Dart Chaparral Safety Update

[Rob Voska]

I was at an event and saw a Dart Chaparral steering hoop come apart that ended up with a flip and a injured driver. Here is an idea to keep that from happening to you.


Standard Dart upper & lower steering hoop.


The way they are stock there is just a set screw or a short socket head allen bolt run in against a hollow tube. You don't tighten it much as the tube will crush. Also as we are bigger, older, heavier the hoop is usually in the highest position possible leaving very little room for any slipage so it can easly come out of the lower support.


I took mine and slid a 1" long piece of cold rolled steel in. Tig welded it in before it got chromed. Then marked where the bolt would be and drilled a hole 1/2 way thru. That gives me a very good pocket for a short allen head bolt to seat against. In other applications I have also drilled a hole in 1 side of the tube and run a longer bolt so it went to the far side before clamping the hoop in place. That way it could not come out either. The head of the bolts should also be safety wired so they can't back out.






When done like this your kart is safer and no one can detect anything was ever done.
Remember this is for fun and we don't want to see anyone on their heads or tearing up any equipment.

[Rick Chapman]

Back in the day, we were required to drill an 1/8" or a 3/16" hole through the tubes and pin them with a coller pin.
This is a little simplier and will solve the seperation problem..

[Jeff Campbell]

Rick,
That sounds simple, but would be kinda ugly.

I like what Rob suggested, another similar approach might be to drill a hole through one side of the hoop tube, then use a long socket head screw that will bottom on the inside of the hoop tube, pushing the hoop tube against the frame tube to lock it firmly in place. With this screw pushing the the thickness of both tubes it would more resistant to deforming the tubes (and coming loose), and of course the long screw would pass through the hole in the hoop tube to prevent it from separating from the frame. The protruding socket head could be drilled for wire, but then I guess we get back into ugly here with wire wrapping around the tubes? Anyone have any ideas for making this safety mod look original and pretty?

Jeff