Broken bolt on rear suspension sway bar

[LCharlier]

Newbie to the world of golf carts - recently purchased used 2013 Yamaha YDREX3 48V cart to tool around 7+ acre horse property.

Been using cart for the past four months and it has worked beautifully. Unfortunately, I also let my 13 year old daughter take her friends around the property in the cart and now I have a problem. When driving the cart the other day, I heard a scraping sound coming from the rear of the cart. When I investigated, I discovered that the left rear tire was rubbing against the body when I turned the steering wheel hard right. Further investigation revealed that if I drove the cart and turned the wheel the other direction, the right rear tire rubbed against the body. After carefully driving the cart back to my garage, I went around to the rear of the cart and attempted to lift and "shift" the body right or left and I was alarmed to see that I could easily do so!

Looking at the rear suspension, I see that the Yamaha has a rear suspension arm assembly with what appears to be some sort of anti-sway bar attached across the back of it. Upon closer look, it appears that the sway bar attaches to the suspension arm via a plate with two bolts - one intact and secured normally; the other threaded in with its head welded to the plate. Unfortunately, it appears that the welded-on bolt has sheared off leaving the plate to pivot about the remaining bolt. Because of this, when I turn the steering wheel to the left, the sway bar shifts right. When I turn the steering wheel to the right, the sway bar shifts left. It appears straight-forward to me that what I have to do is extract the sheared-off bolt and replace it. My question to all of you is this however: Can I replace this bolt without welding the head to the plate or is this a requirement? Looking at the Yamaha replacement parts diagram online, I notice that the plate seems to be considered an integral piece of the entire rear suspension arm - neither the plate nor the bolts that go through it are shone as separately-available parts on the blow-out diagram.

In case my description of the problem was not clear enough, I have attached pictures detailing all of the above. If anyone can provide me with some guidance in this matter, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Lloyd

[cgtech]

The plate on there is a aftermarket part added with the lift kit. Not part of the original suspension design. I think I would come up with something different that would result in the bar being more level. When the bar is at a steep angle like that, you get the equivalent of rear "bump steer", as the axle location moves whenever you go over a bump. I might try to get one more like the Jake's design that attaches to the frame near the bumper and uses the factory location on the axle end of the panhard bar.

[SoFlyLikeAG29]

Lloyd,
I currently have this exact same problem. At the campground, I went to the hardware store and JB welded a new bolt in its place but that is not going to hold. What did you do to fix this?
Danny