drummingpariah
New member
Hey folks, I've been doing hillclimb races for awhile now, and they're generally held in Vermont State Parks. While that makes for beautiful scenery, it can be annoying to need something at my campsite while the race car is lined up for staging. For awhile, I considered a moped or minibike or even a pit bike to get to/from my campsite, but I realized that a kart is so much more utilitarian. There's much more storage space, and they're just ... kind of ... cooler.
So I found a local who was selling one, and picked it up for $350.
It's rough, with one of the spindles bent badly enough that I can't repair it, and I'm trying to sort out some clutch issues. Generally speaking, I think I did a decent job for the money. It has a strong methanol engine, 3 good wheels, no good tires, and the frame looks to be in good condition.
As I'm not going to drive this competitively, I'm trying to find a source for inexpensive ~12x8.00-6 tires for the rear and ~11x6.00-6 tires for the front. So far, I've found kart supplies to be difficult to order. Any advice would be appreciated there.
One more oddity I found was the design of the spindles. Looking at other peoples' karts, it looks like the bearings are typically built-in to the spindle, and the chassis just has a C-tab to mount them. I couldn't find any replacement spindles with that design, so I'm going to chop the whole end off and weld on replacements to adhere to what appears to be the standard. There wasn't an effective way for me to hammer out the front-left positive camber, that axle apparently took a hard knock at some point. It isn't even close to straight, and has a stress fracture in the axle itself.
I'm much more used to bigger (still small) vehicles though. These are my daily driven racecars. I don't really believe in 'dedicated' race cars. I feel like I've stepped way out of my element here, and I can't trust any of the rules of thumb that apply to suspension vehicles.
This is an example of the types of mountains I race them up.
So I found a local who was selling one, and picked it up for $350.
It's rough, with one of the spindles bent badly enough that I can't repair it, and I'm trying to sort out some clutch issues. Generally speaking, I think I did a decent job for the money. It has a strong methanol engine, 3 good wheels, no good tires, and the frame looks to be in good condition.
As I'm not going to drive this competitively, I'm trying to find a source for inexpensive ~12x8.00-6 tires for the rear and ~11x6.00-6 tires for the front. So far, I've found kart supplies to be difficult to order. Any advice would be appreciated there.
One more oddity I found was the design of the spindles. Looking at other peoples' karts, it looks like the bearings are typically built-in to the spindle, and the chassis just has a C-tab to mount them. I couldn't find any replacement spindles with that design, so I'm going to chop the whole end off and weld on replacements to adhere to what appears to be the standard. There wasn't an effective way for me to hammer out the front-left positive camber, that axle apparently took a hard knock at some point. It isn't even close to straight, and has a stress fracture in the axle itself.
I'm much more used to bigger (still small) vehicles though. These are my daily driven racecars. I don't really believe in 'dedicated' race cars. I feel like I've stepped way out of my element here, and I can't trust any of the rules of thumb that apply to suspension vehicles.
This is an example of the types of mountains I race them up.
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