Whoa! I see great minds think alike! I've been thinking about using a canoe this way also. See my post up there. Cool, SB. Too cool.
Excellent... we can compare notes as we go. If Steve had not helped me make the sidecar for my Indian I might not have chosen this route, but it turned out so well and we learned so much from the experiment that the canoe idea seems a good one. By the way, even the dents, scratches and abrasions polished up beautifully on the sidecar. These cars will look old with no particular effort on our part.
Where I live in northeastern Minnesota near the small town of Ely, is on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of a million acres, a paradise of fresh water lakes. Minnesota has over 12,500 lakes (has to be 10 acres at minimum to be called a lake) and most are located in northeastern Minnesota in an area called The Arrowhead. There are several Indian reservations of the Ojibwa (Chippewa) Indians located there. To say it is canoe country is an understatement. People come to little Ely from far and wide in the summer and turn it into a tourist town where it seems like every third vehicle has a canoe on top.
Finding a dead one as a donor for my sidecar was a simple matter of putting an ad in the local paper. The 17 foot Grumman I bought for $20.00 had been mangled in a rapids and had a gash midway on both sides. I could have repaired it, but wanted a sidecar. If I can get a velocar body out of it, too, it will be the best $20.00 I've ever spent. I'm in Maryland for the winter, so can't go out and measure the length of the remains, but as I recall the width at the center point was three feet. If I need for it to be longer for the velocar I should be able to find another donor, but I think I have 7 or 8 feet to work with. Especially with the gunnel bolted to the angle iron and plywood frame, it would be a very strong body. I was thinking about a folding top for the cockpit, something like from an old time baby buggy.
The Solo moped engine I have in mind starts like the Tomos A35... pedals are part of the engine assembly and by snapping the pedal backwards it acts as a kickstart. Pedals will technically move the bike around, and we all know that's a joke, but one which keeps it legal. How does your scooter engine start?
I'm thinking to somehow use the engine hanger from the Columbia moped, cut out and bolted to the undercarriage... steel channel welded to the angle iron side rails. This would make the engine hang down a bit, as it would on a moped, and if it were moved forward more should give good leg room. So part of the floor would be open underneath to allow the pedal circuit. I suppose that could be covered with an aluminum cowling to keep weather out.
Anyway, that's what I'm thinking right now which is subject to change at any time. I'll have a year to think about all this and gather the materials together. see what you're doing and steal all your good ideas. I know nothing about go kart steering and find your leaf spring suspension idea of interest. This is fun stuff to think about.
SB