LAT9 wheel balancing

[GPNVCAT]

I have a question that hopefully can be answered here. My Tiger came with stock, original LAT9 wheels when I bought the car a year and a half ago. Luckily, the center caps were never sawed off and glued back on. The drawback is getting them balanced. Since you cannot get a typical wheel balancer arbor through the nonexistent center hole, how do I balance the wheels? I tried a local shop who attempted an "on the car" balance with older equipment, however the attempt was not completely successful. Has anyone experienced this situation before?
Thank you,
Greg

 

[VaCat33]

Greg

Just went through this a couple weeks ago. I s visited several shops and all said no way. You need to find an “old school” guy to do this. My guy balanced the wheels on the car. He uses a machine to spin the wheels and he adds/moves weights until he cannot feel any vibration in fender. It was a slow, tedious process. See photo. I am also told a bubble balancing machine would work. You can buy them online, but I did not want to go that route.

Also, be sure you check the length of shank on lug nuts. I tried to use the ones off my LAT 70 wheels but they were a few mm too long. Seemed OK when I first tightened them down…but found out otherwise soon enough.

 

[GPNVCAT]

I just went through exactly the same process. The tech who has been using the same machine for over 40 years could not dial in my left front. Right front trued up fairly quick and easy and he didn’t even attempt the rears. He had two hours on the left front and got a fair amount of vibration out. I refuse to ruin these wheels by cutting off the caps. There must be another alternative.
Thanks for your shared experience.

 

[IvaTiger]

Bubble balancer should work

 

[michael-king]

I just went through exactly the same process. The tech who has been using the same machine for over 40 years could not dial in my left front. Right front trued up fairly quick and easy and he didn’t even attempt the rears. He had two hours on the left front and got a fair amount of vibration out. I refuse to ruin these wheels by cutting off the caps. There must be another alternative.
Thanks for your shared experience.

How long have you had the wheels?
If newly acquired are you sure they are true?

did you try swapping the rears up the front and see if he can get a better result with those two?

 

[GPNVCAT]

The previous owner bought the car in 1971 and it had the LAT9's on it. I also had the lips turned on a horizontal wheel mill/refinisher and they were true as I watched each wheel get spun. The wheel balancer tech that worked on my car said that if I take the wheels off, to mark where it came off the hub as each is balanced according to the rotor or drum. I really need a modern machine that is designed to balance these wheels without a center hole or on the car. Not sure a bubble balancer is the answer unless I find a guru that is the master of his craft. The ride is nearly tolerable but has a front shake around 60mph. However it dissipates quickly at around 63ish and is fine to 100+. Still want it perfect though... this build is too good to accept a shudder.

 

[GPNVCAT]

 

[GPNVCAT]

 

[spmdr]

A bubble balancer is a form of Static horizontal balancing.

You can get the same result with a VERY low friction turning hub

with the wheel mounted vertical, the heavy part of the wheel will rotate to the bottom.

How well you can balance the wheel is directly correlated to the amount of friction

the hub has to turning.


I have a car trailer with out of balance hubs. a perfectly balanced wheel

becomes OUT of balance as soon as I mount it on the trailer.

I statically balance the wheels any time I change wheels on that trailer.

DW