I need some input from all my fellow Raptor owners. I noticed while riding that the steering on my Raptor felt a little twitchy. But since I am new to the Raptor and fresh off a Prairie 650 I just figured that it was because the steering was so much lighter than what I was use to. Anyway, while giving my Raptor a tune and service, along with a good once over I noticed that it looked like my front tires were leaning in just a little. I looked in the owner's manual and it suggests checking the toe-in in the routine maintenance. I put a framing square up against the inside of my front tire to compare them and this is what I found. The right front seams to be perfectly vertical according to the square, (straight up and down, no tilt or toe-in) but the left front is tilted in about 3/8 of an inch. I assume that this is what is causing the "twitchy" steering, but which one is right? Should they be toed-in, or straight up and down (Vertical)? I'm taking it to the shop tomorrow, but I would like to hear from you guy's first, before the mech's at the Yamaha shop have a chance to tell me god knows what [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] Thanks in advance for the info guy's.

 

Toe is the diffrence between the front & back of the tires I run mine at 1/8" toe in.

The top leaning in is camber & is not adjustable.
Make sure you're on a perfectly flat surface & measure again. If the 2 sides are diffrent look for bent parts.

 

I was in my garage when I checked it, and the concrete floor is very level. There is a difference in the lean in, camber, as I mentioned, now you have me nervous. I have looked and can't find anything that is bent, I will have another look. Thanks for the input, are you sure that the camber can't be adjusted? I don't know how I could have bent anything.

 

I'm 90% sure it can't be adjusted.
The aftermarket a arms are mounted with hime jotnts so you can adjust them.

 

There is absolutely no camber or caster adjustment with the stock Rap arms. If one is not right, then a couple things to look for are, a bent pitman arm, a bent tie rod, tie rod end or bent a-arm top or bottom. Any small rollover can and has been known to cause damage with any of these fairly weak parts. Shoot, I cracked my top and botom right side arms in half just jumping a small 3' jump and landed perfect, no joke!

 

Thanks TheMoose, I checked and again, and I can't find anything that is bent. But after what you said I took a close look at it and I think it is the Toe-in that is out of adjustment and not the camber. I think your right. I took measurements from both sides of the tires, and noticed that this isn't accurate due to the bulge of the radial tire at the bottom. But I was able to turn the tires ever so slightly to one side or the other and get a vertical measurement from the inside of the tire. So after pointing the handle bars and front tires as straight as I can and really looking at both of the front tires, it appears that the left front tire, (the one that I thought was leaning in) appears to be pointing slightly out to the left, and the right front tire looks like it is ever so slightly pointing in towards the left. So, the right tire is pointing in, and the left tire is pointing out. This is the way it looks, but how can you check it accurately? Can you take a measurement from some place, and how do you adjust the toe-in? Thanks Moose.

 

Ok, I'm an idiot! I think that I just didn't have the handlebars perfectly straight. That is very hard to do. Anyway, I measured the inside diameter of the front of the front tires, then I measured the inside diameter of the back of the front tires as accurately as I could. I would assume that this is how you measure for toe-in. Anyway, the front of the front tires is 2 to 2 1/2 8ths of an inch narrower over all than the rear of the front tires. So it seams that this is very close to the toe-in of 1/8 inch (per wheel, total of 2 8ths) that TheMoose mentioned, specially considering that I can't measure it perfectly. So it appears that the toe-in is fine, and the problem that I thought that I had was just that the front wheels were not perfectly straight when I was looking at it, creating the illusion that there was a problem of some kind. After lining the front end up as straight as I can, they both seam to appear to be fine, nice and straight. It does appear that they both lean in ever so slightly, but the same amount on each side and it is almost unnoticeable, I bet that they are all like this, a design from the factory. Thanks for all the input guy's, but I think that I was just imaging things. I hope that this post makes since.

 

The easiest way to check is to get the wheels straight, If the handle bars are crooked when you are going straight you take some out of 1 tie rod & the same amount in to the oppisite tie rod until the bars are straight when you are riding in a straight line.

Once the handle bars are straight you measure the tires at the 9 & 3 oclock positions. It helps to have an extra set of hands.
Put a tape measure on a lug & measure across to the oppisit tire at the same spot write down that measurement.
Do the same thing on the other side of the tires.
So after you've measured across from the rear & front of the tires you subtract the 2 numbers & that is your toe.

This is just an example but if the rear of the tires measured 46 1/2" & the front measured 46 3/8" You have 1/8" toe in.

Another thing to check is that the nut on the bottom of the steering stem is tight.

I hope that's not too confusing!!

 

Thanks TheMoose, that makes perfect sense. So you are saying that there should only be 1/8-inch toe-in period? I was thinking that 1/8-inch per side equaling 2/8's total. I will measure mine again, but if my original measurement was right I have about 2/8 to 3/8 toe-in, but I tried measuring from the side of the tire at the 9 and 3 o-clock position which is hard to make sure that your accurate. I will do as you suggested and measure from the opposite lugs. Also, I couldn't find a toe-in spec in the owners manual. Where did you find out that 1/8 inch is a good setting? Finally, it is very hard to determine if the handle bars are perfectly straight, the steering is so fast, the slightest movement of the handle bars will move the front tires.

 

Ok, I carefully measured from the ground up and found lugs on each front tire, front and back, that were about the same height (with-in 3/4 of an inch of each other as far as their height is concerned.) Then I measured from those lugs very carefully 3 times. Each time I came up with 1/8-inch toe-in, just like you said that you run on yours. So before I wasn?t measuring accurately from the same height on each side, therefore I was getting different measurements. So my toe-in is right after all and the only reason that I thought that the tire didn't look right was because the handle bar was slightly turned when I was looking at it making it look like the wheel wasn't pointing perfectly in the right direction and giving it the appearance of leaning in more then the other one. If that makes since [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] Anyway, after measuring it like you said everything checks out fine. Thanks a million TheMoose!