Is my kart bent?

You’ve had an accident, but now you need to work out whether your kart is bent. Kart manufacturers design their chassis’ a lot softer these days. That's to try and counter the softer tires racers use. A softer chassis absorbs a lot of that flex when drivers are cornering. Now we're seeing a lot of karts having accidents because drivers are going at higher speeds which is sometimes too fast for kids.

So now suddenly, some of these seven to 10-year-old kids are driving as fast around the turns as what X30 is doing. The nature of the tire is so sticky, the kids are almost flat out around a lot of the corners. Now when it comes to having an accident, how do we know whether our chassis is bent or not?

The first way to try and assess whether your kart is bent is by putting it onto a kart jig. That's not always possible because there might not be anyone at the track that has a jig. But if there is someone there, whether it's a team or a shop, that's the best way to test it. It requires the front and rear wheels to be removed & possibly the rear hubs to come off the kart. Then place the kart into a jig, which is a level stationary platform, and then they check all the measurements. So, whether that's the rear rails, the c-sections, or just naturally whether it's up or down on one side of the kart. But it's a lot truer and easier way to assess the side to side whether everything's straight.

When it comes to straightening a kart on the jig, it's much easier than doing it on the ground. They place a bar depending on which part of the kart is bent, in between the chassis and on top of that part of the kart and they bend it down. If it's any more than probably 15 mil in the front end, it's going to be hard to straighten. It's possible. But what happens is when it's had that big of a hit, the chances are when you've driven it once or twice, it's going to bend back. It might not go the full 15 mil back, but it might go three to five mil back.

They tend to over bend them so they go back a little bit so they can bounce back into its true position. But again, if you do have quite a large hit and it's bent 15 mil or more, then once you've done one or two sessions, if you've got the jig there, put it back on to reassess.

Now, how do you know when you're driving if you've got a bent kart? Well, the easiest way to find out is if you're driving in a straight line, you can keep your hands on the steering wheel, but if it's pulling to one direction. If you've had a hit on the left-hand side, it might pull towards left hand side of the track. Again, the opposite for the right hand side. If you've had a hit on that side, so you're just driving in the middle of the track and suddenly, the kart wants to slowly push you to towards the inside or the outside of the circuit, that's the first sign.

The second sign is that you've had an accident, and you haven't been able to check it on the jig, and now your snipers or your laser aligners aren't anywhere near where they used to be. So instead of running zero mill on both sides, and now after an accident, one side's at 4mm negative and the other sides at zero, that's another sign that it could be bent.

With your top adjusters when you are trying to get the camber right, if one side is two or three clicks out from the other side, probably another sign that it's bent.

As you're hitting the brakes, the kart wants to kick out in one particular direction. This might be a sign that the rear of the kart is bent. If you don't have a jig there, remove the front and rear wheels. If you've got a water-cooled engine with the radiator on the brake side, you want to remove the radiator or at least undo the bottom bracket and lift it right up.

What you're trying to do is place an axle onto the top of the kingpins, and you probably need to cable tie around the C-section. Now eye off the axle that you've just put on top of the kingpins towards the rear axle, and that's going to give you a bit of an indication on which side might be slightly raised. So again, you probably want to stand back maybe five or so meters and just try and eye off the axle you placed on the C section with your rear axle. It's not perfect, but it can be done that way, and that's how in previous years before these jigs were around to straighten up karts.

If it's bent in the middle of the chassis, it’s very hard to fix there. The C-sections are probably the easiest fix. The rear rails are generally no dramas, but if it's twisted or shortened on one side of the chassis, then no good.

There are some tips on how to work out whether your kart is bent. Kids will find it hard to distinguish whether the kart is bent, so if they do say the kart is pulling in one direction, just try and get it checked when you can. Hopefully you don't have many accidents, but if you do, you know how to fix the chassis.