Dan & Kyle's father and son project !!

[hemi43]

I had a bit more progress !! I got the front arms made, and mounted this past weekend.
I located the front mounting tabs with threaded rod to keep the aligned and spaced apart correctly, and I used temporary spacers to keep the upper and lower tabs parallel.



To keep the spindles in perfect geometry while welding them in place, I made "high Tech" jigs from particle board. One is cut at 5 degrees for the caster, and the other is square for the camber.




Here's the arms tacked in place.




I finally got my rear CV joints last night. They're from an Audi A6.
They are fairly heavy for this go-kart, so I will be putting them on a diet by the means of a carbide cutter .

[Reidy02]

Looks good, I like ya jig it's a beaut!! Carry on reward less..

[fabr]

nice progress! Looks good.

[Lance-W]

WOW   I really like the look of it from the front!

[hemi43]

I like the  front also, but to me, it kinda looks goofy from the side. I made the main side rail angle up to fast, and this caused the ass end to be fairly high. She may look better when the engine, rad and fuel tank are in.  I'll post more updates in a couple of weeks. Goin' to Vegas Baby !!! SEMA Show here we come !! 

[DaveM]

That top box looks empty. Have you gone through a whole case of those consumables already???

 I guess I might owe you one or two.... in Vegas Buddy!!!! It's almost here!!!

[hemi43]

A bit more progress this week !!

I was able to get the rear hubs made, as well as shortening the shafts.
I wanted about 8 inches of travel, but because the kart is so narrow and the shafts so short, all I ended up with is 7 inches. It will have to do !!
Does anyone know the reason why the shafts are hollow inside ? Mine were a two piece shaft welded together. The manufacturer drilled the halves first before welding. I'm just wondering if this gives the shafts more tolerance to shock loads !! Who knows!!



I also had to lower the ride height a couple of inches to accommodate the short shafts. This has been a great project to learn how suspensions work, and in the future I will try and keep the shafts as long as possible.



The shock mounts worked out great !! I had originally thought that the ass end was too high, but now I'm glad I had screwed up.



I won't get much done next week , because I'm off to Vegas for the SEMA show.
In case you're wondering, those shocks are from a Ford Expedition. The are an air shock, and I'm hoping these will work instead of springs. I found them online and the seller happened to be about 45 minutes away. They are brand new, and he's selling these for $20 each. He claims he bought over 3000 of them from an assembly plant that was going "tits up" !!  I can post a link if anyone is interested in them
Dan

[fabr]

Very nice work. Nice to see !

[Reidy02]

Wow looks great! Very neat!!

[hemi43]

I thought I would post a few pics since it's been a few weeks since my last update. These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, so the kart progress is much further . We actually have a few miles of debugging on it. It's a little rusty now because I had to power wash all the dog shit off of it  :P I must have picked up a fresh load of it, because the kart was covered in crap from front to back. It even got on the seat behind my back !!I have no idea how it could even get there because I was sitting in the seat. It broke the laws of POO physics !!

[Reidy02]

Look'n good fellas! You  might want to think about putting a gusset in those bottom rear A-arms!

[hemi43]

I plan on putting in many gussets, especially on the rear lower "A" arms since there's no triangulation. They would eventually develop cracks for sure if left as is. 
Today I plan on raising the roof line a bit, because my head hits the top bars when wearing a helmet.
Also, I would like to try and get a bit more turning radius from the front end. I'm using 1/2 heim joints with "high angle" bushings for a 3/8 bolt. I think I will redesign the bushings to accept 5/16 bolts. They will be more than strong enough, and hopefully get me those few extra precious degrees of wheel movement.
So far, that seems to be the only issues.
The suspension works great with those air shocks
I'll take a pic of the kart today, because it looks a lot different than the pictures above.
Dan

[hemi43]

Here's some updated pics I snapped today.
As you can see a lot got done and I got a little lazy in my picture taking.
Sorry for all the pics !! Hope you're not on dial-up !







And finally, a small video.

http://www.dtsfab.com/index/MGalleryItem.php?id=835

[Lance-W]

WOW   that was fast !!!!!!!!

[hemi43]

WOW   that was fast !!!!!!!!

The best part is that I have less than $1000 invested !! It pays to scrounge