Topic: Built my team a custom pit cart
Since we started Lemons racing back in 2008, our team has used a garden cart that I bought from Tractor Supply to transport the fuel and other items to and from the paddock area to the hot pit. It has worked OK, but it's kind of top heavy, and things tend to bounce off of it or fall over unless the pavement is flat. When transport 90% of our race gear inside the car and it's hard to store inside the car because it's too tall. l've been wanting to modify the existing cart, but once I started figuring the dimensions I decided it would be easier and better to just build one from scratch.
First off I needed a list of just what needed to be transported for each pit stop. Basically we need 3 cans of fuel, fire extinguisher, drip pan for spills, and a cooler to hold the ice for the cool suit. I wanted to keep the C-of-G low and keep it from being to tall to transport inside the car to and from events. I worked on a drawing last week, and since my boss (wife) was out of town all weekend, now was the time to build it.
I started with some 1" square x 16GA tubing to form the basic frame:
This section is added to accommodate the rear axle:
I built a second frame like the first, and added spacers as seen here:
Here I'm building the yoke for the front wheel using some 1" flat bar:
Lot's of clamps to keep everything square:
The completed yoke and axle for the front wheel:
Somehow I got to here without step-by-step pics, but you can see the frame taking shape. BTW, all of this is just tacked together for now:
Here I'm aligning the rear wheels so I can weld the axle in place:
Mocked up with the wheels in place:
Here I'm adding pieces of 1" flat bar for the bottom support:
Again, I was on a roll and skipped a few steps, but basically what I did was build a frame from 1" angle to hold the cooler, and I used some 6" PVC to hold the fire extinguisher. Here are a few pics of where it stands now:
I need to add a pair of tabs to hold the drip pan, otherwise I'll paint it and it will be ready to be put into service.
Team Super Westerfield Bros.
'93 Acura Integra - No VTEC Yo!