How to set up the rear axle on your go kart.
Rear Axle Setup for a Go Kart
In this version of two minute tech, we again have Robert Dicken explaining how to set up the rear components of your go kart. The rear axle of your go kart needs to receive the main gearing, which transfers the power from the engine, and the braking components, which allow you to stop the kart. All this is held onto the kart by bearings.
The first component we are discussing here is the axle. The ones used on all of our go kart plans are called “Live Axles”, in that they are solid all the way through and do not have any differentials.
To begin the buildup of the rear end, the main go kart parts you need to get are an axle, a sprocket, a sprocket hub, braking system (in this case a disc brake), and a disc brake hub. These components are all mounted directly on the axle. Then the axle goes through bearings, which are held in by bearing cups that are held onto the frame by bearing hangers. The bearing hangers are weldments you weld directly onto the frame.
For assembly, you mount all the axle based hardware on the axle first. So in the example go kart above that Robert is working on, he would slide the sprocket and the sprocket hub already assembled onto the axle. He would mount it by a placing a key in the keyway to prevent it from turning. Then he would do the same thing with the disc brake setup.
Then he will mount the axle through the bearing cups and hangers, before bolting the bearing cups onto the bearing hangers. In this case, Robert is also using locking collars on the outside of the bearings, which prevent that axle from moving laterally through the bearing hangers.
These parts are typically available at the regular shopping spots like Amazon and Go Power Sports.