Tire hop

I just bought my a2 last Wednesday from bret fox (aka fuzzytoaster) in college station ,tx. Drove it home to baton rouge 7hrs. It was pretty rough, seemed like a tire was out of balance. Its got the goodyear 14r20s. Ctis was removed but guard plates were still on the steer tires, stopped at napa for a wrench an removed the plates. Ride got better, but still in and out bouncing. Aired tires to 80psi, drove 500mi round trip to my dads. Better ride but still the bouncing comes and goes pretty regular especially around 40-50mph.

Has anyone ever tried to balance these tires with beads? How did it go? I was going to try 16-18oz and see what happens.

Also where can i get parts besides ebay? Lookin for a tail light lense and a couple guages and dash lights.

Ps bret is a great guy and i look forward to buyin a trailer from him.

The classifieds here on SS is a good place to look for parts .

Big Chevy there a few possibilities to your problem the 1400x20 are a pretty big tire and if in those tires life on a CTIS equipped truck they have sat flat or at least very low because of CTIS issues if the tires have sat in this condition for extended periods of time it will mess up the tires pretty bad and in some cases the tires are destroyed. I am NOT saying that is your case but keep it in mind. I have a M-920 on 1600x20 tires and when I got the truck together and drove it on the road for the first time it was only capable of driving around 30 mph because of out of balance tires, I can only say that of somebody would have tried to drive it faster the truck would have been airborne in an incredibly ROUGH manner! I found a tire shop in town and we put 64 ounces of Equal in each tire and dropped the air pressure down from 90 PSI to somewhere into the mid 60s PSI and it made to truck do a 100% turn around, I can now drive the truck smoothly in 16th gear at 55 mph and its smooth as silk! The tire shop I went to pumped the Equal into the tires through the valve stem so I did not even have to disassemble the wheels, and yes they are on HEMTT rims, the thought of taking them apart is terrible, heck I just got them all together!
Good luck but check out the tires closely before pumping more money into them if the problem is bad tires?
Karl

Do your front tires still have the counter weights? If so remove them as they are to counter balance for the CTIS. No CTIS means remove the weights too.

Some tires may have run flat inserts installed and if so, they have a gooey lubricant inside that probably won't work too well with balancing beads.

Toaster is a good guy. Hope you get it figured out soon. I got my truck from him too, been very happy with it. I had some tire out-o-round vibes at first, but after playing with the pressures and rearranging the tires it disappeared. Ive put about 800miles on it too, so I think that evened out a few flatspots as well.

I removed the counter weight plates within 5miles from where i bought it. Im gonna try some beads and see if that helps. Fuzzy told me most of the bounce is from sitting for years making flatspots. Hope i can get it smoothed out, cuz im not lookin forward to upgrades if im comin off the seat every now and then.

Bigchevy383 said:

Better ride but still the bouncing comes and goes pretty regular especially around 40-50mph.

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Every 5 ton that I have ever owned had this same quirk. Nature of the big-tired beast in my opinion. And I had better luck with no more than 55 psi in the tires with non-CTIS trucks.

I would check the date code on the tires, putting extra attention to the steer tires. Mine had such old tires on the front that they had the two digit year code, meaning pre-2000. I was scared to drive over 35 knowing this and had a more side to side hop clearly up front. I just rotated them to the intermediate axle and the hop became less noticable and more even on the side to side and just up and down. After hauling a few loads, the hop is gone. I can also drive feeling safer with younger tires up front.

We actually took 14.00 XZL's off of my buddy's bobbed 931. They rode smooth on his truck before we bobbed it. We pulled Ctis installed them on my 925 long tractor and they bounce.

I had a rear tire that had the front tire counter weight still on it. Somebody replaced a rear flat tire but didn't remove the counter weight off the replacement tire. You have to crawl under the truck and look at the wheel studs. It not only made the tire hop but it cupped the lugs bad.

I have been considering using Counteract or the Equal product. Does anyone have any more feedback on how effective these are before I waste a ton of money on it?

Thanks

Mine is related to air pressure & not balance....
Does it do the same thing on every road or just on certain conditions?

On my truck, the air pressure was critical.
I am at 42 in the rear tires and 60 in the front now (with 16.00's) & it seems pretty good.
I still get it occasionally hitting an expansion joint at lower speeds, but the lower pressure helped a lot.

Keep in mind the tire is made to haul a lot of weight & an unloaded truck can cause the tire to bonce off the road like a basketball.
Once the rear suspension articulates it alternates between the 2 rear axles & can go on for quite a few oscillations.

Tires sitting will create a flat spot. It worse on bias tires than radial tires but happens in both. The best way to get rid of them is to air the tires up and drive them.

Also combat rims with run flats have a water soluable paste to help tires dive on a flat. I'm 99% certain it is some kind of Tire lube/soap commonly used at Tire stores. To balance the tires I would go a couple of Routes.
Have you seen the video of how to suck antifreeze into your super single? Fluid would work good for a balancing media. Much better than Equil powder or BB's. Powder and such only work when the air is extremely dry. I would think the only area where it would work well is the south western States. If you don't have an air dryer on your line you will introduce water to the tire and will cause clumping and prevent good balance.

If it were my right I'd air it up and drive it a bunch. If you have already done that and haven't fixed it I would suck a quart or 2 of hot water into the tire. Run it a bunch. It that helps then I'd demount and drain all the fluids and wipe the inside of the tire down. This may be a good time to pull the run flats or modify them so that they are easier to get in and out.