Honda 50 go-kart

This webpage is about the honda 50 go kart that I got about 5 years ago. A friend, my brother and I purchased the kart from a local tinker for a fairly steep price, although I did'nt realise it at the time. It was in poor condition and it was also of bad design. There were no brakes, the accelerator pedal was too near the seat and sometimes stuck, which once resulted in me turning it over. The engine was and still is behind the seat which may have led to overheating and the gearchange mechanism was very shoddy, whereby the driver had to put his hand behind the seat to try and change them. The gearlever(suicide stick) was a bar directly connected to the gearchanging shaft on the engine, and this would bounce up and down while driving, somtimes causing it to change gear itself . There was also a long, poorly constructed kickstart which was loosely connected to the engine. The fuel tank was off a Honda 50 bike as well and the inside of it was rusted which would'nt have been good for the engine. Over the years the kart has had many crashes, but the roll bar has provided sufficient protection against rolling over. The engine is from a honda C100 cub and has an automatic clutch which makes driving a lot easier. She spins in the muck and in the gravel !

It was badly designed because it was too narrow and the engine was in a bad place, but there was nothing I could do about this so over the years I made many modifications to improve it. The first was to beat the accelerator pedal off with a lump hammer and I made a new one, and positioned it further forward.The next modification was an attempt at making brakes which consisted of a pulley belt tightening around a pulley wheel on the axle. Also another pedal was added for these brakes. These brakes were very poor indeed and came loose every so often.It was very hard to change gears so my brother made a new mechanism consisting of a linkage and the gearstick on the left handside of the seat. However this was made of a lightweight steel bar and would flex, causing poor gearchange. I later made a new one out of an 8mm steel rod which was just perfect for the job. After a while I decided to get a smaller plastic fuel tank off an old lawnmower and I mounted it on the rollbar. At one stage the engine was about to fall off as the bolts holding it on had broken in their mountings. luckily I replaced them before the engine got the chance to fall off. Then I aquired a drum brake off a Honda 50 bike and I fitted it to the axle. This provided sufficient braking and also made the kart a lot safer. At the same time my brother made a new set of pedals.

However the engine was running quite poorly and I decided to open it up and found that one of the piston rings was broken. This I replaced and I also had to regrind the intake valve seat. I made a simple airfilter for it aswell.

Although it looks a bit tame this kart is good fun to drive and can be turned 180 degrees on a very small space of ground. Top speed is 35-40mph(estimated). My brother and I have built a new kart with a 125cc engine and I also plan to build another with a honda 70cc engine.