The rim where the center cap mounts on one of my Cragars doesn't run true. Would never have known that except the wheel balance machine mounted the wheel using the rim for the center cap. The guy pointed out a wobble when it was on the machine. The wheel runs true when its mounted on the lugs but the its balanced with the wobble and when its mounted on the car I suspect its causing the little shake I get around 70 MPH. I checked with the shop to see if they could balance the front wheels on the car but they can't and they didn't know anyone who did. I need to find someone that can balance the wheels on the car or that has a wheel balance machine that mounts the wheel only the surface that mates up with the rotor. Found a shop in Atlanta that balances the wheels on the car but nothing yet within reasonable driving distance. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Find a shop that has a lug centric balancer. Instead of using the hole in the hub this adapter have fingers that pass through the lug holes instead of the center hole. I hit every new tire store in town and finally found a tire shop, which has been in business since the horse and carriage days, that had the correct adapter.
Thanks. Now I know what I'm looking for. Doing a little Googling, I wonder if the Cragar Unilug wheels might need a unique adapter. Found this comment in a review of a local tire shop: I purchased 4 new Michelin LTX tires and had them balanced 3 times within the space of 1.5 months at the Wake Forest Discount Tire location. We were never able to get rid of a wheel shake issue we had at high speeds (65-75). The 3rd attempt at a balance was on the road-force machine and that didn't help either. I'll leave out the snide mechanic remarks to me about this. I suspect all the problems I had with discount tire's inability to fix my high speed vibration issue were due to how they mount the rim to the balance machine. I suggest everyone google the difference about HUB-centric vs LUG-centric balancing, especially if you own a Toyota/Lexus since therein lies the problem. I took my car over to the lexus dealership and asked them to check the balance of my tires. They saw an issue with the current balance and re-balanced my tires again. This totally fixed my issue. Why? Because they LUG-balance the tire as recommended by Toyota/Lexus. I'll check with a local Toyota/Lexus dealer and see what they have to say about lug centric balancing of unilug wheels.
Where do you get your race car wheels balanced? Is it a shop that caters to racers? Not on one of the bubble balancers from the 50s, is it?
Try a big truck tire or repair shop. Most have spin balancers, just make sure they put on car or sensitive mode.
Call your local Ford dealership. We have a couple of different lugcentric adapters 5,6, & 8 lug on a roadforce balancer. Ford highly recommends these machines for warranty tire claims.
What he said. We have this at work for the rims with plastic appliques. Real common on the new cars. Most of our Chryslers have the plastic over lay wheels. You cant use the center hole cause the plastic is usually smaller than the wheel center. We had to spend 2 grand for the lug centric adapters. I bet your local Chrysler dealer has this. We got a bulletin from Chrysler on what to buy to balance the wheels correctly. You cant balance these types of wheels properly without the fingers.
Thanks, everyone, for the info. I'm still not sure if the Uni-lug wheels need a special adapter to do the lug centric balance. But, I found a post on chevytalk.org by a local guy who had the same problem and found a local shop that did a good balance on his Cragar SS wheels with Uni-lugs. I'm trying to get in touch with him to see where he got it done. Once again, mmb.maverick.to got me on the right triack.
PMed the guy on chevytalk.org that found a local place to do the lug centric balance on his Cragar SS wheels. Heard back from him this morning. He got his done at http://www.gowersbrakeandalign.com/Raleigh-auto-repairs.html and recommends them highly. Thanks for the help. 2thumbs:
OK, I'll keep them as backup. Still don't know if the cursed oval uni-lug holes require a special adapter or not. First I'll try the guy that I know had success with the Cragars.
I found a tire store (Duty Tire, Raleigh, NC) that has the lug centrick balancer with finger adapters. The problem in mounting the uni lug Cragars is they are centered by straight shoulder on the lugs. The straight shouldered lug nuts fit tightly to one end of the uni lug slot or the other, depending on which bolt circle is being used. For the 4.5" bolt circle, the lugs fight tightly on the inside end of the slots. None of his adpaters would fit tightly to the inside end of the uni lug slots. The guy tried to center the wheel using the eccentric washers. MIGHT have worked but it looks like the problem is a manufacturing defect in that one Cragar wheel. With the mounting surface snugged up to the balancer correctly, the wheel center ran true but the rim wobbled. Looks like the steel rim didn't get positioned correctly on the alloy wheel center during manufacture. I called Summit and explained the situation and they agreed to replace the defective wheel. Cragar has a 2-year warrantee on manufactureing defects. Replacement wheel should arrive Tuesday. UPS will pick up the defective wheel. All no charge to me. Summit has been great to deal with when there's a problem with a product.
