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Are Goodyear MTs ever actually round?

Edis06

Active member
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So, I installed the "like new" MTs and it turned my truck into an earthquake. Once we dismounted and put them up on the balancer, you can clearly see that they were not round! I put the worst ones on the rear and aired the tires down to 18 psi and that made the truck drivable until I found a new set.

My questions are these:

1. Is this a common issue? According to a quick Google search, it is. I love the look of the MTs so I'd like to keep them.

2. While the max air pressure is 50 psi, the fender markings call for 20/25 on most light HMMWVs. Is this why, and what are most owners running in terms of air pressure?
 

Action

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Look at the tires next to the edge of the rim. Follow the lines on the tire and make sure it stays the same distance from the rim all the way around. I had a bouncy tire, then separated the wheel halves and turned the face 90 or 180 degrees, then bolt back together. That fixed it.
I can jack up a corner and put in D, to watch the tire. I see up to 1/4" movement and still have a smooth ride.
I tend to get a better seat if I use 2 regular nuts on opposite wheel studs. Spin til they touch, then a few turn on one, then the other, then the other. To try and keep the halves centered with each other. Once tight, start with the regular nuts in the correct sequence and torque.
before airing them up, you could remove 2 nuts and make sure the studs are in the center of the holes.
 

Coug

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This is why the knowledgable HMMWV owners install BalanceMasters or Centramatics on their trucks!
Even those won't take care of an out of round tire though.



A big problem with used/surplus tires is you never know where they are actually coming from. They might have been on a truck that was used off road at a training site and got driven around a couple times a week on dirt/gravel, or you might get a set that sat on a truck for 10 years in the desert with low tire pressure.
 

frank8003

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There was one tire manufacturer that stated their tires are round
So, I installed the "like new" MTs and it turned my truck into an earthquake. Once we dismounted and put them up on the balancer, you can clearly see that they were not round! I put the worst ones on the rear and aired the tires down to 18 psi and that made the truck drivable until I found a new set.

My questions are these:

1. Is this a common issue? According to a quick Google search, it is. I love the look of the MTs so I'd like to keep them.

2. While the max air pressure is 50 psi, the fender markings call for 20/25 on most light HMMWVs. Is this why, and what are most owners running in terms of air pressure?
Are Goodyear MTs ever actually round?
No tires are actually round, then, when installed the wheel isn't not round either.
Manufacturing tolerances plus or minus do add together.
I remember when Lincoln first began placing the wheel imbalance 180° out from the
installed tire moment of imbalance for the best ride. Engineering wise that also took care of the "heavy spots" in the tires. Most new cars are like that now, You see a bit of green on the tire versus the wheel now many times.
 

Recovry4x4

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Does truing still exist? We used to take out tires to a dealer in OH and they chucked them up on a truing machine and trimmed some of the tread to make them round. Worked fairly decent for 80s tech
 

Coug

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Does truing still exist? We used to take out tires to a dealer in OH and they chucked them up on a truing machine and trimmed some of the tread to make them round. Worked fairly decent for 80s tech
I think you can find it in shops that service semi trucks, they actually do it on the truck for steer tires to get the ride as smooth as possible. Not sure if they can do it to wheels on drive axles.
 

Action

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Does truing still exist? We used to take out tires to a dealer in OH and they chucked them up on a truing machine and trimmed some of the tread to make them round. Worked fairly decent for 80s tech
I was quoted $100 each from a semi service center at an interstate truck stop. No thanks.
 

gringeltaube

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I was quoted $100 each from a semi service center at an interstate truck stop. No thanks.
I do that with the old lathe and some home-made fixtures. Tires all come out nice and perfectly round (by default of course...) and size/weight is not a problem - but rubber saw dust everywhere, that is... :)

I just uploaded a short video, here...
 

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HN6

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alaska
Wow! I need to come apprentice under you . I can do chores...maybe I can remember a 1/10 of what you can do and know! Electric motor running an axle...

maybe that is what I feel... on my Goodyears.
 

Curtisje

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I do that with the old lathe and some home-made fixtures. Tires all come out nice and perfectly round (by default of course...) and size/weight is not a problem - but rubber saw dust everywhere, that is... :)

I just uploaded a short video, here...
Damn... Nice work. Maybe one day I will figure something out for myself. I'm just patiently waiting to find a mobile machine for sale.
 

