i recently purchased a set of ss3's. So i would mount 1 on the rear of the car and put it in drive to spin it. there all out of round.

my question is; in a perfect word they would be true, but whats the acceptable run out, I'm sure this style of rim wasn't perfect from the factory.

i didn't put a dial indicator on the rim, just a line of sight kinda thing, they all move about a 32nd to 1/16.

thanks jason

 

Is this a side to side or an up and down non scientific appraisal.

 

up and down

 

Not very realistic to think your eye can see a 32nd of an inch variance on a turning wheel, if there is a tire mounted on that rim it would be almost impossible to detect a 32nd of an inch with the bulge of the tire over hanging the rim.

 

i will spell it out, i took the tires off the new rims, wire brushed the rims and cleaned them very well, i jacked up the back of the car removed egzisting passanger wheel, chalked the drivers side. mounted the rim on the paganger side with five lug nuts and torqued the nuts to spect, started the moter with the back of the car in the air, with the motor running put the car in drive and the right wheel spun. i proceden to set a box near the spinning rim (kind of a guide) with a straight blade screw driver craftsman model st 136. i inched the straight end of the blade closer and closer to the rim where the tire would mount, and notesed a changeing amount of clearance inbetween the screw driver and the rim. how ****** thick do you think i am!!!!!

 

Did that screwdriver have a red & blue handle or just clear?

 

"how ****** thick do you think i am!"
=========================

Wow, that's not something I would ask, for fear of getting an honest answer!
__[e.g. see below; some folks are more honest than kind]

Sounds like you are on the right track.
Can you use a real dial gage and turn it by hand?
Shipwreck Tools has "darn near adequate" dial gage for cheap.

I vagely recall both egg and lateral [sideways] runout specs on the order of 0.030 [thirty thousandths for you thick readers :-) ] which is right about 1/32", give or take 1.25 thousandths.

Screwdriver and eyeball is a good start but not what you would call sufficiently accurate. Can rule out a real bad one easy enough though.

 

Phillips or Standard?

All joking aside, I would put a tire on it, get it balanced and see. Does not sound like much and maybe it's movement in the suspension from vibration that you see.

 

Are you gauging runout against the outermost rim of the wheel or the tire bead seating surface? It's the bead seating surface that matters, not the outermost rim. As Chris noted, use a dial indicator and hand-rotate the wheel. While you're at it, remove the wheel and check the runout of the axle flange as well. How do you know the axle itself isn't the problem?

 

thanks guys, the box method was used on the housing and axle flange, housing didnt move and nothing notesable on the flange. the rim lips were ok, the bead seating surface is where i'm talking about. i also mounted the rims on both sides of the car with same results.

 

There you go. If your wheel is bent a little, just remove it and remount it to cancel out the bend in the axle.

:-)

What did the factory call that? Select-fit assembly?

The CSM recommends this procedure to minimize driveshaft vibrations. Seriously.

 

"how ***** thick do you think i am!!"

I guess your spelling and grammar pretty much answer that question.

 

Good thing it was not a yellow and black one from Stanley....that would be a serious problem.

 

My 1985 CSM (it's the one closest to me at the moment) says up to 0.040" radial runout and up to 0.045" lateral runout. Time to get that dial indicator.

 

Thanks guys sorry for being a smart *** earlier, I've heard you have to ballance these wheels a certain way, off the lug centers? Any info on that?

 

It's far better to be a smart *** than a dumb ***...

Correct. The problem is that the shape of the center pilot feature of the wheel to capture the snap-on center cap is incompatible with most cone-type wheel balancers. You need a lug-centric adapter or else a very small centering cone.

Most dynamic balancers use a flange that the backside of the wheel mounting surface sits on to ensure the wheel centerline is parallel to the balancer spindle. A spring loaded centering cone comes up from this flange and engages the pilot hole in the wheel to make it concentric with the spindle. Unfortunately on the snap-on SSII/III wheels this cone usually hits the backside of the wheel disk before engaging the pilot hole. This is why you need a special, very narrow centering cone. Alternately, some balancers may be able to accommodate the centering cone from above the wheel.

 

thankyou!

 

Well I brought them into the local goodyear, I told the guy at the counter how to ballance them, he ses "oh ya that's how we do it" well I watched the tire teck and he wasn't doing it right. I had to stop him and show him how. The moral of the story, whatch the guy working on your stuff.

