Tire Help

[mach-1]

Hello All!

I'm a newbie here looking for some help & advice. I have what I think is an 1984 model 2-stroke EZGO. It is a bit worn, but runs and goes fine. When we got it, the front tires were totally shot.

I put on two new 18x8.5 tires on the front, and now they don't match the back. I can't seem to find a local source for another pair of the same tires.

I can get two 18x9.5 of the same tires locally. So my question is will 18x9.5 tires fit on the back without rubbing? The leaf spring seems pretty close with 18x8.5 tires. Is there any problem with running a slightly wider tire on the rear if they do fit?

[essness]

Mach-1, Welcome to BGW. The quick way to figure it out is to see id you have at least 1/2 an inch of clearance on the back side (spring side) of the existing tire. I would think you could gat away with it but, I'm not 100% sure.

[GoTeeMan]

That is one clean cart and an 87 by the tag. You should be fine with a little wider but before you do buy some other tires make sure you aren't gonna get the bug and lift it cause if you do you might as well buy bigger ones, get offset wheels and a 5" lift and get 'cha some ground clearance.

welcome to the boards

[Dave Box]

GT Man is correct these carts get addictive and you have a sharp looking cart there.

[mach-1]

Thanks everyone for the welcome! I'm going to measure closley, and hopefully the fatter tires will fit!

[GoTeeMan]

Hate to see ya buy new tires then decide to go bigger and have to buy even bigger tires.

:-) Enjoy

[mach-1]

I did my measuring....man it's gonna be close! The passenger side will be no problem, but this pesky bracket on the driver's side might be. It's about 1/2" off the stock 18 x 8.5 - 8 tire.

[GoTeeMan]

Eeek, I think I would just lift it, get offset wheels, and go bigger.

:-)

[BrewCityMusic]

worse case scenario if you're not going to jump into a lift and bigger skins right now would be to use some washers to offset the wheels by another 1/4" or so - when I bought my cart I had to pick up a set of mismatched wheels as the originals were dryrotted off the rims, bottom line is I had a little rub there too and just spaced the wheel out with 8 thick washers (2 per stud) ... Gave me just enough clearance and worked just fine until I talked the "other half" into letting me tear into the rest of the project (which in my Avatar, you can see the results of).

[mach-1]

Well, I went ahead and put the larger tires on the back. I was worried for nothing! You really can't even tell that the back tires are slightly larger than the front. Thanks for the help everyone!