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i ran out of lead tape, and i was wondering what you guys use to balance your wheels. i've seen all kinds of crap to balance wheels. screws, coins, nuts, hood pins, pistons, washers, broken keys, gobs of glue, and a parents kid tooth. from your personal experiences what did you guys find that worked best?

also, has anyone tried fixing their warped wheels? any special tools that you made or found to straighten your wheels? or a process you go through to fix the problem? something like hot water or maybe using a heat gun, something along those lines.

I have a box of wheels/tires to balance. I am thinking about using bits of masking tape or model clay but, I like the tooth idea now, just have to hold the kid down.

lol, i couldn't stop looking at it when i saw. what he told me was that his kids tooth fell out and thought it would give him luck that night.

What kind of wheels do you have that are warped?

they're associated. every once in a while i'll get one set that has a warped wheel. i freaking hate that.

Elmers white poster tack putty on the inside of wheels. Simple, cheap and you can remove it if you want to re-balance later.

have you tried it doug? that's much better than chucking the whole tire and wheel away.

I have a stack full of XXX race wheels/tires on a shelf all balanced with white poster putty. It works great.

I've used wood putty but I'm going to give the Elmer's putty a try for my next set.

I have used the blue and white poster putty before, with different results. The white has a bit less tack, so it attracts less dirt, but the blue sticks better to slick surfaces. Either way, it's a good, inexpensive solution for balancing.

I have been using shoe-goo or silicone sealant type stuff to attach weights. Once it dries it doesn't really attract dirt, and is fairly easily removed if need be. For actual weight it depends on the size of the wheel and how out of balance it is. sometimes a small 4-4o nut, but some wheels need a bunch of lead. I have used the lead bars that the hobby shop sells for pinewood derby racers. Cut to size with strong side cutters and simply add or remove bits of it to fine tune.

one of the hardest tires to balance is schumacher minipin blue 2.2 truck tires. they are severly off balance and often have lots of mold flashing around the center where the two halves meet. they would vibrate so much it would shake the whole truck on or off the track. also when they stuff them in the bag to tightly they sometimes come out with flat spots. i would use standard hobby shop magnet tape on the inside of the rim to balance them out either the 1/2" or 1" wide tape cut into 1" strips depending on how bad they were. it is eaiser to use then lead tape and i never lost one yet, it removes eaisly with a small screwdriver and leaves little residue behind.

i noticed that you guys with the warped wheels still balance them. it's interesting to see that you guys just stuff them with a crap load of weights. no one has tried straighting them?

Much more racing lead wheel tape is the go mate

How about hot glue from a glue gun?

I haven't balanced any rims for a while, but I've been thinking that hot glue would be the way to go in future. Just dab little beads in the inner rim until they are balanced, and they should pull away cleanly when it is time to remount tires in the future.