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37" hummer tire balancing

chesapeake

Member
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Location
Winston, Ga
I have searched and read and can't find the answer. I see where people talk about issues with balancing hummer wheels and tires. What is the issue, the tires or the wheels?

I picked up my first trailer this weekend, M1101 with hummer tires and wheels. Wow those are definitely a lot larger than my 275 x 16s

Thanks

Ted
 

doghead

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The overall mass is the issue.

You can only put so much weight on a rim the right place.
 

truck1

Member
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San Anselmo,CA.
I run GM stock 70's era 16.5 rims x 8 1/4 wide with Goodyear 37" surplus radial MT's. They are balanced with 1 - 8 oz. bag of equal in the tire. They are also called balancing beads. No wobble, no vibration and this is my 2nd set of these tires balanced this way . Any tire shop that does big truck tires can do this for you. Works great!
 

Sharecropper

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My 11.00/20 NDT's mounted on custom Firestone split rims weigh over 150 pounds apiece. To balance these things I used 16 ounces of Dyna Beads in each tire and they run smooth as silk. Granted, on cold mornings the nylon bias tires have a flat spot for a half-mile or so, but then they even out nicely. Through centrifugal force, the Dyna Beads automatically move to a spot in the tire to balance the entire wheel assembly perfectly, every time. When you stop, the beads all drop down to the bottom of the tire, but when you get up to around 10-15 mph they start moving around inside the tire to balance it. The advantage to this constantly dynamic balancing is, if you get snow or mud caked up in the rim, the beads will compensate for the added weight. To determine exactly how much Dyna Beads is required for your specific tire/wheel combination, you can go on their website and look at a chart - http://www.innovativebalancing.com/index.php .

Hope this helps.
 

Skinny

Well-known member
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Portsmouth, NH
I run my MT's on Ford rims with zero balancing done to them and they are OK. Remember, these are used and at this point getting fairly old. You will be hard pressed to get one perfect for something of this age and size with conventional weights. Adding a Hummer rim almost guarantees slip on weights being useless due to not being able to add enough of them.

With any tire balancing you have static and dynamic. Beads, powder, BB's will only cure static imbalance issues. Static issues being on spot across the tread width is heavier than another which creates a wheel hop while spinning. The additive will seek the opposite spot and cancel out the problem.

Dynamic imbalance occurs when a single spot on either the left or right side of the tread width is heavy and creates a wobble while going down the road. Additive will not solve these types of problems as it cannot stay to the left or right side of the inner tire. This requires correction by either dynamic spin balancing or rotating the tire on the rim to minimize the runout.

Another important thing to remember is that none of this will cure a tire that has a shifted belt, runout, or bent rims. No matter how well you balance a tire, when the softer sidewall hits the ground the tire dips and causes a vibration...period. Welcome to old tires! Another thing that aggrevates this is worn out steering and suspension parts.

I've had great luck with BB's (which any additive will work) but it only does so much. It worked great on a set of 37's but it also did nothing for a set of 14.5" wide swampers that have been thrashed.

Just keep this in mind when spending money on wheel balancing.
 

stv2258pho

New member
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Location
reading, pa
I'm new here however I've been driving Hummers for 14 years now. Google "balance masters" or
"centramatic wheel balancers". These items are two separate products that help with the Hummer wheel balancing issue. The balancing issue exists because of several issues with the Hummer. One being a split rim, two being the weight of the rim, three being the size and weight of the tire, four comes in if you have run flats inside the tire. Compound all those details and it make for a tire shop nightmare. I use a truck tire shop to balance my wheels off the truck and then I add the balance masters and it runs smooth providing all your steering components are tight and well as all ball joints. A caution to anyone thinking about "equal" the powder the shops want to put in the tire to balance them. If you have CTIS do not use it. I'm a veteran Hummer owner however my M35A2 is a new purchase this past weekend and boy am I still learning :)
 

Skinny

Well-known member
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Location
Portsmouth, NH
Regardless of whether you buy the centramatic balancers, equal, bb's, golf balls, etc. it will only cure wheel hop and not a shimmy (dynamic) balance concern. Your solution is valid but not the end all to wheel balance issues.

No matter what option you choose, the end result is that the tires will never balance out all the well. Welcome to large old carcass treads on heavy steel wheels. Your solution to a well balanced wheel is a nice forged alloy rim with a high quality new tire. Even then they are hard to balance at this size or keep in balance over time. Nature of the beast!
 

chesapeake

Member
142
3
18
Location
Winston, Ga
Thanks everyone for all the information. I am happy that family friends own a tire shop that works on big rigs, farm tractors and passenger vehicles. I think I like the of of stock rims. If I read correctly in other threads the minimum wheel width for 37" is a 16.5 x 6.5. Is that correct?
 

helm1008

Member
58
4
8
Location
Maine
I want to do 37's on my M1008 but don't want to use back spacers is there any aftermarket wheel that you can use?
 
Last edited:

Skinny

Well-known member
2,130
488
83
Location
Portsmouth, NH
My Ford wheels are 9.75" wide and I think are too wide, plus it makes seating the head a chore. Requires a blast gun or ether. I think an 8" would make life easier for servicing.
 

rlltide12

Member
227
1
18
Location
Alabama
Just for the info though. The hummer wheels are 7 inch backspace, these are 4.25 inch, thats 2.75 inches difference. If you only need 2 inch spacers to run hummers, these are more than plenty backspaced
 
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