I am no expert but I have balanced my share of radial tires in the past. I am lucky enough to have access to a Hunter road force machine and got quite good at force matching tires to minimize the mass of wheel weights. I like the challenge of getting a true wheel balance.
With this said I decided to put E70-14 Goodyear Redlines (Kelsey) on my GTS. I just plain like the look of the bias on the older cars. I know the benefits of radials, just wanted that vintage sidewall look. I checked the trueness of my bare rims and 4 were very good, one had a slight runout variation, but still within spec. I decided to use that one on my spare tire.
Today I finally got around to mounting and balancing the tires. I did the spare rim today and was faced with a major challenge. Road force was a massive 48 lbs. After some runout checks and spinning on the rim I got it down to 31 lbs. I just cant get it any better after about an hours on one rim (lost count of how many times I broke the bead to spin the tire). The spin balance reading is about 350g on the inner and 400g on the outer. That is pretty crazy. No way I am putting that much weight on my rims, that would look ridiculous.
Are bias ply repros that out of balance? I can see the sidewall variations as the road force drum does its work. I just ordered a pack of Counteract balancing beads in an attempt to cut down on the weight.

hi try another tire that one mabe defective , ad a goodyear polyglass that was wayyy off once !

I don't have any firsthand experience with the Kelsey/Goodyears but I've HEARD from several people they are really bad to balance.

I didn't balance myself but my Cokers haven't had what I thought was excessive weight on them, and my bias slicks haven't either.

I can't get my Polyglas in balance either. I think it comes down to GoodYear made millions of them and the repos make a few thousand tires, just not as good. I don't think they have as good as traction as they did back in the day, and I drove them back then. You might try a vintage Hunter on the car spin balancer, that was the only way back then to really balance tires.

I started mounting and balancing tires with a hand operated tire changers and a bubble balancers in a "service station" in the early 1960s, if a new tire took more than 12 ounces total weight to balance we would send the tires back to the makers as defective. I've sent more than one total (maybe 6 to 9 tires total) set back in my short times working in several different station back then Those where bias ply only, not belted tires either.
I bought a new set of old Firestone 12.25x31.25x15 W drag slicks that needed close to that and them rascal would bounce horribly around 75 MPH and again near 120 MPH. I race them two weekends and took them off and got rid of them Life is to valuable to take chances on some thing in life
I still use that weight as my guidelines today using my home hand operated machine and bubble balancer

All the ones I have done have all over the place.

i have been balancing tires since 1968, and bias tires [of mostly ALL brands] take weight for sure ! and try balancing a recap winter tread bias. you will have some REAL fun.
i've never tried balance beads with a bias tire, but they work very well in radials. if you go that rout, please check back and tell us how they worked.

Interesting thread. I don’t like seeing more than 2 ounces on my radials, 1 is MUCH better. I had no idea that the old bias plies were that ‘lopsided’ weight wise!

even when i got introduced to a spin balancer around 1971 or so, it still took a bunch of weight at times.
today though, wheels have a much tighter runout tolerance, steel or aluminum, so that helps a ton, balance wise [with radials].

I have the same issues, I race with a very nice gentlemen that owns a shop with a road force machine and he has to work VERY hard to get mine good enough! It also doesn’t help my wheels are like potato chips!

Your wheels must be acid dipped
My rear bias tires would ask for 4 or 5 ounces,,,,then respin and wanted more in a different spot,,,spun again and wanted more!
These were with ET Street 16.5 X 31 & the 10.5W slicks.

As I waited for my beads to arrive, tried the other 4 tires. Had one decent with "only" 18 lbs of road force. Then another with 75 lbs of road force! This was down from 89 lbs on first try.
Decided to balance at 40 psi, which does yield better results. It seems like these tires are butter soft. Going from 32 psi to 40 psi you can see the sidewall grow and move. I will let them sit for a couple of days, maybe some of the wiggle will come out. Or maybe I need to install and drive some to get them settled in, then rebalance. One of the guys was saying that Mercedes has you on tires that are tough to balance, set pressure to max, drive the car hard to get them hot, then set to correct pressure and balance while still warm. I cant do all of that since I need to get my alignment done first, but I can at least go around the block a little and work the tires a little.
But I will see what the beads do. Worth a shot.

I still have a bubble balancer. We used it one day at a friend's shop. It was on sale as his new fancy machine. But took some time he was shocked. In reality o have 2 a old metal triangle shaped yellow or gold colored one. And same brand but newer and heavy plastic. And the 8 lug addlapter plate as well.

. It’s tough to get a carbon fiber wheel to run true!

a couple of years ago, i picked up a [well] used snap-on wheel balancer you install the tire/wheel assembly between a couple of cones on a shaft resting on four sealed bearings, then let it settle the heavy side to the bottom. then, there is a bar that you adjust until you can place the tire/wheel assembly to any position without it moving. it then tells you how much weight is needed in the spot[s] indicated.
this thing was a state of the art deal when introduced, so i figured for the price of four bearings, and freeing up the sliding mechanism, it will be interesting to see how this works, compared to a spin balancer.
or possibly compare wheels to see how far out of balance they are.

Had the same problem with my Polyglas repro F60-15's on factory stock rallye rims and repro rallye rims, rim run out was within acceptable limits, tried all kinds of different weights, remounting on the rim, air pressure combos, you name it, the only thing that worked was 8 ozs of Dyna beads in each tire...zero issues after that, no flaky speed zone vibrations, no issue with inflation ranges either, one note though I use nitrogen to air the tires so that no moisture clumps the beads...


read more if interested?... http://www.innovativebalancing.com/

how did you decide on using 8oz of the beads ? that seems to be twice the recommended amount according to the chart.

and what PSI do you run in your poly's Mike?

road force to 31 will work I will try to put the hi # in the rear I do a lot of them
you can also try a different wheel we have some success with that to
very rare for them to road force less then 20
we also static balance
we run the psi at 32
unless we racing then we start at 23

D,

I 'll run 30-35 psi

Mike