15" 5 lug Wheels adapted to 3 lug 1" Axle?

[Willie1]

If you are just going to drive one tire, you can either freewheel one wheel at the hub,
or use 2 separate axles.
I'm not sure if I would use cart axles for this project.
One reason is braking - do you want good brakes, or probably marginal kart brakes?
That said - another idea is to modify car axles with the correct bolt pattern.
Car axles are plentiful and can be cut down to any length. It might be less hassle in the long
run to machine areas on them for pillow blocks, drive and brake hubs, and keyway as necessary.
I guess a lot of this depends on your access to machining options.
Getting trick would be to source a pair of car axle housing ends to mount to the chassis. This would get
you a place to mount factory brakes. Machine the inner ends of the axles as necessary.

IMO a lot of this - like any project - depends on your access to machine shop operations, ability, budget, etc.
There are many solutions to what you are trying to accomplish. Having been blessed to access to a fully
capable machine shop, materials, tools, etc. - my solutions sometimes are more complicated than necessary.
Or have ended up as pretty creative with over-the-top results. Good luck with your project.

 

[Richard D]

I do have access to a machine shop, but at $58 I'll take my chances with the racing kart axle. Later when I have more cash I will drop the $1800 on a proper trike axle designed for this.

 

[Budget GoKart]

there is 5 lug wheel hubs for a wheel horse lawn tractor same bolt pattern keyed for a 1 inch axle

 

[Richard D]

Damn! I just ordered yesterday some wheel adapters.

 

[Willie1]

I do have access to a machine shop, but at $58 I'll take my chances with the racing kart axle. Later when I have more cash I will drop the $1800 on a proper trike axle designed for this.

Fair enough. Just throwing an option out there that hadn't been mentioned.
I know people are using golf kart axles to get differential action, but I doubt one would hold up to your powerplant choice.

 

[Richard D]

I thought of golf cart axle, but they aren't chain drive.

 

[Denny]

A golf kart axle would snap like a twig in the desert. They break with just 9 hp going to them. I sold and serviced them for 12 years.

 

[Richard D]

Really? I figured they were pretty strong. We have a gas powered cart here, with knobby tires and a flat bed on back. It's a work cart, not used on a golf course. We don't beat the **** out of it, but we don't baby it either...

 

[madprofessor]

A golf kart axle would snap like a twig in the desert. They break with just 9 hp going to them.

Why hasn't anybody ever told me that? Very glad to find out now before I ever go putting that with a 420cc engine in the future.

 

[Denny]

Putting bigger tires on them does not seem to be much of a problem. Ez-Go would snap axles or the splines from the axles and drums, Club Car would snap housings. Yamaha used a miniature Dana looking housing which was strong but would strip axles and drums. Ez-Go used a mini Dana rear end for a while same problem. I still have one of those somewhere.

 

[madprofessor]

Denny, speaking of Danas and splines, I just learned today from Magnante (Junkyard Gold) that the Danas of '60's-'70's muscle cars, supposedly the right hotrod rear ends to have, could have less splines than weaker units, like maybe 18 instead of 23. Had thought more was stronger, but apparently that would have required a tighter fit than was practicable.
So how do we know what Ez-Go's and Yamaha's would strip the splines on axles and drums, Club cars busting housings, etc. ? Sounds like the best bet would be to not use a golf cart differential on a gokart at all. Disappointing thought. That leaves gokart suppliers' parts, and junkyard car parts. What are most folks using when building karts with IRS?
............and what are they doing to make them limited slip without locking a "spool"? in place, effectively making them locked solid like a straight axle? At least the suspension could still be separate for right/left.
Are these Peerless in this link any stronger than golf karts' stuff?.............100-series.pdf (peerlessgear.com)

 

[Willie1]

Those Peerless 100 series differential axles were common in rear engine riding and walk behind zero turn mowers, power wheel barrows, etc. They are light duty axles, usually limited to about 12-15 hp, 18-20" dia tires, and 400-600lbs of weight, depending on axle dia. They can be hard to find with decent length axles, but axles can be found reasonably on Ebay, etc. I have one I sourced from a Jacobson rider to use in a trike I'm sourcing parts for - Tillotson 223 engine, TAV 30 series torque converter, "Chinese" F-N-R gearbox, and the 3/4" Peerless axle. They are not a very robust unit and is what I consider to be the weak link in this build. One of the issues with them is that weight or torque pull from the chain tries to "fold" them in the middle, so I plan to run an extra axle bearing next to the chain side of the diff to give it a better chance of success. But as you can see from this pic of mine (still in the donor) they are not very beefy. The body is only about 4" in dia and 6" across.

