Yerf Dog kart front end redo

[joekd]

A couple weeks ago my son and I were riding serious rocky trails and managed to break the left front a-arm. The spindles were fine but the bolts looked like they had been worked on using vice grips in the past so I replaced those also

Here's how it looked




Got in the new A-arms and all grade 8 bolts to replace the worn OEM stuff

Old part next to new one


The bad A-arm, you'll notice how bent it is as well as broken, the small piece at the top right of the pic is the bolt head, 5/8" bolt and it was frozen in place inside the A-arm so we had to cut it out in pieces using the angle grinder


The front of the kart had some pretty bad scratches so I sanded it down and painted it silver to match the new arms




Final results


Old


New


Think the next mod for the kart is to change to oil filled coil-over shocks from ************* (once they have them back in stock) that I have been reading about here to try and take some of the bounce out of the ride

[x-bird]

Originally Posted by joekd

Think the next mod for the kart is to change to oil filled coil-over shocks from ************* (once they have them back in stock) that I have been reading about here to try and take some of the bounce out of the ride

looking great, nicely done. I don't think i would count on those shocks becoming available again. I'd give SC a call about that.

[joekd]

Damn, hope I can get a pair. Best price I have seen on oil filled shocks of the correct length.

I'll try calling them today.

[joekd]

Just called them, surplus center confirms they are gone forever

[speedshopmike]

joe, flip your spindle bolts; makes them less likely to catch a tree root or rock

[joekd]

Good tip, never had a problem with them catching but for the 10 seconds it will take why not?

New tie rods coming in soon, will probably flip the bolts when I install them

[joekd]

Installed the tie rods yesterday with a new grade 8 bolt on the steering mount, amazing how much better the kart steers with all new parts on it

Spent some time staring at the spindles thinking it would be nice to have more steering range (each side stops when the spindle edge hits the raised point on the A-arms) but realized that it would take a complete rework of the spindles and in all truth is just asking to make it turn so sharp it would be just waiting for a rollover to happen so I will leave it alone