i'll open this thread

[john phippen]

Hi. Thanks for adding me. A couple months ago my nine year old stepson asked "Can we build a go kart?".  My ears perked up.  I said "Yes".

     When I was a kid we had a go kart.  Nothing fancy.  Just a one wheel drive with a 5hp B&S.  My friend Todd and I spent countless hours working on the go kart.  Our Dads always helped but for the most part they let us go at it unassisted unless we were stumped. There was no internet, just a library.  Racing go kart stuff was out of our junior high budgets and we wouldn't know where to get it anyway.  So we did things like have the head shaved down a little, fabricate a header, fit some stiffer valve springs out of a random junkyard motorcycle engine, smooth out the ports and eliminate the governor. We eventually built a better frame with a live axle and steering geometry that incorporated trail and Ackermann steering. I never really thought about it until years later how many fabrication and mechanical skills we learned because we had a go kart.

     So yeah, I was glad my stepson wanted to mess around with something like that. Fabricating from scratch was a possibility but first I called Todd.  He works in the recycling industry and every now and then sets something off to the side.


     A couple weeks later Todd shows up with two frames and a dozen or so wheels. One looks to be a racing frame from the 80s with a standard engine mounting pattern for a 5hp B&S engine.  The other looked older and through my interest in bicycles I was reasonably certain it was made of 4130 or similar tubing. So I was curious and after a few random Bing image searches I determined it is most likely a Bug Wasp.

     That brought me here.  I'll probably ask strange questions.  I'll put up some pictures when as we make progress. Thanks for having such a helpful site.

Brad

Brad welcome to the site. Post pics and ask all the questions you want. All the guys on here are great. Also you can go back and read old posts on here,just type into the search line. Lots of great old posts. John