OK, pretty eventful day today. This is going to be a long one.
I am happy to say that the brakes work *better*. They still don't fully lock up, but they do slow me down much, much quicker. I disassembled and reassembled the whole brake linkage system, played with the positioning holes on both the pedal side of the linkage and caliper side, and managed to find a happy medium. I discovered that the pedal stop itself prevents me from getting full throw of the caliper arm since the pedal hits the stop as the caliper arm is at about 3/4 of it's total throw. Luckily, this doesn't seem like the end of the world as it was this way from the factory. The biggest help was definitely from lining up the rotor correctly. Seems this was the main issue all along. The rotor was not being pinched correctly between the pads. Most of the very little braking I had was from the actuating pad trying to stop the kart all by itself. I slid the rotor over until it was pressed against the stationary pad, and now the brakes feel much more powerful since the rotor is actually being pinched...I just wish I had figured that out a month or so ago.
And yet, the Crapshoot STILL lives up to its name. As I was driving around testing out the brakes, feeling good I finally made a step in the right direction, for the first time ever, it threw a chain. The chain is very old and is stretched out anyway, so I'm not surprised. But the chain not only was thrown off, but it wedged itself between the chain guard and the sprocket, causing the back tires to lock up and for me to go sliding into a tree. Ouch. Kart is OK, I think I hit my head but I was wearing a helmet and I feel OK. My main concern was getting the chain back on, but I couldn't without taking the master link off. Problem is, I was about a mile from my house with no tools to do it...and it was starting to rain...great. My sister drove over and brought me some tools, and I was able to get the chain back on and drive home. I'm a little sore and ****ed off but it could've been much worse.
That all being said, I think I'm going to take a break from this thing for a bit. Seems like all I do is dump money in it and work on it. I do very little actual driving. Every time I fix one thing something else goes wrong. This kart has tried to kill me multiple times now - from losing a tire at 30+ mph, to losing all brakes while doing 40 mph (when I still had the old brakes on it), to today where it locked up and sent me into a tree. I'm getting a little tired of it to say the least. At this point, I think I might be ready to start my next project rather than to continue dumping more and more time/money into this one. I'm gonna hold on to it for a while since I just put so much effort into it, but I'm definitely gonna start drawing up some blueprints for a ground up build. I also have to repair my grandmother's riding mower and a Grand Marquis in the meantime.
All in all, I consider this thread to be RESOLVED. Thanks again to everyone who offered their advice!
This doesn't sound good. Have you mentioned this previously? There's more to it than originally thought. Put the rear of the kart on jackstands, hop in, run it and apply the brakes. Once they jam, pop the brake rod out then see if you can loosen the rotor or square it up enough to allow it to work properly. Sounds like you have the rotor out of position or something along those lines. When asking for help, try to include all of the details (like the old rotor being welded on). Helps diagnosing the problem and saves time.
I didn't mention it because it doesn't really matter anymore. I have a new axle with an adjustable rotor that is held in with set screws. If I back the screws out I can change its position. The rotor was welded to the original factory axle. You are correct though, the main issue was that the rotor was not aligned correctly. At least it seems to be the case.
