ST2-NG Pre-build "Think Tank"

madprofessor

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Can't go wrong with a HANS anytime. Let's face it, how often will you twist around in the seat to try to look behind you to see if Earnhardt's ghost is about to pass you?
 

Kartorbust

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Well my dad and brother came down for Thanksgiving. They brought me the sled and took the trailer back with them for the time being. So when I have time, I'll tear into the sled and see what's going on with it. My brother complains it doesn't pull very easily still. Do have my Vintage sleds book now so I might be able to read more on it.
 

Kartorbust

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Couple questions:

1. Plans call for the spindle arms (where tie rod ends bolt to) are setup to be out front, rather than rear ward like they would normally be. Is there a way to setup proper Ackerman angle with that?

2. Depending on how stiff the manual steering is, I may look into doing Prius electric power steering. $200 or so from ebay and other places. Problem is, not sure on how much power it draws. I've read 60 amps, but I've not seen any documentation to confirm or dispute this. Anyone happen to know?
 

Kartorbust

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Was a bit warmer today so I worked on the sled a bit. Had to pick up a 13/16" spark plug socket. Poured some 50:1 mixed gas into the cylinders. Found plugs are not getting spark. So narrows it down to a couple items, Bad CDI, kill switch, bad ignition switch, or bad stator. I have a kill switch, but it's a huge PITA to install it. It'll probably be very difficult to find the proper CDI box. Hopefully I can get it to run, but I have put out some feelers to another sled or a motorcycle.
 

Denny

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Couple questions:

1. Plans call for the spindle arms (where tie rod ends bolt to) are setup to be out front, rather than rear ward like they would normally be. Is there a way to setup proper Ackerman angle with that?

2. Depending on how stiff the manual steering is, I may look into doing Prius electric power steering. $200 or so from ebay and other places. Problem is, not sure on how much power it draws. I've read 60 amps, but I've not seen any documentation to confirm or dispute this. Anyone happen to know?
Question #1. Just extend the length of your strings forward. That simple.
#2 I have no clue.
Was a bit warmer today so I worked on the sled a bit. Had to pick up a 13/16" spark plug socket. Poured some 50:1 mixed gas into the cylinders. Found plugs are not getting spark. So narrows it down to a couple items, Bad CDI, kill switch, bad ignition switch, or bad stator. I have a kill switch, but it's a huge PITA to install it. It'll probably be very difficult to find the proper CDI box. Hopefully I can get it to run, but I have put out some feelers to another sled or a motorcycle.
Does it have one of those lanyard kill switches? If it does you will have to bypass it. They don’t look like a normal switch. If I had a picture of the dash I could tell you.
 

Kartorbust

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So with this being a 1970s sled, it has a 3 position kill switch;
Off
On
Off
Lanyard type I think is a more recent kill switch change on sleds. Our '86 Indy Trail 500 was a push button, Pull up for on, push down for off. If I had to guess the lanyard type was maybe in the last 20 or so years, so 2000s era.
 

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Denny

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My John Deeres had them and they were 1980s also my Skidoo Blizzard had one. Also a 1980, so I don’t know. The switch looks like it is for lights or hand warmers.
 

Kartorbust

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The light switch is on the other grip. None of the sleds we ever owner had that kind. Always thought it was for jetskis and maybe a requirement for racing.
 

madprofessor

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spindle arms (where tie rod ends bolt to) are setup to be out front, rather than rear ward
That's just leading arm spindles as opposed to trailing arm spindles, Ackermann setup is identical. Only 3 points matter..............1: Dead center of rear axle, 2: Spindle's kingpin bolt, 3: Spindle arm's tierod connection bolt...............A string stretched tightly in a straight line across those 3 points (from axle center to across the kingpin and across the tierod bolt) aligns your Ackermann whether leading or trailing.
A common problem with leading arm spindles is that on a short kart the angle of your Ackermann string is severe enough that the tierod connection can end up scrubbing against the tire or rim, not enough space. Trailing arm has all the space in the world.
 

madprofessor

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the wheel base is over 100"
That's a real man's gokart, dang! Mine's accidentally way oversized and the wheelbase is still only 96" (8') and 9' overall. It has leading arm spindles also, but they're so heavily modified and reshaped and reinforced to clear the tires and meet the angle of the long travel A-arms and such and achieve zero offset Ackermann angle that there's no comparing their application to the real spindles they started out as anymore.
Hopefully your very long wheelbase will indeed make clearing the tires from hitting the spindle arms a fairly automatic and straightforward setup.
 

