Souped up yard kart build

[Kartin’ kid]

Working on Improving the overall turning radius of my kart. Step one is fabricating a new plate to replace the old one on my steering system. I have no idea what the piece is called so let me know if you do

Old:

New:

The old one is about 3” and the new one is 4”

 

[ezcome-ezgo]

A Pitman arm is a shaft that translates rotary or angular movement into linear movement.

 

[Kartin’ kid]

A Pitman arm is a shaft that translates rotary or angular movement into linear movement.

Awesome thank you. I think I actually learned something about that back in my days of building RC cars out of Legos

 

[Kartin’ kid]

She’s done! A little crude but I’ll get ‘er cleaned up. Big improvement!

(Pardon the purple miniature chair that I’m using as a jack stand )

 

[Kartin’ kid]

After a lot of hammering and WD-40 the steering shaft is out!

 

[Denny]

She’s done! A little crude but I’ll get ‘er cleaned up. Big improvement!
View attachment 133756View attachment 133757
(Pardon the purple miniature chair that I’m using as a jack stand )

We are not here to judge you or your life style. We are here for the gokarts.
if you are going to make a new pitman arm why not improve Ackerman while you are at it? The only thing the longer pitman will do is make the steering much quicker and twitchier.

 

[Kartin’ kid]

We are not here to judge you or your life style. We are here for the gokarts.

Right on! I swear that chair is cursed. We were cleaning out a distant friends place and among several other things I took that chair (when it was much less rusty) to hopefully sell at an upcoming yard sale. Sold everything else but that damn chair didn’t go. Every single other time I’ve tried to get rid of it(About 7 times now) it never works out. It seems like I will be stuck with it for life

if you are going to make a new pitman arm why not improve Ackerman while you are at it? The only thing the longer pitman will do is make the steering much quicker and twitchier

I was thinking about that. I haven’t done much research on Ackerman simply because I feel that I’m still pretty far away from fabricating new knuckles. As for the quicker and twitchier, it should improve the turning radius no matter what because it’s “pushing“ and “pulling” The tie rods further, correct?

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Steering shaft has been “decapitated“

 

[Denny]

Unless there is a stop on the spindles. Improving Ackerman will do more to tighten your turning radius. Just turn your pitman arm into a triangle and hook your tie rods to the opposite sides.

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Just turn your pitman arm into a triangle and hook your tie rods to the opposite sides.

Not sure I follow. Do you know where I can find a diagram of this?

 

[Denny]

Most of Functionalartist’s builds!

 

[ezcome-ezgo]

Here's the solution to your chair problem: "For Sale - Magic Chair"

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Unless there is a stop on the spindles. Improving Ackerman will do more to tighten your turning radius. Just turn your pitman arm into a triangle and hook your tie rods to the opposite sides.

Sad to see a piece that I spent half a day fabricating go to waste but happy to improve the kart and learn stuff. Does it matter and or make a difference how long/wide the triangular Pitman arm is? And to space out the tie rod bolts so they clear each other, would you recommend using nylon spacers or something else

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Old plate is out! Now for the new one to go in… As soon as I get an adapter for my welder and do a little bit more practicing

 

[Kartin’ kid]

There’s a little mock up. It’s looking good

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Making up a new Pitman arm

It’s 4” long and will have four points of adjustability. Hopefully I’ll have it at least cut out by the end of the night

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Here she is, fresh of the drill press!

this is a whole new level of fabrication for me and I think I’m starting to get a taste for it

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Old New Newest

 

[Kartin’ kid]

I mocked up the the new pm arm today… and realized when I was originally designing my steering system I forgot to account for the existence of tie rods. Therefore, to make this work I would have to chop my feet off which I think I’ll avoid if I can. I went back to the drawing board and decided I can hang the arm upside down slightly underneath my frame. Pictures worth 1000 words

The locking collar is there temporary early to hold it in place. With this set up providing that I have 11 inch tires I’ll have enough ground clearance and more steering angle than I could possibly know what to do with, as in 90 degrees, so I’ll probably actually wind up limiting it so I don’t destroy the kart (and me) making a high-speed turn.

Next order of business is getting New tie rods along with the remaining supplies I need to start welding. I don’t have the necessary financial means for that at the moment so until I do I’ll be doing everything else I can.

I’m planning to incorporate a little negative camber so I’ll be cutting off the parts that hold my spindles in place

*I forget what they’re called *
And manufacturing new ones that also don’t limit my turning radius as soon as I can get my hands on he necessary scrap

 

[Kartin’ kid]

Designed the *insert name of the piece that holds the spindles* in CAD. that was the easy part, now I just have to figure out how the hell I’m gonna make it.

Right now it would have 15° of negative camber which may or may not be excessive, I don’t know. I just used it as a placeholder number while I do research on the ideal camber set up.

I’ll be driving the kart on roads/parking lots and doing a little drifting so if anyone has any advice on how much negative camber I should incorporate please feel free to share