[Frank Cire]

What a gorgeous beasty!

Appears to be a 1″ axle and a dry clutch, if so then maybe late 70’s Margay chassis? Maybe late 80’s or early 90’s body work?  I assume aluminum tanks are hiding under the body work.  Body is not aerodynamic enough to run with a modern kart.  If it is a 1″ axle, the axle is too flexible for use with modern sticky tires.  Too old to be competitive, but maybe too young to be vintage because of the body work.

A whooped on but complete enduro kart from that era with aluminum tanks sells in the $600 to $700 range.  But for a nice looking kart like that, value is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s a beautiful example of Americana vehicle culture.  If someone buys it to part it out, there is a special place in hell reserved for them, plus the parts won’t be worth much.  If you do get it, see if a road racing club will let you run it in in a road race in a vintage or a  “run what you brung” class.  Also run it with harder tires or it will hop like a bunny in the corners.

[Frank Cire]

They should never have mandated bodywork in karting to prevent wheel to wheel contact.  Side, front and rear pods are nothing more than bumpers allowing rough driving without any penalty to the aggressor.  Better to have nerf bars inside of the wheel base protecting the driver against intrusion during an accident but leaving all four wheels exposed.

[Frank Cire]

Bruce: somewhere between serious racing and playing around.  I’m not competitive by nature, but I am a G junkie and I love a good dice.  I also like building stuff.  I can’t deal with sprint racing because of all of the contact.  It’s annoying, it hurts a lot, and it destroys equipment for no reason.  If I wanted to do demolition derby, I would.

I have a vintage dual enduro with Hartman engine clutches and KT100s that I am trying to get together to do some vintage road racing.  After I get my feet wet I would like to build something modern.  I’d like to use metric components because I have a lot of them already, as well as two Rotax engines.  However, b<span style=”line-height: 1.5;”>ringing a new enduro chassis into the world seems like going to a breeder for a new dog when there are thousands of deserving dogs languishing at the pound, that is, it sort of feels irresponsible given the decline in the sport.  Right now, I am just trying to figure out my options.  Front brakes also appear to be completely different in philosophy so I am weighing my options there as well.</span>

I am just now understanding the price difference between US/SAE components and the European metric components as I have been bitten by the vintage restoration bug, so I guess I’m not really sold on metric components, but after running a 50mm axle, everything smaller just feels…small.

Funny you should ask about cooling, I was thinking about fabricating a finned heat exchanger to run along the top of the kart rather than tucking a radiator inside the body, where I’d have to eat the heat, or hanging the radiator out in the breeze, thus negating my hard earned aerodynamic sleekness.

 

[Frank Cire]

Ok, I’ll add it to the learning curve requirements and to the parts bin next time I see one available.

Is it possible to change axle sizes on an axle clutch, say go from 1 1/4″ to 40mm?  I note on eBay there is a 1 1/4″ Horstman for sale including a 30mm hub.  I know that 1 1/4″ to 30mm is a very small change so that it makes sense that you could do that, but can you go even further?

[Frank Cire]

You don’t need to add grit then flush it out, just use this:

http://www.newmantools.com/lapping/time.htm

Just add it to the oil and then forget it.  Innovation within the spirit of the rules, everyone is happy!

[Frank Cire]

Yes, maybe.  I’ve also had an ID of a Kobra and a Bug Spider.  It has bits and pieces of all of those but not all of any of them.  It’s kind of like having a mutt, yet I want to enter him in the dog show.  I’d like to enter it into a vintage kart road race, but if I can’t prove it’s age, I won’t be able to.

[Frank Cire]

Hi,

thanks, I will try and search for Kobra.  My kart has some strange design features, most notable to me are the central rails and the way the front spindles are built, they carry the “ears” that mate with a vertical cylinder of the front axle.  The closest thing I have found by searching pictures is

http://vkakarting.com/?p=765

fifth picture in.  The tanks are wrong but the frame geometry looks close and the front spindles look like they may be the same.

More pics of front spindle, rails and rear end:

http://westcoast.smugmug.com/Enduro-Kart-2/i-wKRx3bw/A

http://westcoast.smugmug.com/Enduro-Kart-2/i-v4SMVwD/A

http://westcoast.smugmug.com/Enduro-Kart-2/i-GZTtz6s/A

Thanks for the tip.

[Frank Cire]

Hi,

thanks, I did talk to MCP, they told me most of what I needed to know, the hubs are reportadly 2″ from bearing face to bearing face, and the interior ring has a 4.25″ opening.

They also told me that I needed to modify my spindles with “enduro arms”, I’d call them dog legs, to clear the rotor, so I’m working on a fix for the spindles.

[Frank Cire]

On Vintagekarts.com, it has been decided that it is a combination between a Bug Spider (based on the axle and brake configuration) and a Caretta Works (based on the front end configuration and spindles).  The KT100s that came with the kart are very early, they are both straight shafts and I think one of them may also have sand cast casings.  The tanks are definitely Bug Wasp tanks.  Given all that, I place the kart late 70’s.

I don’t think it is a true custom as the front end has multiple pedal locations and the quality of construction is overall very good.  I am thinking that it was project by Bug and Caretta Works to create a low cost enduro kart.  The Carettas had an axle housing with integral bearing mounts that could not have been inexpensive to build, and Bug had just transitioned to a wishbone axle which would have been more expensive to build than the Carettas straight axle.

That being said, what to do with it?  Too old to race, too young to be vintage.  As a first step, I think I am going to restore the driveline.  There are some design details associated with the dual inboard drives that I would like to meditate upon.  Wisdom of the ancients and all.  Then I’ll put the driveline away and put a tag engine on the kart.  That way I can make a left hand mount with an inboard drive without having to provide for LH starting.  I’ll use one of my obsolete Rotaxes (Rotaxi?)  I bought the kart for the tuck and roll upholstery anyway.  Thirty years from now, someone can buy it out of my estate for $5, slap a coat of paint on it, and then put it up on ebay as a “very rare estate find, pristine condition vintage kart, possibly a Bug Spider or Caretta Works enduro.”

Actually, as I have discovered, the Internet is very malleable.  When I started my quest for the identity of the kart, Google didn’t return any search results that were all that useful.  Now if I Google “enduro kart Bug Spider” my kart comes up in the images.  All I have to do now is continue to flood the Internet with posts associating my kart with “Bug Spider” and my kart will become one.

Well I’m off, I’m going to associate pictures of my wrecked out ’99 Honda Prelude with the term “Jaguar XK-E” and then sell the Prelude on ebay for enough to retire on!

[Author]

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