when the disparity between the balances is too far they cause more harm than good.

I think so. I tried them on two separate occasions and both times they didn't seem to fix anything but make it worse. Passed the second set on to Stark so he could suffer.
 
For my front shocks,
I need the lower mount to be an eyelet, not a bar pin because I have the poly shock mounts on there from the PO. So I cut the bar pins out and the bushing hole was too big for the 1/2” bolts. I ordered some new bushings and eyelet sleeves from poly. Now I can mount these puppies up even though the travel bias won’t be perfect yet.
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Took off my centramatics wheel balancers and it rides way smoother now and cleaned up some of the remaining harshness I was feeling. I think my balancers are bent.

I noticed this too. Been fighting some wobbles of my own. Tire shop recommended I remove them and try it. I did, and it's better, but not perfect. Interestingly enough, fixing my intermediate shaft also helped some. I also noticed there is like 12+ oz of weight on my pass front tire. So...I gotta go argue with them to rotate that tire on the rim and see what that gets me.
 
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Got the new front shocks put in! As of now they have just under 5” up and 6.5” down. My plan is to raise the upper mount ~1” using some old stock shock towers that Blaine kindly sent me. That will put me at 6” up and 5.5” down. I’ve deemed that my reasonable downtravel comfort level for short arms. The bias will be fine for streeting it for now.

The test ride was awesome! Just pulling out of my driveway off the rounded curb I could feel a change. The most notable change is that the shocks are a LOT stiffer. And what I mean by that is it felt like all of a sudden I had a stock swaybar up front instead of an antirock. Huge reduction in body roll and increase in stability. I need to drive it on some more rough stuff to get a better picture.
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