Hey Ryan,
Thanks... yeah, they are finally looking like actual go-karts! Like anything though... they have become truly modified from the original plans. Henry and I have probably followed 50% of the plans, and have modified the other 50%. I made sure that I extensively read through all the other Arachnid builder's forum posts to discover problems. It was only because of these forums that we were able to easily accomplish hard tasks that the plans called for.
You asked about A-arms: the hardest part of the karts so far. In my previous posts, I mentioned that we have to make 16 pieces of 1" X 1" Steel for the arms. We tried to cut them out by-hand with a reciprocating saw (68 degree angle is bigger than our 45 degree chop-saw) but that did NOT produce good enough A-arms. I am going to a machine shop today to pick up the 16 pieces that we will weld together to make our A-arms... Also, as you can see from the photos above, yes, we are buying our spindles pre-made.
Your 18hp Vtwin with a 40s TC sounds awesome! If you are serious about building an "Arachnid", and buy those plans, I could Email you some of the major changes we made to the plans. It's a fun-looking machine so far!
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