Balancing Beads

[Oldav8tor]

Back in 2018 there was a good discussion of balancing beads. I just finished installing beads in my 30 x 3.5 tubes and thought I'd share my experience for others that might be thinking of doing it. First of all, it took almost a half-hour per tube to put in six ounces of Counteract beads. What I did was get a mustard squeeze bottle from the dollar store and a piece of clear plastic tubing sized to fit tight to the nozzle on the bottle and stem on the tube. Just to be sure, I put a small hose clamp around the top of the valve stem.

Getting the beads to go into the tube was a challenge. Without going into a lot of details, I followed the advice of others and used a vibrating engraving tool to keep the beads moving. I put the tip against the hose clamp and tilted the bottle so as to keep a steady flow without dumping so much that it plugged the tube. Have patience, it is doable

When I've had a chance to drive the car I'll report back on my experience of driving with beads installed.

BTW - I found the cheapest source of beads to be a local tire shop that was listed as a Counteract dealer.

[George Andreasen]

Really curious to see your follow up report on this. From memory some like 'em, some don't............

[Tom Hicks]

They work great on my speedster!

You skipped a step installing the beads. First use a 1/8" drill and drill out the valve stem through its base. There is a restricted point right where the stem connents to the tube and it is very difficult to get the beads through that point if you don't drill it out.