[Kartbuilding] What else?

[Stephen Burke]

Hi Richmond,

Thanks for your email. I will endeavour to answer your questions and 
provide some advice.
For the off-road/general purpose kart plans as on 
http://www.kartbuilding.net/Freeplans/plans.htm  I initially bought very 
little parts. In total I bought:

- Round Steel Tubing (25mm) :: Got from a local hardware store.
- Round steel bar (8mm) :: Got from a local hardware store.
- Flat Steel bar (25mm X 5mm) :: Got from a local hardware store.
- M8 x 50mm long Bolts with washers and nuts. :: Got from a local hardware 
store.
- 2 x M12 x 80mm long Bolts with washers and nuts for the king pins. :: 
Got from a local hardware store.
- Welding Rods and Angle Grinder discs. :: Got from a local hardware 
store.
- Accelerator cables and sheathing from a bycycle repair shop
- An old handbrake cable from a car dismantlers

- Motorbike engine. This cost the most at around .100. I did however use 
an old generator engine on that kart in the beginning and I obtained it 
for free. I got the generator off a motorbike/lawnmower repair shop. The 
motorbike engine was obtained from a motorbike dismantlers.


Things I obtained for free by asking people for them:

- 4 Wheelbarrow wheels. (These took 2-3 months to go around asking 
builders on building sites etc.)
- Checker plate off a friend.
- Steering box from an old crashed VW car
- Some old springs for the pedal returns from an old desk lamp
- An old broken plastic seat from my old school.
- A damaged steering wheel from a local karting track/arena
- Pipe insulation scraps for the side supports of the seat.

Photos of the above kart can be found at: 
http://www.kartbuilding.net/gallery/v/Off-Road_Kart/

I also suggest you look at: 
http://www.kartbuilding.net/other_karts/other_karts.html
There is a PDF document of a student who made an electric powered kart. Im 
sure it will be of good use to yourself.

As for the frame, make sure you use "dry" timber (not timber that is 
soaking wet), and probably "white deal" pine timber would be ok to use.

I hope the above information is useful. If you do get any photos of the 
kart, feel free to email them on and perhaps help some more people.

Best of Luck,
-steve



On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, Richmond Conciso wrote:

> Mr. Stephen Burke,
>
> I really appreciate your website. I, along with my collegues, will be
> building a go kart in the coming weeks because it is our term project! I
> would appreciate it you could answer a few questions for me, and, if you
> have time, give some advice on building this project of ours.
>
> First, which, if any, parts of the go-kart did you actually buy?
> Roughly how much were they and where did you get them?
> How much did it cost you to build the whole thing?
>
> Our budget is at 300$ CND, so any place to get scraps or second hand
> parts would be a blessing to us.
> Our project is an electric powered go kart with a 12 V DC car battery as the
> supply. Can you comment on the frame we can use for that kind of power? I
> can tell you it's not much power, so we need something light and sturdy but
> CHEAP.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Richmond Conciso
>