 

[Denny]

True, the Dana 60 is stronger than the Ford 9”. The reasons the Dana’s are not more popular is because there is a price to be paid for that strength. Namely weight and friction. It weighes a little under 100 lbs more and because of how the pinion engages the ring gear it has more area of tooth contact which uses more tq. and hp. Personally in stick cars for drag racing the 60 is the only way to go. For an automatic a 9” or Chrysler 8 3/4” work great!

 

[Willie1]

Dana 60's fell out of popularity due to limited production for passenger cars. The ones for trucks were harder to modify for racing use, due to the difference in axle tube dia. Now that Strange is casting new Dana 60 passenger car style center housings they are a decent option again. There has always been good product support for the Ford 9". And now you can buy new nodular iron Mopar 8 3/4 center cases, along with retrofit housing bearing retainer caps. And the off road flock love the "GM" 14 bolt axles.

 

[madprofessor]

Thanks guys, great info for an inquiring mind, hopefully RichardD can gain some useful knowledge from it also. Now, the pics I've been seeing have escaped my brain insofar as obvious goes, everything has what might as well be a straight axle. It's 2 pieces to turn at different rates, but each side would need U-joints or something somewhere between housing and wheels for actual IRS.
For semi-IRS where both wheels have their own independent shock, but the whole axle and housing "wig-wags" up and down as a single unit, as apparently it must with Willie's mower diff and with the Peerless diff, what's best for keeping the axle in place on a simple gokart?
Would a single hinged bar running fore/aft on each side left/right (I forget the name) and a single "panhard"? bar running transverse be enough? With that setup, would a heavy-duty spring-actuated chain tensioner with an idler sprocket be enough to keep the chain tight without skipping as the housing went up/down?

 

[Willie1]

Mad Prof - if I was going to do a kart and wanted true IRS and a diff - I drew you a rough idea on how I would do it.
Since the swing-arms pivot on the diff axles, the chain tension doesn't change as the tires go up/down. If you didn't need a diff, obviously a solid axle could be used. And mind you, I drew this up along the lines of using a Peerless 100 style diff, so it would be for a 16-18hp kart max. But this should give you one rough idea on setting up a true IRS for the rear of a kart - there are other ways, too, that involve half shafts with u-joints, etc. Hope this helps

 

[Willie1]

Or, from your pic. Green are swing-arms, blue are drive chains, red are pillow blocks, black is frame.
Properly braced, the swing arms shouldn't need Panhard bars.

 

[Willie1]

While I'm this deep into it (LOL) - Grainger sells torque limiting sprockets that are a rebuildable clutch that can be set in a torque range. The unit is about $100 and another +/- $100 for a sprocket. If you installed one on either the drive or driven shaft you could pre-set a torque for a limited slip rear axle. In other words -1 axle would have full time power and the other would provide power up to the torque it was set at and then slip. Better than just 1 wheel drive and could be tuned if necessary for different terrain conditions. At least if it fails - you still have 1 driving wheel, which is more than you usually have when a diff fails.

 

[madprofessor]

Much thanks, Willie, especially for the Grainger unit info. Never even heard of something like that before, and it's very smart. Wish I was the one that filed the patent on it, would have a pretty secretary taking dictation of this for me by now.
Great diagrams work above, very easy to understand, appreciate that. Hadn't considered the diff being rigid-mounted to run chain-drive(s), only rigid when direct-driving U-joints or CV joints. Looking at the various options, I have doubts about how tight I could make the twin swingarms, even using my favorite cast iron pillow blocks. Think I'd likely end up building it out in such a way that would get some undesirable side/side motion on each, depending on how seriously it was out there boonie-crashing. Looks like a floating diff wig-wagging a rigid pair of axles is out of the reasonable zone for me as well.
That leaves a rigid diff direct-driving some U or CV joints. One big question: Would some common steering U-joints be able to handle the stress of direct-drive from a diff? (Only one per side, wheels allowed to tilt in/out as they up/down.) Or would a car's drivetrain U-joints be required? The whole CV joints thing would get too expensive for me.
BTW: It's learning of the power the Peerless diff can take that has me leaning that way. Definitely cost-effective.