The Cabinetmaker
New member
Hey guys, I hope this is in the right place on the forum, it's been a while but I just wanted to come back and let you know how I got on with my soapbox this year after coming here for some advice last year (check out my last thread if you want to) after a lot of research I decided to put a solid 25mm steel bar through for the rear which I could bolt the wheels on to, this worked well in a straight line but after watching some videos of my run the wheels flexed badly under a hard side load, I think it was due to the thin 3/8" bmx axles, and the front I made a front subframe for both looks and strength which worked very well, the wheels had new thicker spokes and pumped up to 60 psi for lowest friction on the road, and I changed the steering to something much simpler than I had before and I could adjust it if I wanted, which I did because it was so twitchy on my test run it was scary,
We had two runs down the course which had a slalom then a ramp, Last year's ramp was 4" tall which was fine, this year it was 18" tall! So it had a slalom to go around it with a 5 second time penalty, I opted out of the jump on my first run and got a time of 23 seconds which was the fastest run but with the time penalty I sat in 3rd place, so on my second run I had to go over the jump if I wanted first place, I took off from the ramp flew 6 foot which missed the down ramp the other side and hit the road so hard I snapped the left rear axle clean through and bent the from left axle 45°, scraping down the road I lent out of the kart as far as I could to counter balance it and rolled the last 15m over the finish line with 2 1/2 wheels and with a time of 23 seconds and 1st place! After I stopped the front wheel pinged off in a hilarious cartoon fashion and the crowd were going nuts, it was the best most terrifying 23 seconds I've had for a while,
I've got a bit of tinkering to do before next year now which I think will be some heavy duty wheelchair hubs and axles in some more 20" wheels, the spokes were fine but we're let down by the axles, then it will be perfect
We had two runs down the course which had a slalom then a ramp, Last year's ramp was 4" tall which was fine, this year it was 18" tall! So it had a slalom to go around it with a 5 second time penalty, I opted out of the jump on my first run and got a time of 23 seconds which was the fastest run but with the time penalty I sat in 3rd place, so on my second run I had to go over the jump if I wanted first place, I took off from the ramp flew 6 foot which missed the down ramp the other side and hit the road so hard I snapped the left rear axle clean through and bent the from left axle 45°, scraping down the road I lent out of the kart as far as I could to counter balance it and rolled the last 15m over the finish line with 2 1/2 wheels and with a time of 23 seconds and 1st place! After I stopped the front wheel pinged off in a hilarious cartoon fashion and the crowd were going nuts, it was the best most terrifying 23 seconds I've had for a while,
I've got a bit of tinkering to do before next year now which I think will be some heavy duty wheelchair hubs and axles in some more 20" wheels, the spokes were fine but we're let down by the axles, then it will be perfect
