You read that right. Here’s the dilemma I’m entering into- I’m going back to doing some club racing, and the club where I will be racing has ridiculously strict safety tech (luckily just once/year). Any and all bolts on steering/brakes/throttle (god forbid the throttle pedal falls off into oblivion, giving it a reprieve from the tyranny of my lead fucking foot) must be double-nutted, or safety cliped, or whatever.
I’m super happy about this, as the kart I’ve used for the last two years in National events is now “unsafe”, and I must make it “safe”
So I’m on the hunt for new hardware…I’m not going to be drilling any bolts, so let’s clear that up right off the bat. I could go the route of longer bolts to allow for double-nutting (let’s keep the jokes family-friendly here), but that seems a little crusty since it will leave some super long bolts once I remove the double nuts. Does anyone know where I can find machined bolts that would fit these little dudes below?
No it’s not…or at least I don’t think it is…I’ll double check. The official that looked over my kart said it would not work without the above mentioned solutions.
I guess I’m a safety Sally but I agree with more stringent safety rules personally.
You could of course mill most bolts theoretically to use those clips. But, if not, double nutting is going to be your easiest option.
I’ve seen some people safety wire around the threads of a bolt to ‘get past’ safety tech but that’s not really an actual solution.
Personally if you have the time grinding a small flat edge on two edges and then cross drilling is the best way. They make drill presses and bolt holders for this process, and it’s not as bad as you think to do a kart, maybe 1-2 hours depending on what needs doing.
These rules seem ‘extra’ but a lot of them were in place before the advent of nyloc nuts or definitely nyloc nuts that people trusted.
Man, I feel your pain. I think we’re all for safety, but the irony that a kart that might win the World Championships can be deemed unsafe for club racing speaks a bit to the archaic nature of some club rules.
I’m sure some of us can still remember the days of 50" rear widths and having to have the ends of our axles drilled to apply a safety pin in case the rear hub decided to defy the laws of physics and slide off the end of the axle.
Your best solution is going to be drilled or machined bolts. You can find them through most kart suppliers or McMaster. Then just replace each bolt with a drill, bolt and safety clip, or a machined bolt and e-clip/c-clip.
Call Suburban Bolt in Roseville, Michigan for predrilled bolts.
Get a pair of good safety wire pliers (Milbar if your local industrial supplier gets you a good price) and good Malin safety wire. Locking all six bolts on a Birel brake hub together is fun.
How many are we talking? If it is just a few, here’s what I’d do:
Run a thread die backwards down the bolt
Use a Dremel cutoff wheel to cut the groove by just spinning the bolt by hand (may want a thick-ish glove if it gets hot)
Remove the thread die. Since it was put on backwards, it’ll straighten any botched threads on its way out.
Victory.
This is basically what I do when shortening a bolt, but modified for not cutting all the way through. Strength doesn’t matter since the grooved part where the clip goes isn’t where the stress is anyways.
We safety check every kart at every single club race we run. We do it for the safety of our members. There are lots of new members that don’t know what they are doing yet. We also have veterans that sometime forget to follow of the correct steps when putting their karts together.
