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Every owner operator at one time or another has been the victim of some well intended product that delivered zero return on the investment. This writer distinctly remembers a weird looking truck muffler marketed about 40 years ago that looked like a stalk of bananas. About 50 half-inch tubes angled downward out of the muffler and the contraption was painted a dark blue. The purpose of the pipes according to the designers was to suck cold air into the exhaust stream to minimize the black smoke diesel gave off in those days. Real flop that one. And don’t forget the famous wheel spinners of a few years back that went the way of Dodo. The best products I have come across are like aspirins; they solve normal everyday headaches and let you get on down the road safely while saving you a few dollars in the long run.

At a recent truck show I came across a product that actually looked like it would help owner operators as well as the fleet owners who were experiencing shorter than expected tire life, especially on the steer axel. Tru-Balance Truck Wheel Centering Products are specifically designed to take last few centimeters of play that exists with the piloted hub mounting system.

A currently manufactured the piloted hub system holds a pretty tight tolerance in the spacing of the lugs and the hub pilots that center the rim. But you can’t economically mass produce zero-tolerance matching forged or machined parts, especially when different manufacturers are involved. There has to be some gap at the pilot mating surface to the wheel, and over time that gap can grow every time a wheel is remounted and a little bit of metal gets scraped off. Even from the factory there is a tiny bit of space there so when the wheel is placed over the hub it not perfectly true in relation to the center of the axel shaft. When the piloted hub came out about 15 years ago it was a big improvement over the old stud pilot mounting system, in fact so much so nobody noticed that the wheels in some cases rotated in an slightly oblong pattern causing vibration, erratic tire wear and actually increasing tire maintenance in some cases.  

What Tru-Balance Truck Wheel Centering Products do is shim the studs after the wheel is on the hub to guarantee that the outer circumference of the rim itself is equidistant from the true center of the axel. First you use three shimming or centering pins to accurately align the wheel rim equidistant from the center of the hub. Then you tighten the first seven lugs nuts, remove the three shim pins and install the final three lug nuts. Another variation uses internal inserts that stay permanently attached to the wheel studs and centers the drum and the wheel all in one. A third design is an external centering sleeve for use on both steer and drive wheels and slides over the studs and seats against the wheel face. Different combinations of these centering devises are available to accommodate truck owners using mixed steel and aluminum wheel configurations.

The end result is that these centering products are increased fuel mileage, reduced rolling resistance, lower balancing costs and overall longer tire life. In other words it puts money in your pocket.

For more information about Tru-Balance Truck Wheel Centering Products visit their website at www.Tru-Bal.com or send for their information package by calling 866-686-9285.