SSGCARAUDIO.COM - Golf Cart

STAGE 1: ADDING SOME ADDITUDE

The first step in making this cart into a attention getter is to get up in the air a little bit. As soon as the yamaha rolled off the trailer a new 6" Jake's lift kit was ordered along with new wheels and tires.

Here is a close up of the new polished aluminum wheels mounted on 20" tall tires.

Here is the front control arm from the Jake's lift kit being installed. The kit worked great and was easily installed in one afternoon.

While we were at it all of the parts that are being reused (spindles, shocks, springs) were cleaned and given a fresh coat of gloss black chassis paint.

The end result of an afternoon's work. This picture was taken before a few final adjustments were made. The front end now sits up level with the rear and a little bit of trimming was needed on the side rails for tire clearance. I can't say enough about the Jake's lift kit. This thing rides and handles great and with the increased height it has a completely different look.

STAGE 2: FABRICATION BEGINS

The first step is removing everything from the cart that is in the way or will not be needed anymore. Gone now are the front and rear bumpers, rear seats, diamond plate trim and front plastics and dash. You can also get a sneak peek at the new Grant small diameter steering wheel that looks about 200% better than the original.

Sorry about the lousy cell phone pic but this is the stack of most but not all of the audio equipment that is going into the cart. Consider this a tease of what's to come.

I decided to ditch the lawnmower style bucket seats and replace them with a bench. Shown here is a simple 1" square steel tubing frame with studs welded in that will allow it to be mounted to factory seat bolt locations.

Here is the seat bottom and side rails mounted to the cart. This setup is far more comfortable and addition of side rails gives the passenger something to hang onto. The seat itself is a used piece that I picked up from the very helpful crew at Lost Creek Carts.

Step one in the fabrication of the fiberglass pieces is cutting rings for all of the speakers and subs from 3/4" MDF using router with a circle cutting jig.

This is the base plate that will be attached to the rear tub of the cart.

Here is the start of the subwoofer enclosure which built from stronger 1" MDF. The added strengh is needed due to the sub box also doubling as the mount for the seat back.

A close up of the enclosure/seat back support. I always like to round over all the edges of the internal braces even though nobody will see them. The holes in the bracket help remove a little excess weight from the box and give a more professional appearance.

The assembled framework for the subwoofer enclosure. The box is built to house three 10" woofers that will be mounted upside down. You can also see the seat back cushion mounted with bolts that can be accessed through the woofer openings to conceal all the mounting hardware.

The next big item that needs to be mounted is the 32" LCD TV monitor. That's right I just took a brand new TV and tore it all apart to get it don to just a bare screen in order to mount it on a golf cart. The picture above is a 3/4" MDF frame that the monitor can drop down into. The good thing about tearing the plastic casing from the LCD is that now it only needs about 2" of mounting depth making it alot easier to integrate. Not pictured but also made the same weekend is body buck that will allow us to pull the body from the cart in order to start the fiberglass work.

Things start to get out of hand
OK I know it's been a while since the last update but work has continued on the cart and this section will bring everyone up to speed on what is going on. It has been a busy summer with car shows every weekend and a full work schedule every week so the cart has been put on the backburner somewhat. However since I don't get to work on the project I have time to think of things to be done to the cart. So now the cart has grown from a simple addition of some audio equipmnt to a full blown fabrication project.

As you can see here instead of just bolting the box and amp rack to the body we have decided to take the pieces and completely mold them into the body. This will all end up being one seamless unit that will make up the back section of the cart. All four rear 6"x9"'s have been molded into the rear at different angles and then blended into the triple 10" subwoofer enclosure. All three amps will also be mounted in the rear of the cart with the two 4 channels tucked into the pockets below the speakers and the big mono sub amp floating on the pedestal above.

Very soon I should be posting some pics of the other big mod to be done to the cart. I'll give you a hint it involves a sawzall, a welder and some steel tubing.
STAY TUNED!!

Check back for more updates soon!