Building a soapbox racer (aka go-cart.... aka gravity racer)

[simon the viking]

A conversation with Little-v the other day..... after he was moaning about us monitoring how long he was on his Tablet/laptop/Ps3 etc...

When I was a lad I had one electronic hand held game.... the rest of the time I was out down the park playing football or building go-carts....

OOOOHHhhhhhhh go cart can we build one? can we, can we dad PPPLLLLLLLEEEEAAAASSEEEEE!!!!!!

Mrs V was aprehansive to say the least but has come round to the idea... A quick shout out on facebook for a scrap kids bike led to nothing...thought about a shout out on CC but needed it to be really local so got this for a fiver off ebay... BMX spares or repair... can sort front wheels.... and most of the stuff can be bought from work ( i work in a hardware/DIY store so collecting this in nest couple of days from 2 miles away....

Told him its going to take a few weekends to build and we can take it to the local park when finished...
Going to be a wooden chassis and rope steering.... (this intrigued Little-V.... so how do we steer it then?... you tie a rope to the front axle board and tug on the side you want to turn.....)

Might try to reuse the calipers on the donor not sure yet.....

 

[Drago]

Best phone the ambulance now!

 

[classic33]

Try four wheel steering.

 

[simon the viking]

Best phone the ambulance now!

It will be alright..




I'm sure........

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Erm we always used to have 4 wheels on our carts

 

[midlife]

Erm we always used to have 4 wheels on our carts

Usually the 4 wheels were nicked from a pram

Shaun

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Usually the 4 wheels were nicked from a pram

Yep bigun's at the back & liitleun's at front in true dragster style, also brakes are for wimps, just need a piece of wood that you can push against a wheel in extreme emergency like a car coming onto your bit of road

 

[growingvegetables]

Brilliant - always wanted to, never got round to it. To whet Little-v's appetite -

No fun unless there's a wee harbour at the bottom .

Sadly not run since 2012

 

[Deleted member 26715]

They're all a bit posh, even this one is ours were never this nice

 

[simon the viking]

Erm we always used to have 4 wheels on our carts

I can buy the fronts at work we do sack truck/wheel barrow wheels... it was just the bigger back wheels I needed...

Pram wheels are too small now days.... takes away the fun....

So going to use a threaded bar as an axle hopefully the same thickness as the original spindle so I can use the cones and bearing.... running the axle mount board as close as I can to the wheel to make up for not being held both sides (as forks do)....

 

[Drago]

I remember building one out of a 12 foot scaffold plank as a kid. About 10 kids at a time could attempt to kill themselves on it.

 

[simon the viking]

I remember building one out of a 12 foot scaffold plank as a kid. About 10 kids at a time could attempt to kill themselves on it.

I must admit a scaffolding plank did cross my mind for main chassis member......

 

[simon the viking]

Brilliant - always wanted to, never got round to it. To whet Little-v's appetite -

No fun unless there's a wee harbour at the bottom .

Sadly not run since 2012

Classic.... will show it Little-V..... Perhaps not Mrs V

 

[slowmotion]

My best friend, Bennie, ended up in Casualty after I crashed the cart into a flint wall. Most carts had far too high a centre of gravity, too long a wheel base, and had their wheels too close together (side to side). A perfect recipe for a painful high speed capsize.

Keep it low, short and wide. Half way decent brakes are a bit of a luxury.

 

[raleighnut]

View: https://youtu.be/HL1eRpyX8Gg