Just when you think you’re ready to rock n’roll…

I’ve spent every dry weekend day this month (admittedly, that isn’t that many) getting the kart sorted for our first outing of the year. Cleaning, checking seat fitting, replacing worn nuts and bolts, new axle, new sprocket carrier, replacing tyres on rims, changing the brake fluid – it looked like we were set for a potential return to the track this week. That was until a friend confirmed that the crack in the paintwork around the engine side bearing hanger was actually a crack in the chassis and would need welding 🙁 It is in a common spot for TKM karts, maybe I paid the price for running the engine stop bolt too close to the engine mount – because of my early problems with engine mounts, I had always backed the bolt off by 1mm or so but, as one of the other Dads pointed out, the vibration alone will likely negate that. The fact that my stop bolt was just a bare hex bolt, with no plastic head to dampen any vibration may not have helped. Or maybe it was just one of those things with a 5-year old chassis.

Anyway, that necessitated taking a half day to get the weld done at Brightweld – it doesn’t look *too* bad and I need to rub down the paintwork and paint the repaired area. Whilst I was there, I stopped off at Hobzie Motorsport to pick up a better engine stop bolt and he also delivered the good news that my 2009 EVR looks more like a 2008 EVXX!!! Great news, huh? :S

The icing on the cake was, of course, the inevitable rain that soaked the kart less than a mile from my house. Still hoping to make it out this weekend. The engine stop bolt might be a tad looser too…

The rear view

Leaving home with this in the rear view mirror normally gives me a buzz. It’s a shame we were going to the welding shop. In the rain.

Total spent this year: £244 – new axle £72 (funded by my finding a wodge of cash in Junior’s money tin courtesy of Junior’s Nan!), weld £10, engine stop bolt £2

Total spent so far: £5,668

Used axles are sold for a reason!

I recently bought an OTK axle from an auction site having gone through the due diligence of confirming it was straight and checking to see if it was excessively marked by grub screws (there was no close-up photo in the auction listing). When the axle arrived I found the grub screw marks were plentiful and fairly deep, not only that but once fitted it was clear that the axle was slightly bent. The lesson for today is that people sell axles because they have seen their best days so make sure you visually inspect a used axle. This one went back from whence it came!

I am still unsure about whether budget-bound folk like me should look opt for used OTK or a new Alto axle. I’ll mull that one over for a bit…