To Re-Balance or Not to Re-balance...

Ok. So on an earlier post we figured my tire guy mounted the tire backwards. So off I went to the local bike shop with my rear tire to get it removed and remounted correctly. Well, I left all the stuff off the tire. Hubs, bearings, rear disk, etc. I should have put it all back on so he could balance it after re-mounting the tire. The questions is: I had it balanced after the first (incorrect direction) mounting. How important is it for me to re-balance this wheel? Or can I keep the original balance weights on it? Technically speaking the only difference is the direction of the tire once I put all the hardware back on. Any experience with this? (Man I hate my dumb mistakes!)

Me personally I would always rebalance whether the tire is mounted or re-mounted. It's just cheap insurance that the tire will wear nice and proper. The most important thing here is safety. You don't want that thing shaking or wobbling around at highway speeds.
Just my thoughts,
Mike

It's mostly the tire that will make a difference in the balance. Once you take it off and remount it, the balance will change.
UNLESS.. they marked the tire and rim and put it back on in the exact same spot. At least that's the way I was always told.

I know this answer is not politically correct but to answer your question from my experience.
Number of miles ridden, approx 500,000.
Number of tire changes including flats ect, maybe 250.
Number of times bothered to balance wheel, zero.
Number of times I got wheel hop, weird tire wear, any kind of effect whatsoever, zero.

I don't pretend to know much about balancing tires, but if the tireman screwed up in the first place, shouldn't he re-balance it again for free? Say they marked the tire and wheel at 12 o'clock. Now 12 and 6 are the same, but 3 and 9 are reversed. If the tire was heavy at 3, and the rim was heavy at 9, now your weight is all at the same spot? Maybe I'm just talking out my ass, I'm good at that:unsure:

RonKZ650 wrote:

I know this answer is not politically correct but to answer your question from my experience.
Number of miles ridden, approx 500,000.
Number of tire changes including flats ect, maybe 250.
Number of times bothered to balance wheel, zero.
Number of times I got wheel hop, weird tire wear, any kind of effect whatsoever, zero.

Ron is right on good tires balancing is usually not a problem,but ive also had cheap tires like on my 74(yeah i know ,but they were sitting in the corner and free is free!:whistle: )the front tire on that bike was so far out of balance it scared the hell out of me ,i didnt notice till about 100 mph:S took a lot of weight to balance chen-shing-boomerang piece of trash.id spend a couple bucks just to be safe and have it balanced.goodluck,happy wrenching!

Thanks to all. I especially liked RonKZ650's experiences. That is certainly good to know - and in someways - what I expected to be true. The for-sure thing about this bike is the fact that I'm not like I used to be in my early years - so it's safe. Just the occasional charity run. No hundred mile per hour jaunts and very little mileage planned. So I probably would have been OK not to re-balance....BUT. It's a matter of personal choice. I would always feel like I should have done it by the book. So after thinking about it, I had it re-mounted and balanced. My wallet is $30 dollars lighter. I would take it back to "the tireman", but he's 300 miles away.

so can you balance a wheel when it is still on the bike?

if you can lift it and it rotates freely - sure..though it'd be easier on a stand.

tganek says tire balancing is highly overrated:whistle: :woohoo: :silly: :woohoo: :silly:

ok:evil:

Have never balanced my tires and have had no problems at all...