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I told my wife that I wanted to build our kids a go-kart, so she figured what the heck, the kids will have fun with it. Well, I had good intentions when I started it, you know, old 3hp lawnmower engine,wood frame,rope steering and 8mph max.Boy did I go off track!!!

I started getting away from my "plan", when I bought a torque converter system made by Comet. I figured this would give the kart a bit better bottom end. I brought it home,unpacked it, and rushed into the shop to fit it to the "old" engine. Damn! It wont fit! The torque converter was meant to fit on an engine with a 3/4 shaft. Mine had a taper.Only two options, one was to take the converter back, and the other was a stupid idea of wasting money on a new engine. Well any idiot would know what I did next, I went out and bought a new engine.

Now if any of you haven't bought a new "Briggs" lately,you'll be surprised at how much they have changed. This thing is like a piece of art.Over-head valves, built-in fuel tank with level indicator, built-in kill switch, easy to hook up throttle linkage, and best of all 5.5 hp. Now one must think, this thing bolted to that new Comet torque converter is much too nice to put into a "wooden framed rope steered Kart"!! Well I thought so too.

I figured this thing at the very least deserves a metal frame. I went out and bought 60' of 1"dia. thin wall tubing and built a bender out of an old hydraulic jack I had kicking around. I found an ultralight aircraft seat that some poor soul crashed, a steering wheel out of a sprint car that some poor soul crashed, and rims from an ATV that , you guessed it, some poor soul crashed.

The frame was stick welded together clamped on top of a sheet of plywood with a grid drawn on it. This made it possible to make the kart symetrical.

The rear tires are from an ATV (18x10x8), and the fronts are as well from an ATV (14x6x6). I bought a disc brake kit made by Wildwood from the same place as the converter, and I'll tell you, this thing stops on a dime!

The paint is Imron 5000 polyurethane, matched as close to 1970 "sublime" Dodge green.It will spin both tires on pavement, and quickly reaches its 30 mph top end. This is the only project I have ever done that didn't need any debugging. I basically built it and drove it. The only flaw in it, is that the kids can't reach the pedals. Actually that was intentional, because I knew all along that I was really building this for myself. Just don't tell my wife. :)
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