Changing tires without enough new weights

[hypophthalmus]

I need to go on a 400 mile round trip possibly tomorrow to look at an apartment. My front tire's tread is worn so I really want to replace it. I have a pair of different tires than I've been using (Michelin City Grip instead of Pirelli Diablo). But I forgot to order balancing weights. I should have enough to do the front, but not the back (which seems to require much more weight).

I could change out only the front and have mismatched tires. Or I could leave the weights on the back and balance it like that. Or I could try to find some way to reuse some of the weights.

Thoughts?

[MJR]

No local shops nearby to get more weights?

[vespbretta]

These front tire won´t make another 400miles? For sure? Would give you some time to buy more weights.
Bye the way, these weights can be obtained at every tire service shop around the corner in every half civilized village for very little money. Or do you live somewhere lonesome deep in the woods or up into the mountains.

But if necessary now and only now for what reason ever I would provisionally balance both wheels on the balancer stand and mark the light spot of the wheel and note the amount of weights needed per wheel. Then I would finally and perfectly balance the front wheel. After that I would stick on the remaining new weights to the rear wheel and would add more weights as needed to that marked light spot later and after your roundtrip without removing the rear wheel again. I would not reuse old and used weights again. But you probably could also with a good and strong double sided soft tape from 3M or similar. Or you just put the old ones on provisionaly with duct tape for that round trip and replace it with new ones afterwards.
But you will need to mark the wheels light spot with a permanent marker somehow.

How much weight is in fact missing?
If its only a few grams, don´t worry. Most of the Kymco scooters come with unbalanced wheels and out of round Kenda tires right from the factory...unfortunately. Mine were unbalanced by 30 and 40 grams for 10.000km.

[CROSSBOLT]

2 oz of BB's in each tire solves the weight problem.

Karl

[Stig / Major Tom]

Wager large % of this forum is running on mismatched tires.
Should be fine unless you are entering scooter race with your last dollar  and rain is expected....then you will just have to do a Sterling Moss and beat them with talent.
Stig

[Redk]

Most the tires nowadays should be pretty good...
If bobbley, and not an indexed tire, let out the air and rotate it 180% on the rim and try again.

I have heard of using BB's as Karl described...  More than a few times.  It must work.

Common lead (Pb) solder, a short length wrapped around a spoke at the nipple and perhaps taped over with electrical tape should work.
Many riders did it for years...

Me?  I would go for it and pick a speed where there was a less noticeable problem, but carry a short length of the solder.
redk

[hypophthalmus]

I'm not sure that the old tires wouldn't last another 400 miles, but the tread is worn and I'd rather be sure that they will.

I'm going to go with Stig's advice to mix tires. Now that I think about it, when I bought it the tires were mixed and I never noticed.

Probably they would be fine without balancing. But it'd bother me forever.  I thought I was roughly 5 grams short at first for the front wheels, and that also would have bothered me until I fixed it (surely for no good reason). Thankfully it actually ended up being right.

I did swap the front tire and it seemed to cure 95% of the handlebar shaking. So I guess maybe it's actually better than before anyways.

[hypophthalmus]

As far as people selling weights goes, it seems nobody does in my town unless I want a large box of them (and they seem to think it's strange that I'm asking).

[Tromper]

You could try this.
http://www.jpcycles.com/product/353-177?

Haven't used it for balancing, but for small holes it does perform as promised, so at worst you get some protection there.

[CROSSBOLT]

That looks like neat stuff, Tromp!

Karl

[Tromper]

That looks like neat stuff, Tromp!

Karl

Used it on my burger's rear tire, worked as advertised, holds air better than the front.
Just bought enough to do the tires on both SYMs, just haven't gotten around to installing it yet.