Kartorbust

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You can cheat the arms by curving them. :innocent:

I mean in my mind for the last month or so, I've been contemplating changing the rear suspension even more to be trailing arms. Since I have to widen the a-arm design to accommodate Miata CV axles. I don't want to cut and weld them shorter due to maintenance and the lack of wanting to do that. Front, kind of want to maybe modify to use my other VW bug front end, but I want to keep that for the street legal handrail project.

My mind likes to think of what-ifs and whatnot on the kind if shenanigans I want to change up on it.
 

Kartorbust

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That's a real man's gokart, dang! Mine's accidentally way oversized and the wheelbase is still only 96" (8') and 9' overall. It has leading arm spindles also, but they're so heavily modified and reshaped and reinforced to clear the tires and meet the angle of the long travel A-arms and such and achieve zero offset Ackermann angle that there's no comparing their application to the real spindles they started out as anymore.
Hopefully your very long wheelbase will indeed make clearing the tires from hitting the spindle arms a fairly automatic and straightforward setup.

I believe overall length is like 115" or close to it, going off of existing plans. I'd post, but Badland has strict rules over it and I don't want to Peev them off over it.
 

Kartorbust

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No huge updates, small kind of wins I guess. I have located a proper Polaris 350L Trail Boss driven pulley. The other win is, it uses the same belt width as the Comet 102c, which is the drive pulley I've decided I'm going to use to swap out the Arctic Cat hex drive.

This weekend, I'm going to set aside a few hours to trace the kill switch and key switch to install the new ones I have, then try to see if it starts. If it does start, I'll be ordering parts over the next few months. If it doesn't, I'll be looking at a liquid cooled engine. As it's looking right now, if the sled engine does run and I use the gear box, I'm going to have to modify the buggy or may end up scrapping most of it and more or less wing it.

With this needing a final drive ratio of between 10:1 to 12:1, the length of the belt with the gear box, then needing another jackshaft from the gear box to the spool. Still working out the sprocket sizes. I cannot recall what sprocket count I have currently for the gearbox, I believe it's a 10 tooth, but its anywhere from a 10 to 12 tooth (I might have listed it on here...somewhere).

Also, through the blessings of ye olde YouTube algorithm, found a video on how to build a 1991 Miata (NB?) differential into a sprocket differential. Had a thought of utilizing this on this build because I may do cutting (turning) brakes on this, which will help with off road riding, as well as on snow and ice. No one makes a locker for these diffs. More than likely going with the standard spool.
 

Kartorbust

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Was able to set aside a few minutes tonight to look at the kill switch and ignition, should pretty straight forward. Downside? Had to take the air box off to look at the wiring. Apparently mice have turned the air box into a home, lots of shells in the carb. So...looks like a lot of cleaning needs to be done before I can get it to start. Bringing home tools from work this weekend to work on it.
 

Kartorbust

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Well today I decided to bypass the kill switch and key switch, by using jumper wires. Needless to say, no dice. So either this did not work or there are other problems electrically going on that I cannot figure out. Electrical problems are not my specialty and loathe it.

Would be so much easier if I had requested the engine being startee before purchase.
 

madprofessor

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Apparently mice have turned the air box into a home,
In my career field it was usually Florida squirrels in hidden spaces, but often it was mice or more likely river rats, that were the source of horrible electrical problems. The squirrels chew stuff up for nesting materials, including the insulation on wiring. A rat has a bottom tooth that will grow right up through its skull if the tooth isn't constantly worn down by chewing on stuff, wiring included.
Your airbox being a nest for rodents would make me consider a complete rewiring job, done my way and not the factory way, with my own hand-drawn schematic left inside of a panel for others to use later. That always made for the easiest and best possible job doing what I did for a living in the past, and often as not ended up with a better setup than when originally installed.
 
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