Thread: Kids go carts

Not exactly passenger cars, but these carts I made for the kids did have engines, wheels, steering, and a seat so they did resemble some sort of vehicle so I guess you could call them motor vehicles - right?

Anyway, I built four of these carts for the kids in the early 80s. All had 125cc Victa engines and were made from bits and pieces I found at the local tip.

125cc Victa engines have a full circle crank and are balanced without the piston assemblies, relying on the 12” cutting disk to tone down the vibrations. Anyone who used one of these early Victa mowers will know what I mean. Obviously a 12’ steel disk spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute is not a good thing to have around kids so I dismantled the crankshafts and cut huge chunks of steel from around the big end put them back together and checked the balance, after doing this a few times I had a pretty good pattern from where to start, necessitating fewer pull downs on successive engines.

The first cart had the alloy covers over the transfer ports, a standard silencer, engine kill button brakes and a fixed speed (to stop the kids going to fast - big mistake I was later to find out) frame was made from thin walled zinc coated water pipe. It had rudimentary steering and a paint can fuel tank.

Later models progressed through progressively hotter engines , smaller section tube for the frames, side rails to stop the driver sliding out off the seat, progressively larger expansion chambers, better carbs, etc..

The final was made from 1” seemless tube, it had camber and caster as well as adjustable toe in and ackerman effect. The motor had a full circle balanced crank, shaved head, reworked transfer ports, an amal carb, ram induction, a secondary carb from a whipper snipper and an expansion chamber. Wheels on all carts were solid rubber and drive was via V belt. The wheels performed all right as long as the carts weren’t taken on hard surfaces and speed was kept down, nevertheless I went through dozens and dozens of wheels. Brakes were via an engine kill button.

I was moved to put side rails on the second cart because one of the kids slid off the seat going around a corner and I had to run like hell to catch the cart as it continued on its way.

The wife’s kids didn’t have too much interest, but the kids next door enjoyed them and I certainly enjoyed making them. The carts were used for zipping around the back yard but as they became progressively faster I started taking them out to the drop zone in Richmond NSW where there were miles of open gravel areas to race around on.

I never got to drive one of these carts, I just wasn’t quick enough to jump in once started.. So a few years later when someone gave me a twin cylinder two stroke Yamaha of 100cc capacity, I ripped the motor out and built a roughy for blasting around the bush. It was a blast on gravel tracks, but as it didn’t have brakes, other than engine compression, it scared the hell out of me on more than a couple of occasions. The Yamaha motor had a four speed box, two carbs feeding the engine through spigots on the barrel and no reed valve. Despite the lack of goodies we took for granted in later 70s model bike engines, it had more than enough power, particularly with the twin expansion chambers I made for it.

Clutch was converted to foot operated as was the accelerator and the gear change converted to a hand lever. You can see the gear lever just beside the steering wheel - very close. Necessary because under acceleration this cart was rather 'brisk', and that coupled with quick, direct steering necessitated very quick changes so you could have two hands on the steering wheel.

I couldn’t find a rear axle sprocket small enough so had had to contend with using just the first three gears. Nevertheless, the wife followed me in the Hilux one day but she lost me at 70 or so, as I pulled away from the Hilux quite quickly, I don’t know how fast it went..

I built this cart in Katerine NT and used it on the gravel tracks out the back of the Tindal RAAF Base.

Unfortunately the chambers came loose and as a result the pistons had a nice hole burned through the dome. No spares available for motors of this vintage so it went down the tip

Anyhow, a couple of pictures. The first is of a couple of the Victa enginesd carts I built for the kids. The second is of my Yamaha engined Tindal cart.