[Kartbuilding] Wooden kart

[Stephen Burke]

 Hi Marvin.

Sorry for not replying earlier. The kart is looking good. You mentioned
last week you got the kart working. I see also you have an electric
start on the lawnmower engine. Does that work? Is that what you use to
start the kart?

Regarding using a larger pulley wheel on the rear axle. This will give a
better drive ratio, so the engine will not stall/stop at slow speeds.
It will also give better take off speeds.
When using a small pulley wheel on the rear axle, I found that I needed
someone to give the kart a push to get it going first.

Your last photo showed you using a larger rear axle. This is a good
idea, however as you said, it's difficult to fit it in.
As well as adding extra blocks on top of the rear axle mounts, you can
remove/cut away from the chassis to accommodate the rear axle.
See the attached image. You should be able to cut down into the chassis
and it should not weaken the chassis.
You could go a little further and have the pulley wheel come out up
through the floor of the chassis. You could then cover over the rear
pulley wheel or put a seat over it etc.

I definitely think you should try and use the larger rear pulley wheel.
You have quite large rear wheels and this would mean that your kart
would be very slow to take off at the start.
The larger the rear wheel the faster you go, but the slower take-off speed.
Putting on a larger rear axle will help overcome this and provide better
take-off and acceleration.

If you could take a few more photos of the kart, underneath and of the
rear axle, how you attached the wheels and pulley to the rear wheel and
even the brakes, this would help a lot of fellow kartbuilders. People do
be asking me of photos of the brakes and rear axle etc. but I don't have
my original wooden kart I made, some years ago.

Anyways, I hope the wooden kart is going good for you, and that you
manage to get it working with this new rear axle pulley.
Let me know how it goes.

-steve



On 04/09/2010 18:46, Marv wrote:
> Hi steve ive changed pulleys on the axel to a bigger one/there for having to add more height on the blokes of wood inbetween the axel and frame it now looks like a drag with the back end slightly higher.will i need more length on the arms connecting to the engine mount
>

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