Wayward Wheel Weights!

[bwwooster]

So I got a second set of wheels to do a track day and had a set of tires mounted and balanced and as I went to roll the car around in the garage, I heard a tinny clunk and found that I'd just rolled the car over a set of those stick-on wheel weights, which was then stuck with amazing tenacity to the garage floor. It turns out the surface of the wheel rim feels like it's been coated with Teflon and half the weights fell off. The shop was cool about rebalancing the wheels, but it put me over Egan's Rule of Seven for the track day (which I religiously follow), so I bagged it and drove another car.

The Question:

Anybody else run into this problem? If so, what did you use to stick the buggers to the wheels? A thing smear of JB Weld? Iranian beeswax? 3M 5200?

[trichardson]

I don't have an answer for you but what's Egan's Rule of Seven?

[bwwooster]

According to Peter Egan of Road & Track, Cycle World, etc., if, in preparation for a race weekend, seven things go wrong, it's time to pack it in and go do something else that weekend!

I think it's not a coincidence that this law was discovered by the owner/campaigner of old British sports cars. Maybe that's why it resonates so clearly in my garage.

[Mustang Man]

Duct tape...

Seriously, we cover all of the tape weights on our various project cars (most with smooth lip forged wheels that are powder coated or chromed) with duct tape. You can get it in gray, black, white, etc so it blends in with wheel colors fairly well.

HTH...
Mark

[Derald Rice]

I have always used acetone or lacquer thinner to first clean the wheel, and then, heat the adhesive just before placing the weights on the wheel. The heat seems to activate the adhesive. A butane lighter works well, just be careful of the fingers. There usually seems to be a lot of adhesive residue left on the wheel when the weights are removed.

Either duct tape or a metal foil tape over the weights will also help keep the weights in place.

[Nelff]

second the duct tape... I haven't used aluminum foil tape but I do know a couple of guys that have with great success....