New to karting, but not to racing. I’m trying to figure out all the right ways to store/transport the kart and tires. Transporting full size cars and tires seems easy to me, just tie everything down with ratchet straps. But with smaller tires and frames, how does one secure everything in the trailer to keep them from bouncing around, staying in place, and not damage anything?
I have a small 5x8 enclosed trailer and it’s a little more bouncy than the full size trailers I used to pulling. The trailer is also going to be my main storage location for everything I have for karting, so how do I handle long term storage of all the items in the trailer?
I store tires on the walls using tire shelves I made out of spare plywood and some cheap dowels. They took an afternoon to cut and assemble and cost less than $20 for both:
The karts get stored on a streeter double stand. Velcro straps secure them to the stand and the stand is secured to four floor anchor points. I recently drove 15 hours and nothing budged. My stands are all secured to the wall. The hard part is the tools and extra parts. They are what clutter the trailer.
Trailer tires on the rear and similar to what the formula guys do. The trailer opening is 51" and the rear track width is currently 52". With trailer tires it’s around 46" and the bumper is the widest part of the kart. Now I can get the kart in and out without have to twist and struggle. I’ll might get some trailer tires for the front to prevent flat spots on tires I’m going to use.
I have ratchet straps on every corner and only enough force keep have the strap grip the tire.
Everything started around the toolbox I had laying around in the basement. I was like “man that be nice to have in the trailer” and everything started to come together after I dropped it in. The box is securely wedged in there and should not move.
Love some feedback and thoughts on what to do next. There is going to be tons of room under the kart for storage. Any ideas on what to do or how to do it to inspire the progress would be great!
Americans seem to love lining and building everything in wood. Must be a convenience, cost, culture thing and the fact you tow everything with a pickup?
I haven’t seen a single trailer built with wood over here in Australia. But we dont have the big pickups lime you guys do.
After checking out the prices for kart trailers over here im going to build mine. But it will be full steel construction, with the sides lined in fibreglass sheeting.
Enough of America is commercially forested that wood is very inexpensive here. I can get a 10’ 2"x4" (40x90mm) for $3.50 or so, and a 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood for $15.
It has a better stiffness-to-weight ratio than steel or aluminum, but it’s so cheap and weight is so unlikely to be critical that we just overbuild with it.
Agreed. With a box of good wood screws at $25 to hold everything together, it’s pretty easy to put everything together. More time goes into figuring and layout then cutting. I did spring for the nicer 2x4s @$4.50 a piece. They are straighter and didn’t have to worry about them twisting out of alignment during construction.
I hoping to get more done with it last night, but I got interrupted. My goal is to be able to get the kart in and out by myself. More on that later.
Just a note on trailers over the pond and down under, we can’t just purchase trailers like this from a manufacture. It would be a custom order and very expensive, at least from what I’ve tried to find. Then to build one myself, the expensive and amount of time would be way to much. Buying a small 5x8 enclosed trailer and out fitting it with a $200 in lumber and hardware is the easiest and cheapest way to go. Also very quick. I’ve only put about 15 hours in the trailer so far.
Made some more progress on the trailer, still plenty to do though. I’ll upload video later to show how a few features work. More descriptions when I get to a computer next also.
Got the bulk of the frame work done. Had to go back and widen the isle 1.5" so that the kart stand goes all the way up to the toolbox. There’s going to be tons of storage under kart. The ramps in the back are temporary so I can get the kart in off the stand by myself. Planning on something more permanent and function long term.
Thanks to @Superman for the tire rack idea. Mine don’t look as nice, but I’m rushing
The small kart trailers sold in Europe and Australia are really slick. I sent some photos to some trailer shop to have something built up and nearly had my heart stop when I was given price as they were on average 10k! If you change any standard dimension the price goes thru the roof. The really neat thing about the trailer overseas is they build base OVER the wheel so you end up with narrow footprint that still fits kart.
I went with second hand aluminum trailer and spent some time refurbishing the trailer. The cost of aluminum is crazy high and I also decided to use lumber/plywood.
