Desperate Attempt to Bring the Blog Up to Speed

As our kart has started coming together, we managed to forget all about the blog. This post should bring you up to speed on our kart's status.

We attached the motor mount to the frame. The mount sits centered over the rear live axle. On top of the motor mount rests the jack-shaft. The jack-shaft is a small length of 3/4'' axle that will allow us to increase our gear ratio. The motor output shaft, which will point towards the left from this perspective, will have a 15-toothed sprocket. The sprocket that will engage the motor output sprocket will have 20 teeth. The sprocket on the right side of the jack-shaft, which will engage the sprocket on the live axle, will have 10 teeth. The rear axle sprocket has 50 teeth. Thus, a the jack-shaft will allow us to achieve a 6.666 gear ratio (20/15 x 50/10 ), increasing the torque applied to the live axle and decreasing its maximum speed.

The above image shows the parallel alignment of the jack-shaft with the live axle.


We welded some expanded steel grille to create flooring for the front of the kart. Some small steel strips were used as reinforcement, allowing the rider to place their full body weight on the flooring. The flooring serves both aesthetic and safety purposes, preventing the rider from putting his feet on the ground while the kart is moving.

All of the battery boxes have been mounted, and the we have begun wiring the batteries in series.

We are using 2-gauge wire. We were able to crimp the eyes onto the wire using a vice grip.
The above is a relatively updated image of our kart. We have actually taken a short test ride in the kart running a 12 volt system with no controller. There were some problems with the chain, many of which we think we have fixed. More on that next time.