Late 90's or early 2000's 60cc shifter kart clean-up project...need help!

[dboo]

Hi all. I'm new to karting and to this forum. I didn't have a go-kart growing up (I'm 50 now) but suddenly find myself with two karts in the garage partly due to interest by my 13 yo boy and partly due to my inability to turn down a “good deal”. In the process of getting some welding done on the first kart (an older 50’s era kart), the welder had this shifter kart that had been sitting in his garage for years. Seemed like what he wanted for it was too good to pass up…and provides another project for me and my boy to work on together. My goal for this kart is first to get it fixed up and running well. Second, to take it out and have some fun. Although this shifter is only running a little 60cc 2-stroke (KX-60), I expect it to be significantly faster than our little yard kart with its Predator 212.

We did some basic cleaning of the exterior, drained the gas tank and fuel line, added fresh fuel, cleaned the carb and got it started. Engine sounds strong and only remaining item there is to dial in the idle a bit (it doesn’t seem to want to stay running without the gas pedal depressed a little bit).

Help needed…
The one immediate area where I need your help is with the wheels and tires. None of the wheels and tires hold air for any significant period of time. I initially thought 3 were holding air and one wasn’t but as it turns out, even those 3 go flat after a couple days or so. I made the mistake of taking the one that was leaking faster to a local tire shop. They didn’t bother to tell me they didn’t have any experience with go-kart wheels and tires until after they “modified” the wheel (and not in a good way).

The wheels are the bolt-together type with a seal in the middle. It appears that they are non-standard sized wheels and hubs (center hole/hub is 2.5” diameter and it’s a 3 bolt pattern with roughly a 3.2” diameter). My initial thought is to put tubes in all 4 tires and call it good (after finding a competent tire shop). However, I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. I’m also unsure with these wide tires how well tubes work and how you deal with the valve stem holes being offset from center so far. Perhaps these are easy problems to solve but I’m hoping someone out there can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for your insights and opinions!

 

[Budget GoKart]

Im pretty sure you have to seal the rim and have a valve stem the tires are ment to be flat if you put an inner tube in it will buldge and be round in the middle

 

[anderkart]

Lots of folks just use clear silicone to make the seal in-between the rim half's.

There were a few different brands of 2-piece racekart rims made over the years, but you have van-K brand rims like these: https://www.bmikarts.com/VanK-5-Rim-Halves-VK_p_1571.html

You could buy these replacement O-ring seals: https://www.bmikarts.com/Seal-for-VanK-Rims_p_7776.html

Here's a link to the van-K site: http://vankwheels.net/van-k_wheels_v9a_010.htm

 

[dboo]

Thank you for the replies. Sounds like my easy path using tubes isn't workable.

@anderkart - It seems that all of the van-K o-ring seals (that I can find) are for standard American bolt pattern (2.5" diameter). My bolt pattern appears to be something of an odd-ball, with a diameter of ~3.2". My rims have "MH" stamped on the inside of the rim, but I can't find any brand or model name to match those initials. Am I missing other options, or do you think I'm stuck with the clear silicone option?

 

[mckutzy]

Are you sure they arent a metric rim?...

 

[dboo]

Big hole in the middle (and mating hub) is around 2.5" (~63mm - 64mm) in diameter and the bolt circle diameter is around 3.2" (~81mm) in diameter. I can't find anything (including metric) that appears to be close to these numbers. According to link below, metric bolt circle is either 58mm or 67mm...both significantly smaller than what I have.

https://www.bmikarts.com/How-To-Measure-Go-Kart-Wheel-Bolt-Patterns

 

[anderkart]

Yeah you got an oddball bolt patern there, and I think silicone is your best option.

Are you planning on ever racing at a track or just riding around for fun?

If your just riding for fun, your probably gonna to run into ground clearance issues... So an option to consider would be replacing your rims with (one-piece) 6" diameter so you could install 13" or 15" tall turf tires to increase ground clearance. You'd need to replace all 4 wheel hubs to the American or metric bolt patern, or you could buy the spindle-mount type of front rims to lower the cost a bit.

 

[itsid]

those wheels appear to be kids-quad wheels
the bolthole spacing of 70mm is not unusual (like say for taotao quads)

and if I'm not mistaking 81*sin(60) is 70-ish
so 70mm bolthole spacing on a three bolt pattern means a bhc of 81mm ...

I cannot find a split rim that matches tbh, not even any 5" rim for that..
only getting results for 6 and 7" rims with that bolt hole pattern / spacing
all single piece

Anyways.. to seal silicone will do a good job,
if by chance you find an o ring of whatever that size is
(maybe a rubber band or the seal of a sewage pipe whatever fits in diameter)
you might end up with a reuseable seal.. but silicone is working well for the task.


'sid

 

[Thelegg]

Just gonna chuck in my little bit of knowledge, my first go kart came with pretty much if not the same split rims, I couldn't get them to seal at all and ended up running tubes, didn't have any issues as you can get special wide tubes to match the tyre size hope this helps

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[dboo]

Thanks for all the replies!

Can you run tubes in wider racing slicks? There was an earlier post that said they thought tubes wouldn't work. I did some searching and can't find tubes for my tire sizes. Perhaps there are tubes that fit a range of tire sizes that would work? Assuming a tube would work, do you have to drill a different hole for the tube valve stem or can you use the one that's already there? I'm not sure if the hole needs to be closer to the center of the wheel.

@anderkart - we don't plan to race this kart. But I'm thinking it would make a great little race kart for a 7-12 year old in the 60cc class. I'd like to have something my son and I both can fit in and drive comfortably. Now that I have it at home and have sat in it...it's a bit tight. I like your advice on replacing wheels and tires and if the overall size of the kart was a bit bigger I think that's what I will do. For now I want to get it fixed up and running well so we can drive it a bit and decide what to do before putting much more money into it. Might be a smart move to find a new home for this kart and start a new project that's a better fit.

@itsid - thanks for your investigative work...much appreciated. I think your number are correct. Did you find 6" and 7" wheels that look like they would fit on my hubs?

 

[Thelegg]

My tyres were 7.1/11.00-5 the tube I found online. https://allterraintyres.co.uk/index...cts_id=13045&zenid=hh36roqlmld5od436a0bp24at4

I have also found that some Chinese quad bikes have the same stud pattern so you can get some 6" rims that will give you a bigger range of tyre choice.

As for redrilling the valve hole I didn't have to on the split rims but when I fitted tubes in my other kart I did have to re-drill the hole further in as the valve kept slipping inside the rim when using the original hole

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[itsid]

@itsid - thanks for your investigative work...much appreciated. I think your number are correct. Did you find 6" and 7" wheels that look like they would fit on my hubs?

yes you get dozens of decent hits (and hundreds of stupid ones)depending on the search terms
"kids|chinese atv|quad wheel|rim 81|70 mm" (you get the idea)

midpoints :
https://www.vmcchineseparts.com/products/chinese-atv-rim-4x6-wheel-3-bolt-version-8
https://www.vmcchineseparts.com/pro...el-3-bolt-taotao-atvs-and-go-karts-version-35

and with that adjusted the search term to:
"Bolt hole spacing 70mm"
since chinese vendors tend to just copy the description in order to spare another translation
and because the above are sold out..

that then yielded this:
https://www.whygostock.com/7-taotao-tao-motor-rim-wheel-10mm-mounting-holes/

unfortunately the taotaoshop that carries 6" rims did not list the bolt hole pattern but instead just the model taotao it fits on..
the 7" is from a 125D but the 6" I couldn't as quickly find the model..
and I didn't want to spend half an hour searching for it...


'sid