Ali kart flywheel

[Rychu]

Hi, my lad has a racing go kart which has an aluminium flywheel with cooling fins.

Stupidly I dropped it and one of the fins has broken off, now for this to be usable 

(as they are not cheap) can I simply remove the opposite fin for it to remain in balance

and apart from being less efficient in the cooling dept. would this be ok to still use?

TIA

Richard

[glang]

yes if you remove the same amount of metal on the opposite side (as its aluminium aproximately will do) the flywheel will maintain pretty good balance.

Alternatively you could have a go at soldering the broken fin back on: Ive just repaired an aluminium radiator and it works quite well. Its a special solder for aluminium and you need a camping gas canister type mini burner to reach about 300 degrees which is when the solder will melt (this is far off the melting point of aluminium) and with a steel wire rod you scratch the surface of the base metal through the molten solder. The idea is that although aluminium oxidises almost immediately by covering the joint with the molten solder and scratching through it oxygen is kept away and adhesion can take place. Obviously preparation is critical so you can get a nice puddle of solder to cover the joint but there was no problem with having repeated attempts before getting a good result.

[Hogie]

Hi Richard,

                removing the opposite cooling vane is the easy option and should work well.

The soldering material mentioned by 'Glang' above is available at the NEC car show but I can't see it on Ebay.  There are other materials that may work.

There is also Lumiweld that may be easier to handle.

If you still have the broken off part why not pop along to your local garage and get them to TIG it back on. 

 

Roger

[Rychu]

Thanks very much chaps.

I will remove the opposite fin and see how I get on.

Still learning how these little Honda GX engines work and how best to modify them.

 

Richard