my 5 year old is riping it up on him little 100cc chinese utillity quad. i wanted to give him a little more stability.

i did a search in this section for wheel spacers and read all of the post. and this is what i came up with.

six 8mmx1.25 bolts 2" long and six 3" long , lock nuts ,lock washers and some flat washers.

i cut 18 little chunks of aluminum off of a piece of 1" flat stock with the band saw. the chunks are about 1" square. i drilled a 5/16 hole through the good flat 1" side of all of the blocks.with a drill press and a machinist vice to keep the holes strait, "don't want no wobble".

the 8mm bolts fit nice and tight in the 5/16 hole so i dont get no wobble.

i used 1" of spacer in the front on each side and stacked 2 of them up in the back for 2" of spacer in the back. and tightened the snot out of them.

the bike is way more stable.and looks allot cooler.

i only went with 1" spacing in the front because the further out you go the more leverage stumps and bumps have to knock the handle bars out of his hands.

this is a must do mod in my opinion. cheap and easy to.

i will be doing this to all his bikes until he is old enough to make them his self.

 

Thats a great idea carlw. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Carlw,
If your good at this, you may want to run a side business in doing this...price would have to be worth it. That is the first thing many ask about helping on stability. There is a market out there and the Japs are way too expensive. SEADAWG

 

good idea. i think i would need about 50 bucks for a compleate front and rear set to make it worth it .

the piece of aluminum was free. the shop that does our welding gives me stuff like this and does small repairs for my own personal stuff for free. but i would have to buy the aluminum from them if i started to pump them out.

i could send the buyer color photos of the instalation on our bike . i will give this a shot.

note to moderators: please dont kick me off the forums or block the thred or remove this post,we are just kicking around ideas.I did not join this site to make money.i will become a contributing member sooner or later also.just to be cool and help out.

 

Carlw,
No worries...I just see often they are not readily available. It is always about the money and the fifty bucks will fly, trust me. SEADAWG

 

Has anyone noticed any stress failures from moving the load out substantially farther from the originally engineered load point? Bent spindles or axles, wheel wobble, etc.? I am thinking about building some spacers for the rears.

-d3

 

have no wories at all about the rearend.

as far as the front ,sure there is more load on the spindels and wheel brearings but i dont see this as a problem because kids that ride them dont weigh allot and the bike will not see thousands and thousands of miles like a adult quad and the bearings used in the front hubs of the little bike i have are the same size as ones used in full size machines. if not the same then darn close. and wheen these cheap chinese bearings wear out i will replace them with US made sealed bearings. i will get them from a bearing supply company like florida bearing.

when i assembled the bike i noticed the bearings were very cheap looking and planed on replacing them with good ones when they wore out before i ever thought of making wheel spacers.

the added safty of widening the front 1 inch and the rear 2 inch on each side out weighs any longevity issues i could think of anyway. safety first .

my kid only weighs about 35 pounds but even if he weighed 75 the bearing size is plenty big for that even with the added load from the leverage the wheel spacers add. and when good US made sealed bearings are added forget about it.

the rear is of no concern eather way.

 

I was wondering same. Wheel bearings? Saw those stud extensions on E Bay, where it looks like they screw on existing studs. Wonder how they/hub/etc hold up? I was on my son's Redcat 110 (single A arm front) in 2nd going at a good clip, trying to tip it cornering fast. Was on concrete with fines on it, seemed fairly stable. I had to really turn sharp and lean a little to get a wheel off ground with speed in 2nd (3 spd model). I know this doesn't mimick trail riding, but gave me an idea on stability. My old 3 whlr, I would've been on my side doing this.

 

Im watching you. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]