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Front Axle angles?

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Front Axle angles? #1
sergeant82d Brad H Stratford Oklahoma, USA	Posted: August 14, 2012 10:33PM Registered: 10 months ago Posts: 2

Hello all, I am ready to start cutting tubing and would like to know what is a common caster angle you folks are using for your front spindles? From reading "regular" gokart forums, 20-25 degrees sounds average... Looking at CK pictures the angle does not seem to be that much, to my admittedly un-calibrated eyeball.

I am building a smaller, fatter-tired kart for my kids while I gather wheels and such for the first of what I hope will be several CK's, and have very little experience with karts, although a fair amount of hot-rodding is in my past...

Thanks for the help,
Brad

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Re: Front Axle angles? #2
DavidMGA1600 David Lake Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia 1935 CycleKart Great Britain 1960 MG MGA "Dads Car"	Posted: August 15, 2012 07:24AM Registered: 5 years ago Posts: 299

Brad,

That is a good question. One I had not thought about. Im no expert so i hope somebody chines in with an answer. I have attached a drawing of the classic axle setout for a cyclekart, but it doesn't note caster.
I wonder with the round profile of a motorbike wheel whether it would increase or decrease the effect of caster. Good question. At least to a certain degree adding caster later would be a simple rotation of the axle.

David

David

1960 MGA 1600 Convertible,
Gold Coast, Australia.

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Attachments:

axle.jpeg (13.2 KB) –

Re: Front Axle angles? #3
smcameron Stephen Cameron Spring, TX, USA 2012 CycleKart Custom	Posted: August 15, 2012 09:00AM Registered: 11 months ago Posts: 64

I think mine is around 10 to 12 degrees. I think (but might be wrong) that the larger the diameter of your wheels, the more effect caster angle will have, as the farther from the hub the contact patch is, the more leverage it will have to make it act like a shopping cart wheel and auto-steer in the direction of motion. This would explain why go-karts with small wheels would have a larger caster angle. This explanation might be full of crap though.

To some extent, you can adjust the caster angle by the angle of the axle in the u-bolts. However, keep in mind that the threads and the nuts on u-bolts are made in such a way that the nuts bite into the metal of the threads, and they are only designed to be tightened once. If you unbolt the u-bolts to remove your axle (or adjust it) you should get new u-bolts and nuts, not re-use them.

-- steve

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Re: Front Axle angles? #4
Dennis Thomas phoenix, arizona, USA 1925 CycleKart Speedway Racer	Posted: August 15, 2012 10:30AM Registered: 11 months ago Posts: 98

I think 3 or 4 degrees would probably do the trick. It could be up to 10 or 12 degrees like Steve mentioned though. I am test driving my kart now so I will experiment with the angle and report back.

Dennis

http://s1072.photobucket.com/albums/w361/DThomas1925/

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Re: Front Axle angles? #5
adifuji Adi Purnama Bogor, West Java, Indonesia	Posted: June 06, 2013 05:37PM Registered: 2 months ago Posts: 28

i think this is the hardest part for me in making CK. grinning smiley

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Re: Front Axle angles? #6
Rhysn Rhys Nolan Kerikeri, Northland, New Zealand	Posted: June 06, 2013 08:23PM Registered: 2 months ago Posts: 140

Just try, it might be easier than you think, and if it does not work, go to my method of cutting to correct any faults.

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