Tusk Wheel Balancing & Truing Stand
Assembly tips and first impressions
The Tusk wheel balancing stand is a great addition to your garage. For so many of us, balancing wheels is a job that gets done only when the tires are first installed, and never thought of again. But with your own stand rebalancing your wheels becomes an easy part of annual maintenance on your motorcycle. This stand does a nice job of allowing the wheels to be rotated freely, making it easy to find the heaviest spot on the tire and make any necessary adjustments by adding wieghts as needed. By ensuring that your wheels are evenly balanced, you help improve the stability and handling of your bike, and might even reduce wear and tear on the tires and suspension components. In addition to walking you through assembly and set up, I will also point out a couple ways to improve upon the design to maximize the performance of what may be one of the better wheel balancing stands for under $100.
For the cost of one tire change at your local bike shop, you can own your very own shiny new wheel balancing stand.
Uprights can be installed in the narrow or wide position. Depending on the size of your hubs, the narrow position may be too close together. Just to be safe suggest using the wide configuration.
Assembly is straight forward but holds a couple of opportunities if you are as exacting as I can be. First up, you will want to fasten the support beams to the base using the large bolts and nuts provided. Then at the top of each beam you will want to use the smaller bolts (4) to affix the bearings , with flat washers, lock washers and nuts.
This is where my first suggested hack resides. Although the lock washer would customarily reside between the nut and flat washer on the inside of each support beam. Simply move it between the bearing and beam to stand off the bearing and not allow the side of the bearing to rub on the larger flat washer and/or the stand.
Here’s the stock assembly of the roller bearings. Functional sure, but you can feel some drag. This bearing rolls smoothly under your finger but stops immediately after you lift your hand…would be great if it just kept spinning. Now that would help you perfect your wheel balancing results. …yes I know the wheel is heavy and the resistance is not that great, but allow me to indulge the perfectionist in me for a moment.
The truing rod should be snug but not tight.
Relocating the lock washer is an easy way to be sure the bearing is not making contact with the large flat washer.
So here is how I would move the washers around to reduce any possibility of drag from contact with the large flat washer, or the stand, depending on how square your uprights are from the factory.
To further eliminate the possibility of the bearing making any contact on either side, adding a dedicated washer on both sides helpful.
In this case the inside cylinder of the bearing is 8mm inside diameter and 12m outside diameter.
8 / 12 size washer will apply pressure only to the inner section of the bearing.
This set up makes it impossible for any contact to occur with the rotating housing of the bearing during use.
Here is the order of things now. Nut, lock washer, then flat washer on one side then small washer, bearing, small washer, then bolt on the other side.
Although not perfect this is better than stock and is as good as you can do with a sealed bearing. For most folks you can stop here and be perfectly happy with this set up. But for me…?
The last possible source of drag is the sealed bearing itself.
Replacing the bearings in the kit with inexpensive open bearings is a great way to almost totally eliminate friction and drag from this set up.
I’m going with the non-sealed bearing. These little buddies have almost no spin resistance and thereby satisfy my need for perfection even with my budget friendly wheel balancing stand.
Even unweighted this bearing spins noticeably longer than the stock bearings in the kit.
The final result is a balancing stand that is accurate and simple to use.
Less resistance on the spinning bearing means a more precisely balanced wheel. I know I’m splitting hairs here but allow me one further indulgence on the quest to a frictionless balancing stand. Find yourself non-sealed bearings 8 x 8 x 24mm, eBay or amazon or where ever. Then trade them out for the included sealed bearings. yes I know they could dry and rust etc. but a few drops of bearing oil and for your efforts you will be treated to the smoothness of that all elusive perfectly balanced wheel.
Now you will never again wonder if your wheel is out of balance, or lament how far in advance you have to schedule an appointment to have your local bike shop squeeze you in to get your tires swapped out. You have become the master of your own destiny. And if you have upgraded to the open bearing set up you know that your wheel is now perfectly balanced…well?
Hope this helps…enjoy!
Hopefully these insights are helpful for you.
Good luck with your own wheel balancing exploits.
Questions, comments or feedback?
Hop over to my youtube channel to get the full video walk through.
This Tusk Wheel Balance and Truing Stand can be found it at the following link:
Similar products are also available at these links:
The 8x24x8mm open bearing use above can be found here: Amazon
Please note that I did not receive any financial or product support from any of the manufacturers or retailers mentioned above.
