good way to convert a vertical shaft to horizantal

[jrjulien1]

the other day when i was having problems with my grinder not working i pulled it apart to see what was wrong when i saw that the gear system in the front of the grinder had a pretty strong ring and pinion gear setup complete with berings and everything was greased so it made me think that if someone had a small vertical shaft engine and a way to do some fabrication this would work so my idea was to unbolt the pinion gear from the motor and simply slide a steel shaft into the pinion gear weld it on and use this as your input shaft and for the other side you would have to weld a small sprocket onto the threads for the grinder arbor although a set screw would be better and the god thing about this set up is that it has about a 3.5 to 1 gear ratio built in the only thing i havent figured out yet is where the clutch would go {it would probably be after the gearbox setup so it would take more motor speed to engage it} anyways its just an idea although i might try it sometime seeing as my grinder dosent seem to work anymore

[mikeandike]

could you post some pics

[frank]

have gears with no gear ratio, and then get the cluch on the horizontal part

[jrjulien1]

i dont have a digital camera or a scanner but ill try to borrow my friends if not ill find one on the internet

[jrjulien1]

ya that would be a good idea frank

[imported_robertdjung]

I don't know that those gears would actually hold up to the massive torque that a kart would put them under. Spinning a grinding wheel is one thing -- but a kart is a whole 'nother thing. I've heard that even a riding lawnmower's gearbox often fails under a serious load. This is all secondhand hearsay, but I figured i'd chime in. Please post pics if you do it!

[frank]

could somebody use like 2 or 3 of those CV joints to get it from vertical to horizontal?

[jrjulien1]

yes in thery you could use cv joints however it would take up alot of space

[jrjulien1]

i believe that the gears would hold up to the stress of a small engine and kart around 3.5 hp or so but i wouldent put much more than that through it

[rupertvl]

No way these little gears would hold up to the power of a petrol engine. Yes they might handle 3.5 horse power maybe more but these engines that most are running on your gokarts are NOT high performance engines BUT HIGH TORQUE ENGINES. The sheer torque of these engines will easily snap these gears.

[jrjulien1]

i believe that they would as they are very thick and strong looking and have roller berings
also the rpm would be no problem because my grinder hits 30000 rpm

[the thnikkaman]

You could also use a differential from a old car mounted under your verical shaft to convert it to a horizontal shaft. It would definetly hadle the torque of the engine and also would allow the wheels to turn at different speeds during turns. It may be a little bulky and hard to install, though.