Steve G

After trying it again I have given in and re-fitted the standard pulleys and throttle etc. Even after turning the pulley down to make the gearing the same as the original I need to get a 300mm diameter pulley to go on the transaxle. There are fairly easy to get new, about £30. I'm not convinced it will work all that well though as the engagement speed for the clutch is quite high. You probably need 3/4 throttle to get it going whereas the normal clutch will let you potter along at idle. The throttle pedal worked OK but needed a far heavier return spring on it. An alternative I've seen on small quad bikes it a combined brake lever with a thumb throttle, depends if you have a steering wheel of handle bars though.

Hi Alan, thought I would have a read up about this after you mentioned it and you have done a marvellous job. I especially like the bits of bodywork you have made.

I've got nothing to loose by trying it so I turned the clutch pulley down as small as I dared today. Not sure what it was made from but it was a bit of a struggle on my little lathe. The before and after. I've ended up with the smaller of the two pulleys I found for sale, if they had any in stock. It was 128mm OD and is now about 110mm. If I do decide to get a bigger pulley for the gearbox it won't need to be quite as big now. Todays other modification, or rather quick lash up to see how it worked was to fit a foot throttle. I've seen people have fitted bike brake levers so for now I have done similar using an old racer lever I straightened up a bit. The hole in the bit of wood isn't a clever design feature it just happened to be lying about. The good thing is it actually allows more gentle take offs so I will give it a try tomorrow to see if it's any more driveable now.

Thanks for the manual I just found a complete one to download that does all peerless gearboxes and grabbed it quick ! I have been looking at the gearing and even if I turn the clutch down to the minimum it will be about 110mm diameter and to get back to the original ratio I would need to enlarge the rear pulley to 300mm ! The problem with the revs is that you could pull away at idle speed but the clutch won't engage that low. Now I know why nobody has tried fitting a clutch like this before !

Been having another look at this today and have come to the conclusion that the clutch isn't so great after all. The main problem is that the pulley, although OK going forwards makes it go too fast in reverse. I think the gearing of first and reverse aren't the same. First plan is to try and turn the clutch pulley down, it should be a lot better if I can get it closer to the size of the original. The other problem is that the engine speed is quite high to make the clutch engage. I though I ought to let anyone thinking of buying a clutch before they go and order one, if I can't fix it I might put the original mechanism back on and go back to the slipping belt.

I'm an engineer by profession but unless you can program CNC machines, which I can't, nobody is interested. I start stuff like this to keep sane plus it's something my son seems interested in now. I rebuilt a pedal go kart for him a couple of years ago but that got a bit involved and took a while so he lost interest with that. I'm hoping to do a few things on this and keep it driveable all the time.

Hi Stormin, I wasn't sure how well the clutch would work and haven't tested it fully yet. The throttle lever needs to be brought up to about half way to get the clutch to engage which the advert said should be between 1800-2000rpm. I'm not sure if still slips much from then so it might be better to go for the smaller pulley version. I found them advertised on ebay but the company are called Petrol Scooter. Here is a link to the page http://www.petrolscooter.co.uk/heavy-duty-clutch-pulley-1-inch-bore-3-shoe-karting-drive-belt-honda-gx-engine-gokart.html They are hoping to get more of the smaller pulley versions some time in February. I did find them for sale elsewhere but for considerably more money, I think the highest was about £180 from a Lawn Mower spares site although my one might not be of the same quality. It's difficult to tell from the pictures though.

Right, finally took some pictures. This is the clutch I got hold of. It's a bit of a lump of a thing but it seems to work quite well. The outside diameter of the pulley is 128mm so it's about twice the size of the original. There is a smaller version available but it's out of stock at the moment. I pinched a spacer tube from the PTO and turned it down lengthwise a bit so the crank was a couple of mm shorter than the clutch when fitted. I had to adjust the keyway and key slightly as it was a bit tight and find a shorter bolt. The tensioner is left as standard but the pedal has been separated from it. I will probably be changing the brake but for testing purposes this was OK. The brake is on in these pictures and with the rod adjusted as shown ther isn't much travel needed on the pedal anyway. A slightly revised version of the brake pedal extension. Again this is on with the handbrake engaged and by moving the pivot forward (no holes drilled) there is somewhere for the spring. Finding something suitable took a while until I remembered I had some old exhaust springs from my kart. This shows the 86" belt fitted and the reason why it was easier to keep the two tensioner pulleys. If I didn't the belt would have been rubbing against the gear selector.

