I have a set of Wheel Vintiques wheels on my 73 Duster. They are the SS lookalike. Wheel Vintiques says these need to be balanced "lug centric" since the center opening isn't truly centered.
I can't find anyone that can do this. So, I had a thought.

Could I mount a 1" hub centric spacer that has integral studs to the wheels and use that as the centering device?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Ken

What's a SS lookalike? You mean a Magnum 500?

We have an old school alignment shop in town and they would do old school On Car wheel balancing with my brothers magnum 500's on his 70 Mach 1.

You spin the wheel with a machine with a drum to drive the tire. Then the guy feels the fender for vibration. Adds weight through a trial and error and experience process. Works very well.

I would think that the hub centric spacer would center the spacer on the hub/drum cuz the center hole of it would fit tight on the raised register and the lug centric spacer with the right lug nuts of course would center the wheel on the spacer. there oughta be an easier way than fabbing one of those up tho. Can you use some 1" (wrench needed) racing 1/2" tapered lug nuts to center the wheels as is?

I think you are referring to a strobe balancer, uses a strobe light to help you balance the wheel tire assemy.

I have one.

Does the OP have picture of the rim in question, I bet anyone could balance it? Why would WV make a wheel that is hard to get balanced?

FWIW, this is the strobe part of the balancer. The vibration sensor mounts under the car on the corner your balancing and the strobe faces the tire. You usually put a white mark on the tire sidewall right next to the valve stem or use the valve stem as reference and spin the tire assy and use the strobe to determine where the weights go, no guessing involved.

Can't find a picture of the motor that drives the wheel yet, but did find this picture of my tire lathe. It'll true the tire on the spindle to provide a exactly round tire. It minimizes big time how much weight must be used to balance your tire and provides a super smooth ride. Makes your tires last longer too.

Not just WV. From Specialty Wheels website;

"WHEEL BALANCING
All of our wheels are designed to be balanced from the lug holes only"

Over the past few years, between myself and friends, we have purchased 5 sets of Magnum style wheels. 3 from WV and 2 from Specialty. There is no one in our area that can balance by lug holes so we balanced the normal way. All balanced up well, normal amount of weights and no vibration at highway speed.

Lug hole balancing is probably the better way, but we have had no problems with the normal way.

I cant believe no one in your town has a lug centric adapter for their machines, they have been common for at least 20 plus years that I know of. It is a fixture with pins that go through the lug holes and then the cup goes over them to hold the whel tight. Many have adjustable pins and some are pattern specific. Next time I'm in one of my stores and think about it I'll gtet a picture and post it. Their are usually several sizes in the basic accessory kit when you buy a balancer of any quality. A high percentage of dually tires are lug centric. Someone in your town has to have them, they are required/essential equipment for many manufactures. Here is an example of one style I pulled off of the bag.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LUG-CENTRIC-ADAP...633&vxp=mtr

when I had cars with magnum 500 wheels I made my own adaptor to properly balance them.

I picked up a 70's 2 piece rotor and removed the rotor from the hub, removed the inner bearing races and installed new wheel studs. it slid right on the balancer shaft and I used a small cone to center the hub on the shaft. it worked perfect.
the only problem is I gave it to the buyer of the car when I sold it.

Service station I worked at in 71-73 ( high school job) had a strobe balancer.. Old school back then, but wish I had it now to balance wheels and tires....

To do the rear wheels you didn't need the electric drum you just hooked up the strobe and jacked up the car and ran it up to 120mph slowly. Really had the rear wheels balanced well.

The wheels are called Comet. They look like Cragar SS. I purchased them through Summit. They use mag lugs and are unilug. They were balanced the regular way but I have a vibration about 60 mph. I contacted Summit and they told me about the lug centric balancing requirement.

I was just going to buy a hub centric spacer if it would work. I don't have the ability to make one.

I remember seeing the on the car balancer with the strobe back in the early 80's. I forgot about that. I'll check around and see if anyone has one.

I tried all of the larger tire stores in the area and no one has the lug centric adapter. Guess I'll start trying some of the smaller places.

Thanks for the feedback.

Ken

have you thought about using ceramic beads ?

No, I haven't. But now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about them. I think I'll check it out.

Thanks.