[NoPedantsThanks]

Oh man, that's great! For me it was a go-kart. They were illegal where I lived (Chicago suburbs), but whatever.

There were two big hurdles for a kid: acquisition of a side-shaft motor (lawn mower engines' shafts were vertical, so no dice) and acquisition of a clutch. I couldn't afford either of those. Nor could I weld.

My friend and neighbor, as it turns out, inexplicably had a snow-blower engine in his garage. Horizontal shaft, perfect! But I still couldn't get a clutch.

So I decided who needs to start or stop in a sane manner? I'd simply attach a bicycle wheel directly to the shaft of the engine, and use lawn-mower wheels for the other three.

Then I set about to build the frame, by hacksawing an old angle-iron bed frame apart and bolting it into a rectangle. I managed to cut the metal, but drilling holes in it for bolts proved to be essentially impossible.

So I built a crude platform out of wood and attached the wheels to it. The front wheels were bolted onto the ends of a board that I could pivot with my feet. Then I bolted the engine onto the back, with wood shims to make the bicycle wheel meet the ground at the same height as the three other wheels.

There were no brakes and no way to totally stop the engine. I propped the back up on some bricks and went to start it... and the pull-start mechanism broke. Probably saved me from serious injury or worse.

And that was that.

[kolektiv]

To be fair, I raced 2-stroke karts for years, and up until relatively recently, clutches weren't a thing. Most karts were direct-drive, as you didn't want lag and power loss, and simplicity was usually more important than anything else for weight and general sanity. The engine was more likely to stall when you didn't want it to than go when it shouldn't - if you spun in a race, that was it, race over.

That said, the rest of your kart sounds like it was probably best avoided - you should be grateful for that pull-start breakage, yes!

[NoPedantsThanks]

Interesting! This was long before the Internet, so all I had to go on was books I checked out from the library about how to build stuff. They presented the clutch as a basic component.

The other topic I repeatedly checked books out on was movie special effects. Of course I wanted to make "laser beams" in my Super-8 movies. This, not surprisingly, was even less practical than a go-kart because it required an optical printer. Books offered the idea of drawing on or scratching the film as an alternative, but even as a kid I rejected that as utterly impractical and lame on a tiny 8mm frame.

I did make a bunch of movies, and do and build cool stuff as a kid. I wonder how much more I would have accomplished with access to all the info and 3-D printers and video capability kids have today. Would I do more because of all that, or less because of the massive distraction of the media now?

[kolektiv]

That last question is one I think about often! It sounds like your childhood was pretty well spent. I wanted to make lasers too - just not on film! I built most of one, but only lacked a decently sized ruby, for some reason. Probably just as well, as my childhood electronics would almost certainly have been at least as lethal as your kart...

[NoPedantsThanks]

To an eyeball or two, at least!

[hprotagonist]

the one time i went out on an open wheel shifter kart i recall bump starting it and power shifting, but indeed no clutch.