Retiredwarhorses

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This is why the knowledgable HMMWV owners install BalanceMasters or Centramatics on their trucks!
really? I’ve never installed a set in 30yrs, have removed several sets as they actually caused more issues than they fixed.
I have a yard full of out of round tires, but they are this way due to sitting in the desert for 10yrs on an uparmored M1123.
 

gringeltaube

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My setup is not so complicated: I rolled the tires by hand this time but discovered later that the lawn mower with hydrostatic drive worked great if I used a ratchet to pull the rear tire of the mower up against the truck tire. The disk is a tire grinder.View attachment 822145View attachment 822146
Yeah, talk about different ways to skin the cat ... the mich, actually. (I like your KISS system! Can I borough your tractor for a while...?:smile:)

I tried all kind of grinding discs before I found that actual cutting (with a carbide-tipped saw blade) goes much faster. But then you need something that gives you a precise and steady (longitudinal) feeding of the tool.
 

Edis06

Active member
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38
28
Location
Florida
This "truing" thing is genius and I didn't know it existed. It would solve my problem.

For the record, I did buy these and have them installed by a semi-truck servicing center. I'm surprised they didn't recommend this. I'm going to shop around to some who may try this for a fee.
 

TOBASH

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No problems here. Luck of the draw?

Centrimatics are the way to go.
 

AOR

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Burtonsville, MD.
So, I installed the "like new" MTs and it turned my truck into an earthquake. Once we dismounted and put them up on the balancer, you can clearly see that they were not round! I put the worst ones on the rear and aired the tires down to 18 psi and that made the truck drivable until I found a new set.

My questions are these:

1. Is this a common issue? According to a quick Google search, it is. I love the look of the MTs so I'd like to keep them.

2. While the max air pressure is 50 psi, the fender markings call for 20/25 on most light HMMWVs. Is this why, and what are most owners running in terms of air pressure?

I like what I see to true them up nice creativity and work!

I can tell you that my M998 with the Goodyear tires came to me driving smooth at all speeds.
I balanced sets for other people and all of them have come out driving smooth
I have the Hunter road force touch balancer GSP9700 and the truck adapter set that fits like a glove into the wheel centers
unless you are able to find a shop with this combination you will probably not get a good balance on any 37" tire. The 20k+ GSP9700 is the best tire balancer on the planet and it does not come with the truck cone set which I think I paid about 1800 just for them a few years ago. I think it uses the same adapter as the GM trucks as I recall. There is a web page to locate shops that have the GSP9700 machine but you will need to ask them if they have that specific truck adapter set which does the 8 lug trucks and maybe even 10 lug I forget. The cone adapter part that goes on the inside of the wheel is hub-centric and it also mounts the face of the wheel by the lug holes at the same time.
I can tell you that I know people at a few local Jeep/Ram dealerships and they will not pay for this type of equipment.
They have referred those customers to us with the lifted trucks and larger tires to balance them.

the GSP9700 will tell you if it will not be able to be balanced smoothly it measures multiple levels of harmonics and gives actual road force numbers and when on the balancer you can easily see if the tires are out of round. It will also do a centering check so if it passes the centering check the wheel is mounted correctly on the machine it measures runout. I own a small off road shop and it took over 5 years to start making a profit doing tire work but at the end of the day when the vehicles do not run smooth down the road the customer is not happy so it was a necessity. We have tried balance beads and centramic rings I can tell you in my opinion the balance beads almost always do not do a good job and the centrimatic rings have been hit or miss but do seem to work better than the beads alone I think they only correct one of the three harmonics though

on another note when you own one of these machines you can see who makes the better tires and overall Goodyear is one of the worst when it comes to balancing them across the board on all of their tires

an out of round tire will increase the road force number and I was told any mud tire over 60# of road force is defective and BFG will replace tires at that number

I have seen a new Goodyear MTR come up at over 300 lbs of road force

I have driven them up to maybe 70lbs if its only 1 tire on the back and they run pretty smooth to me

I have also driven on tires that were under vehicles that did not move in a long time "years" and the flat spots even after 10k of trying they never went away so pretty much if they have flat spots that don't go away after maybe 100 miles of driving they will probably never go away unless you can find a place to do the tire truing or build your own setup
 
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