Steel or aluminum?

chefdab · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:05 pm

I've been reading on other Jeep boards lately that steel wheels are harder to balance than aluminum. I'll probably be getting new wheels for the LJ in the spring, but I thought I'd ask while I was thinking about it now. What do you guys think about this? I've been led to believe that if the wheels aren't balanced well it will give some amount of death wobble. So what should it be: steel or aluminum.

jason thompson · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:56 pm

I have never heard that befor
why would it matter you are going to balance the rims and tires at the same time or am I missing some thing?
I always thought that you put the tires on the rim set the bead inflate to proper psi then spin them both togeather so knowing or thinking that when you balance one you will balance the other

as far as steel vs aluminum for looks go alum for function go steel
if you bend the lip on a steel wheel you can some times fix it but an alum rim will not bend but break and they cost more too

kolesy · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:39 pm

I had my steelies balanced and I know for a fact steel rims are a lot harder to balance than aluminum. The inside of my rims look like a scrabble board with all the weights on them! Bu tif you dont get them balanced you will definitly get out of your rig shaking from all the vibes you get cause your wheels are outta balance.

jason thompson · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:51 pm

kolesy wrote:

I had my steelies balanced and I know for a fact steel rims are a lot harder to balance than aluminum. The inside of my rims look like a scrabble board with all the weights on them! Bu tif you dont get them balanced you will definitly get out of your rig shaking from all the vibes you get cause your wheels are outta balance.

so they ballanced the rims then balanced the tires? seems a little bit like duble work to me
and seems almost point less when you put a tire on that same rim
are you sure that some one is not feeding you a line of ??

I have steelies on my TJ and when I had the tires off just bare rims I saw no kind of weight what so ever got new tires mounted and balanced and I have no vibes from the tires

kolesy · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:57 pm

jason thompson wrote:

kolesy wrote:

I had my steelies balanced and I know for a fact steel rims are a lot harder to balance than aluminum. The inside of my rims look like a scrabble board with all the weights on them! Bu tif you dont get them balanced you will definitly get out of your rig shaking from all the vibes you get cause your wheels are outta balance.

so they ballanced the rims then balanced the tires? seems a little bit like duble work to me
and seems almost point less when you put a tire on that same rim
are you sure that some one is not feeding you a line of ??

I have steelies on my TJ and when I had the tires off just bare rims I saw no kind of weight what so ever got new tires mounted and balanced and I have no vibes from the tires

No they balanced the rims with tires on them. :lol:

Why would you do it other wise? I didn't want the weights clipped to the edge of the rim just incase i got them knocked off on something on the trail so i had him put the weights on the inside of the rim. As for no weights on your rims Jason, I got no answer for that but I can say that 99.9% of rims will have weights somewhere on them to keep themin balance.

warblade666 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:59 am

Billet & forged alloy rims are more true and almost a "0" balance, also much lighter. Cast alloy are a toss-up, but still lighter than steel so less balance weights. Steel rims are rolled & welded, so most are less true. Steel wheels are also about twice the weight of alloy, so more weights are needed if they are out of balance.

A forged alloy like a Weld Wheel is less that half the weight of a steel Rock Crawler, and almost twice as strong.

Did I forget to say they are also three times the price :shock:

?

jason thompson · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 6:18 pm

kolesy wrote:

jason thompson wrote:

kolesy wrote:

I had my steelies balanced and I know for a fact steel rims are a lot harder to balance than aluminum. The inside of my rims look like a scrabble board with all the weights on them! Bu tif you dont get them balanced you will definitly get out of your rig shaking from all the vibes you get cause your wheels are outta balance.

so they ballanced the rims then balanced the tires? seems a little bit like duble work to me
and seems almost point less when you put a tire on that same rim
are you sure that some one is not feeding you a line of ??

I have steelies on my TJ and when I had the tires off just bare rims I saw no kind of weight what so ever got new tires mounted and balanced and I have no vibes from the tires

No they balanced the rims with tires on them. :lol:

Why would you do it other wise? I didn't want the weights clipped to the edge of the rim just incase i got them knocked off on something on the trail so i had him put the weights on the inside of the rim. As for no weights on your rims Jason, I got no answer for that but I can say that 99.9% of rims will have weights somewhere on them to keep themin balance.

just to clear it up when you get your tires balanced there are at least 2 ways they can do it the best is called dinamic ,I think, wich they put the weights on the lip of the rim on the out side and inside the other I dont know what it is called but that is when they use the stick on weights on the center of the rim inside it will not give you nearly as good a balance as the other
the best is to do both
first just the weights on the center of the rim then the dinamic
I have no way to draw it out but the way it works is something like this
with the weights only in the center of the rim the tire can make a line like this ~ on the road cause there is nothing to fight it or react to the 2 sides being off with dinamic you get a line or 2 rather like this = if one moves up the other counters it and the same for down

If there is any doubt go look at your tires ther will be weights on both lips in and out and they will not be across from eachother nor will they be the same weight

kolesy · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:30 pm

Yeah Jason all i got is the stick on weights on the inside of the rim, no weights on any of the lips (sts). I still have absolutley no vibes or bad wear on my tires. I get what your saying too about the different ways to balance and can easily see Thats the best way to do it like you said.

jason thompson · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:49 pm

kolesy wrote:

Yeah Jason all i got is the stick on weights on the inside of the rim, no weights on any of the lips (sts). I still have absolutley no vibes or bad wear on my tires. I get what your saying too about the different ways to balance and can easily see Thats the best way to do it like you said.

if you got no vibes with only stick on weights then you are one of the lucky few
I had some vibes with just the stick on's so I whent the other route and loose wheel weights like crazy but getting to the trails is way better

kolesy · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:42 pm

Quote:

I whent the other route and loose wheel weights like crazy but getting to the trails is way better

That's what I wanted to avoid so far so good, I guess i am lucky. So how is it coming home from the trail? :wink:

jason thompson · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:09 pm

kolesy wrote:

Quote:

I whent the other route and loose wheel weights like crazy but getting to the trails is way better

That's what I wanted to avoid so far so good, I guess i am lucky. So how is it coming home from the trail? :wink:

That depends I left the stick on weights in place when I had them rebalance the tires and put on the outter weights so if I loose a weight and it is real bad I just pull over pull the other outter weight and drive home like nothing ever happened with very minor vibs
This was the plan from the get go and has worked so far and also knowing a "guy" helps when you ride as much as I do

benmar2000 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 30, 2006 6:07 am

I also want to add that a steel rim NEW can be bad out of the box.. That is what happened to me when I had some BFG AT KO's mounted to a set of Crager Soft 8 rims on my YJ... It was so warped it wouldn't balance right.. Sent the rim back and got a new rim.. It was fine and it balanced correctly... The 2 advantages of steel rims are price as in being cheap and most tire places can usually bend steel rims back to form for you.. Alloy or Aluminium rims have to be taken to a rim place to have them repaired...

HTH,

Ben

bthomas · **Posted:** Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:54 pm

Quote:

Alloy or Aluminium rims have to be taken to a rim place to have them repaired

A blowout of a stock Goodyear on gravel resulted in a bead ding in the alloy rim. Only when they didn't do the cosmetic airbrush of the face was the repair job in San Jose was less than the cost of the Mopar replacement.

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:25 pm

Ben, that was just a sign that it's time to replace the other four silly!

benmar2000 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:14 pm

Yeah.. but they were brand new.. But I guess you get what you pay for.. At $33 a rim.. But I got it replaced for free... and it was shipped over night.. So it wasn't too bad..

Ben

Steel or aluminum?

Who is online