I've done a bit to this today. I fitted the clutch properly and tried the belts I bought. I decided to go with the longer one and use the original tensioner. For now I have made the original brake pedal work independently of the tensioner and this was OK to test how slow or fast it went and see how effective the brakes are. First impressions are that it works quite well. It's a bit strange having to rev it up a bit with the hand throttle to make it go but the take up is reasonable smooth and it isn't that much faster, then I ran out of fuel ! The next plan is to come up with a proper throttle linkage and work out how to fit a throttle pedal and possibly move the foot brake to the other side. I will take some pictures tomorrow as it was getting dark again by the time I had finished messing about.

Thanks for the link. I've some like those advertised here in the UK I will have another look. I might just end up with whatever seems good for the money. I've managed to fit the clutch today. I had to remove the belt guide plate but it was fairly simple once I had made a spacer tube and heavy washer to go under the bolt. I had hoped that the belt might be long enough if I only used one tensioner but unfortunately I will have to get another one. We have a couple of lawn mower spares shops nearby so I tied a length of rope around the pulleys to act as a pattern for the length but the only belt anyone had in stock was £30. It was a proper mower one with a cloth covering and the guy said I would be far better waiting to get one from a place that sells belts for machinery as they are a lot cheaper. Glad he did as they are about £5 from a few places I have seen. The other job was to look at the brake. I'd already tried to remove the bolts and they were pretty stuck. A bit of heat and oil got one out but the other snapped. For a change I actually managed to get the broken bit out without ruining the thread so I managed to fit the new pads after freeing the pins in the caliper first. I now have a working brake ! I will take some pictures when I get a belt for it, had enough of being out in the cold for one weekend !

Thanks. My son is more interested than I expected, he got me to print out some pictures so he could take them into school. Hopefully anything I do will be easily put back to standard. Next on the list are a pair of front tyres. The ones on it are pretty rotten so I have been looking to see whats available. All Terrain Tyres have a good range and I wonder if some slightly narrower ones might make the steering a bit lighter. Some 3 rib ones might look good along with cleated ones on the back but the fronts will probably be a bit narrow. The closest size I have seen are 4.00-6 but I'm not sure about the overall diameter. With any luck I can get the clutch fitted at the weekend and see how well it works.

I've ordered a clutch to try out and some bits to make the brake work. The choice of clutches to fit the engine are a bit limited if you want a belt drive but I have managed to get a fairly hefty looking one but it has a larger pulley. I've found a few people who have swapped the drive pulley for the mower one to get a bit more speed, not really what I want, but the clutch pulley is a bit smaller than that. For now I might fit a stop to the gear lever to prevent anything more than first and reverse being selected. There is another slightly smaller pulley clutch available but it's out of stock at the moment, if it does prove to be too fast at low speed I might see if it's possible to turn the pulley down a bit smaller.

No you are right, things can go wrong. The kart racing my daughter is doing requires all the proper safety equipment and it's been put to the test when another driver spun just in front of her. She ended up being flipped upside down as there wasn't anywhere to go. A new helmet and a fair amount of kart fixing later she was back at it again.

Part of the idea about buying this is to get him doing something other than play on the playstation. He loves driving games and farming simulator so when he started asking for a tractor I spotted an opportunity. It seems to have worked as he was desperate to have a drive on it on Christmas day ! Ideally I would like to fit a proper manual clutch. I have seen some sort of pulley arrangement described as a clutch brake. Not sure exactly how they work but the price pretty much rules them out.