 

I bought used set of the same wheels from a mail order dealer stored them for 5-6 years without a thought to have them checked sure enough when i had them mounted the local tire tech couldn't balance them because of out of round both directions. as a last resort i took them to a wheel shop that restores wheels and he was able to true them up. The owner did say that the lug mounting surface was a poor design on the olds rallies which is where the problem was

 

Did they balance?

 

The SSII's ans III's are very prone to being out of true. When my wheels were cut and remounted to 10 inch dot wheels by Stockton, they rejected 8 out of 10 to get two that were deemed acceptable for use. Whenever I buy them, I always have them dismounted and spun on a balancer to check how bad they are....notice I did not say how good they are. You CAN see with a naked eye if they are bad, it will be fairly obvious if you have reasonable perspective. I have chucked more of them to the recycler than I have rat holed in my stash. Most tire shops will stack a wad of weights on the wheel and kick it out the door. I am not saying that all of my wheels are "***** on Accurate", but they are nice and won't be setting any Bonneville records. I think that if most owners were wise to how untrue their wheels are on their rides, they would probably flip out. Despite the razzing you have gotten on this thread, it is a very legitimate concern and I have felt your pain for many years now. Good luck with your wheel concerns.

 

no i'll have to put the centerlines back on for now, buy a dial indicator and chuck the ones that are beyond spect... 40 thou. maybe a local circle track guy would want them.

thanks for feeling my pain , now i know.

 

"My 1985 CSM (it's the one closest to me at the moment) says up to 0.040" radial runout and up to 0.045" lateral runout. Time to get that dial indicator."


There you go, about 4 & 1/8 mm...



Fractional millimeters. I crack me up.

 

I just bought a set of used SSIII wheels. After reading this thread, I'm scared. They are at the powder coaters now, so I won't know if I will be having the same issues until after I fork out some more dough. Wow!

P.S. Please don't bother checking my grammar. I already know my strengths, and grammar isn't one of em.

 

I believe that I would give your powder shop a call. Depending on their work load, your wheels could still be sitting on the floor. It would not take very long to run them on a balancer and if you are very lucky, have them back the same day. It would suck to spend that much capitol on 4 beautiful SSIII doorstop/gardenhose rack/grinder stand bases.

 

I don't completely understand, why are they so hard to balance? Is it the runout ? Lateral or radial if yes? Or is it incorrect methods or equipment

 

Jason,

Nice to see someone from down the street. I have a dial indicator if you need.

PM me.

 

Chris, ya gotta stay on the meds.

 

Yes.

As noted above, problem one is that the design is not the greatest. There's a large amount of metal distortion when the center disk is stamped due to the contours of the wheel. This is especially prevalent on the snap-on center wheels where the center is raised with the formed ribs between the lug holes.



The problem is that the wheel mounting surface on the backside is not a continuous flange, but five discrete flat spots. That makes it difficult to hold co-planarity of the rim to the wheel mounting surface.

Problem two, as I discussed in Post #16 above, is that few tire techs know how to properly mount one of these for balancing.

 

Thanks for the explanation makes sense about the five separate surfaces and the stamping

Figures mine are the snap in cap type as well, I will have to check them when I get my car out in the next couple weeks.

Here's a link I saw off another link from here yesterday. It has an adapter for lug centric balancing and a video off of that pages shows the adapter in use.

http://www.gregsmithequipment.com/At...er-40mm-Shafts

Do most adapters resemble the type shown there ? I want to be able to recognize it when the time comes to have them balanced

 

Great tips here guys thanks, how many guys out there have ss2 or ss3 on there car that go over 60 mph without any vibrations? Mine id good below 50

 

Mine did fine with one fairly bad SSIII rim on the front. I even had a bent axle on a jeep the wobbled when driving down the road. I never noticed any problems from inside the vehicle.

 

Cheap insurance!!!

 

My wheels balanced out with no problems after the wheel smith's $150 bill. he said alot of the problem was rust at the mounting points a small deviation there will have a big influence at the outer rim.
as for running over 60 i cant tell for sure as now i have drive train vibs that i haven't chased dn yet, odd that they started after installing a rebuilt muncie,