Rolling on 40s

[Ebrownie]

Disclaimer: please don’t attempt this

Hey guys, its been a long time since I’ve worked on my kart. I’ve been paying more attention to my pickup, my semi, my sled and my bike the past year or so. However, it was looking lonely so I decided to do a little something fun and very sketchy with my kart.

I welded up some 2” strap and drilled holes on the press and made some wheel adapters for my kart. Made them to bolt a semi truck wheel on, because my buddy had some 20” split rim wheels and tires sitting around. Sooo I bolted them up on the rear axle and took her for a rip.

Also, in case you guys have never handled old split rim truck wheels and tires, they are HEAVY. 250 lbs apiece, 40 inches tall. So I had 500 lbs of rotating mass, which I figure is about twice what my entire kart weighed before... needless to say, it didn’t steer well. Or stop well. Or accelerate well.

However, I was impressed that I didn’t break a single thing! My 1” axle, bearings, #40 chain, torque converter all held together great. I didn’t even blow a belt. And my kart looked absolutely ridiculous

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qizTl6KASSE

 

[Whitetrashrocker]

Awesome

 

[Budget GoKart]

This reminds me of when red and green show bolted tractor wheels on a honda

 

[mckutzy]

Oh that's so cool..
Literally crying laughing ....
So cool...

 

[Mr_mcrib212]

is that Azusa frame?

 

[Ebrownie]

is that Azusa frame?

No sir, it’s a one off, I built it from scratch. Here’s the link to the thread with some info on it

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=39702

 

[mckutzy]

How did it stop with the brakes you have there???

 

[Kartorbust]

And here I thought of putting 33x12.5x10 Load E tires on a project would shred a belt like no tomorrow. So 500lbs of rotating mass did jack to your belt, welp color me impressed. Oh well, I'll still stick with the Bear Claws.

 

[Ebrownie]

How did it stop with the brakes you have there???

Well I have hydraulic disc brakes, which with the normal 18” tires can lock them up on dirt and stop on a dime on pavement. However, with the 500 lbs of rotating mass, they didn’t really work. Which was expected

I could stop, but it took me a decent length of road.

To be clear, I didn’t actually expect it to be very driveable. I was actually surprised it handled as well as it did.

 

[jmaack]

how many miles did it take to get going?

 

[Ebrownie]

how many miles did it take to get going?

While it sounds crazy to say, it really didn’t accelerate that bad! 0-5 mph is a little rough. But the tires are so big that you can just reach over and spin the tires by hand while you’re in the seat to get started a bit

But after that, it accelerated fine, just slowly. I have 6:1 gearing, the torque converter definitely never shifted at all, stayed in low ratio.

Obviously it’s not thrilling to drive, but there is something so ridiculous about driving it with 40” truck tires. I just couldn’t stop laughing. Definitely worth the 4 hours of time I spent making adapters.

 

[JTSpeedDemon]

HAHAHA!

I LOVE IT! I feel like we've discovered a new trend!

 

[Bansil]

 

[Ebrownie]

In case any of you were curious, these are the adapters I made. I only used 4 of the truck wheel lugs, I figured that wouldn’t be my weak point. I realize it looks a little unsafe, but they were pretty solid actually. And I’m a far better welder now than i was when I built my kart 2 years ago.

 

[anickode]

Steering looks a mite wobbly with the nose pointed straight at the ground like that.

 

[Ebrownie]

Steering looks a mite wobbly with the nose pointed straight at the ground like that.

Yes it darted around a good bit, but the rears had so much more traction that it kinda just went pretty straight no matter which way the wheel was turned.

I wouldn’t even think about trying to run it on pavement... I think that would mean breaking something or hitting something for sure.