Go Cart Project Page

Go Cart Project


This project I'm building with my kids. This will be a gas powered Go Cart. The project consists of an old gas powered Golf cart that was bought from a salvage yard for $75. It has fully independent front and rear suspension with coil over shocks. The rear axle has a gear box with an input shaft and a lever. Not sure at this time what the lever is for. I'm hoping its for reverse but I'll find out when I disassemble it to check it out and to clean it up. The rear end also has drum brakes on both sides, The pads are in good shape so it should buy me some time to locate parts for it before they are needed. The other component of the project is a fiberglass body off of an old SIX FLAGS amusement park ride. This body fits the golf cart really well. When its completed it will be a two seater go cart with a 5.5HP Briggs & Stratton.
Work has progressed quite well.
3-26-06. I have made great strides in getting this project moving the last 3 weeks. As you can see below, I have built a completely new frame for the cart. The frame requires extending the fiberglass body 6", but is necessary to accommodate the needed room for the engine. All of the "good" parts off the golf cart have been removed and the rest was scrap iron. I used the money from the scrap to buy 1.25" square heavy wall tubing. This tubing was used for the primary frame parts and structures. I also purchased some 1" square thin wall to use as body mounting and general frame and brace material.

These pictures show the various views of interest. The picture above shows the cart on its rolling chassis. The paints show some colors we are "playing" with. We will probably paint it the light blue with the dark blue metallic being faded in. The top right picture shows the ride height, which has been changed. The rear axle was 2" too far back towards the rear and the total ride height has been lowered 1.5". The picture that is middle right shows the front suspension and steering gearbox. I'm going to make or buy some u-joints to connect the steering wheel to the gearbox Additional bracing has yet to be done on the front shock mounting "T". The picture directly right, shows the rear end general layout. The rear gearbox has been rotated around and there are now permanent shock mounting points where the flat plates are clamped on.
This shows the basic placement of everything in the rear end. I am going to make a jack shaft that will transfer the engine's power to the gearbox input. This shaft will allow me to play with different ratios as well as maybe make a reverse gear. The engine is mocked up just about where it would be placed.