Making a traditional Go-Kart

Hi from the workshop of John Roberts

Building a basic wooden go-kart is great for you and your children. The idea of creating something that will give them lots of fun and in addition can help with your DIY skills too.

My first go-kart I made was with small lawn mower wheels, which the children found hard to push and never had much free wheel momentum.

Also choose a good type of wood for the frame as my first attempt after a few days left out in the lovely U.K. weather rotted and snapped in half, leaving the children not very happy with their dad.

I have now made quite a few go-karts over the years and have found that the best wheels to use are silver-cross wire spoked wheels on steel axle's which are very light weight.

They are very good because you can remove each wheel from the axle with a simple lever on the centre hub.

These wheels are getting hard to find on the old style prambulator. You might be lucky in papers or scrap yards or visit your local tip.

The guys working will let you have most things for small back hander if you know what I mean. If not I can supply parts too.

As I said earlier about the wooden frame rotting you only need to worry about this if the go-kart is to be left outside. I suggest a hard wood like oak for the chassie and a marine ply for the seat box.

But if you have some scrap wood you just want to use that’s fine maybe your children would like to paint it when its finished.

Steering is important of course there are two types really by feet or rope. If you were thinking of having a steering wheel this makes the build much more complicated and probably some welding involved, so I would stick with the basics first.

You don't really want to spend 2 to 3 hundred quid on a pram just to hack the wheels and axle's off! If you get stuck for wheels I can help.

Wheels

I'am struggling to get second hand wheels now so all wheel sets are new 10"-12" & 14" in size. 

"Got wheels but no axles?" 

I can supply new axles with fixing brackets already welded to them for silvercross wheels with centre hub release lever and for pneumatic wheels.

The new axles are 10-11.5 -12mm in diameter & 600mm long which will fit most silvercross wheels. Plus I can also supply split pin axles for the older type wheels please check yours before ordering.

Wood Kits Now Available

This is the most popular email request lately so wood kits are all cut to size all you need to do is screw it together.

Please note that at the end of the day these are only pram wheels and axles, just for a bit of fun for the kids and not really intended for any kind of track racing event and not suitable for adult use.