Found a possible IFS for a cart

AirJunky

I happened to be browsing thru Craigslist in my area last night & found a guy selling some 25" ATV rims & tires. As an afterthought he posted an IFS for $50 too. I asked him what it's from & he said he doesn't know specifically, but it was out of a quad. He has all the A-arms, the shocks, drum brakes, and bushings. The length of the A-arms is about 8"..... which I realize is not a lot.

Frankly I don't have a project cart in mind. But I have been thinking about selling the Marathon later this summer, then starting another cart project in the fall. I had a lot of fun with the Marathon & have really enjoyed driving it around the hood this year. So I have some ideas of what I want to do differently this time. For instance, a better front suspension so it'll take the bumps better. Possibly a 13 - 16 hp gas engine (probably DuoMax or HF). Maybe start with a newer EZ-Go or a Yamaha G2.

I figured I could use the drum brakes from this IFS. And I'd probably need to get wheel adapters custom made or use ATV rims on the cart. I'm a little concerned that the 8" A-arms is not quite enough to get good travel.

Any thoughts?

BGW

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chuddly

its not hard to lengthen the A arms....cut them in the straight part of the tube and use a piece of tube thats inside diamiter is the same as the outter diamiter of the A arm metal. make them as long as you want

AirJunky

I have thought that would be an option. Do you think that 8" A-arms are a bit short for a cart?

crash12888

Think it through or draw it up on paper, Your carts track width is roughly 48" + - to the outside of the tires.
If the kingpins and wheel back spacing are about 6" in from each tire then you have 36" from kingpin to kingpin.
If your A-arms are 8" long then deduct 16" from the 36" and you will have a distance of 20" between the A-arm pivot/mounting points.
To make a true longer travel system lengthen your A-arms to 17" and you will have 2" between the two pivot/mounting points.
Don't forget caster/camber calculations in your design layout.

AirJunky

Well, I looked things over a bit closer. The Marathon is about 34" wide hub to hub. The A-arms are 8" long, but if you measure all the way out to lugs, it's more like 13". Times two is 26" hub to hub. If I need to do wheel spacers, that could take up another 3" or 4". I think I'd make the center section with a receiver in it, similar to Jakes & other designs I've seen on here. I'm sure that could easily take up the remaining 6" to make the track width the same as stock.

So I ended up buying them. The guy lived over on the west end of town. He happened to be going to Home Depot, which is like 5 minutes from my place. So I met him there..... maybe the best dang trip to HD ever!

We talked a bit about what he was doing with them. He said he bought it all with a Honda Odyssey project that he's giving up on. I was telling him about the golf cart I have built & the idea to upgrade the front suspension. He was pretty interested but the guy's wife had that arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot, and rolling her eyes way about her. She was really impressed.

So any suggestions on the caster/camber calculations you mentioned? Or on wheel spacers?

chuddly

theres no need for wheel spacers if your lengthening your arms. But if you dont want to make um wider then go with the spacers. my G1 is 52" wide in the front now and I LOVE it. its really stable in turns and rides great.

as far as the caster and camber it depends on your spring rate and travel distance and what you want the suspension to do when its all said and done. I made my front end really soft and flexy on purpose (bumpy trails and crossing ditches) wich is why i made it wide also because with soft suspension that is narrow it will want to tuck under and roll the cart easyier.

AirJunky

Since the brakes on these A-arms have lugs spaced at 2.5" (for a quad) I figured some kind of wheel adapter/spacer could be made to adapt cart wheels to them, which I think are about 2.75" apart.

Boris

A-J ..... with that set-up I think I'd look into maybe re-drilling those hubs, as opposed to trying to find and then running a set of spacers/adapters on the things.

I'm looking at lengthening a set of arms so whatever you decide, please post your progress somewhere in here ....... I have qvestions myzelf

AirJunky

Thanks Boris,
I thought about that too. So is drilling new lug holes the kind of thing I would have a shop do or do myself? I have access to a drill press, but would be concerned about having the holes exactly on center.

Boris

AJ, Getting everything trued up would be my biggest concern also ...... maybe someone "in the know" can add some opinion ...... then again .... they might not.
Crash looks to be one that has at least thought about fabbing things up for the carts.