[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by lawgolfer

I believe you are confused about what "camber" is and what "toe-in" is. When viewed from the front, as in the original posting, camber is when the tires are not vertical. The original posting photo shows "negative" camber with the tops of the tires being closer together than the bottoms. Think of negative camber as being a large "A". If there is positive camber, the tops of the tires are further apart than the bottoms. Think of positive camber as being a large "V".

To understand "toe-in" you would need to be above the cart and looking down. From that position the tires are "toe-in" when the fronts of the tires are closer together than the backs of the tires. Think of someone who is "pigeon-toed".

In every alignment setup I have seen the front tires with be "toe-in". This is an absolute requirement for the vehicle, be it an auto, truck, or golf cart, to run in a straight line. In this thread, one respondent said he adjusted the alignment of his cart to eliminate "toe-in" and to have the front tires being perfectly parallel. As that person noted, the cart then "darted" all over the road and would not run in a straight line. Even worse is if the front tires are "toe-out". That is very dangerous and it would be extremely hard to keep the cart within a lane.

If the wheels are "toe-out", the tires will be ground to the cord in short order, assuming it was even drivable. If the wheels are excessively "toed-in, the cart would probably be drivable, but, again, the tires would quickly be ground to the cords.

Assuming that neither a tie-rod or steering arm (knuckle) is not bent, and the bushings are not worn, aligning the front wheels is fairly simple. First, camber on Yamaha carts is not adjustable unless you buy after-market coil-over shocks and replace the originals. The after-market ones I've seen have three mounting holes at the top instead of the one on the factory unit. You choose the mounting hole which gives the amount of camber you want, positive, neutral, or negative. Given the price of the after-market units you can buy several sets of front tires for your cart, assuming that changing the camber even does some good and reduces the wear on the tires. If you are going to "jack" your cart up, that alone will change the camber and you may have to spend the money for after-market coil-over shocks and springs.

Assuming you haven't changed the camber, the only thing you can do is to change the "toe-in". This requires either two or three open-end wrenches, a marking pencil, and a tape measure. You make a mark at the center of both the front and back of each tire and measure distances. The proper setting is for the distance between the front tires should be 1/8-1/4" less than the distance at the back. If not, you use the wrenches to adjust the distances using the wrenches on the jam nuts and tie rods. There are numerous videos on YouTube which will take you through this step-by-step.

Great post. Great explanation.