Off Road Go-Kart

And for my next trick.....

I'm going to build an off-road go-kart. I started with the small bits. These are the bearing the rear axle will run in. The idea is that they'll be attached to the angle steel, which will provide a surface to attach to the chassis rails. The chassis will have two  rails for strength and safety, so these will fit between them.

I've got one of those Rage Evolution saws that cuts metal. It doesn't spark, but it does fling chips. Best to be wearing googles and ear defenders.

Clamping and marking up for the holes. It's quite important that this is right, and that the two axle bearers are the same, because it's this that's defining how far apart the rails are, and it's preferable for that to be the same both sides. Turns out to be 118mm as the distance. I am kind of making this up as I go along....

That's them both made. Time to mock it up a bit and see....

The front is important, because obviously the front wheels need to turn side to side to steer. So the chassis has to be narrower here than the rear, but the front wheels need to stick out about the same as the rear, or at least the same or narrower. Looks weird with a wider front track to rear.

Here I've clamped the axles bearers to the bench. The bench is 900mm wide, which is what I'm going to make the go-kart frame. It might be wider than ideal, but what the heck.

Here I've cut the two chassis rails and set them parallel to each other and clamped them. The brace beetween them is held by welding magnets. These hold steel at various angles, most commonly 90deg.

Here's as far as I got today. I've welded up a few of the ladder cross braces, and added some triangulation to stop lozenging. You can see the rail is cut at an angle (see, just behind the wheel), that's to bring the frame in for the steering.

And mocked up once more. I think it's too long in the rear. But we'll see. If I end up having to cut bits out I've already done, it will be a bit of a blow, but these are the breaks - I've not done this before.

I really need to do the front to see where everything will end up. I think it's best to work from the front backwards, but of course I didn't. I'll probably change tack now....

Really, for much more progress, I need my lathe back in action, but I can keep on with the frame a bit more.

If you like lathes, mine's here. Our last house had 3 phase electricity. This one doesn't. So I need an inverter, and some time to mess about with getting the motor out of my lathe. Not looking forward to that - it weighs about 600kg, and is against a wall. And the motor's at floor level, by the wall. Fun.