Adjustable Width Kayak Cart

I've posted pictures before of the PVC kayak cart that I made for my Malibu II.  Well... now that I have the Marauder, I had to find a way to make a cart for it, since the scupper holes are about 3 inches closer together. 

I can't believe I didn't think of this when I originally built the cart, but I found a very simple way to give the cart an adjustable width. 

Home Depot carries these PVC Couplings in various sizes (my cart uses 1 1/4" PVC for the frame).  They have rubber bushings inside and make for a very sturdy width adjustment feature.  Now I can cart around my Marauder, and if I want to use the Malibu II, in just a few minutes I can widen the cart to accomodate that big pig of a kayak as well. 

I added a couple of PVC bushings to the axle between the wheels and the cart frame to keep the wheels out at the ends of the axle on both ends as well.



Erik

pretty slick, now you don't have to have two or three of those carts around I like it. 

Excellent idea, Erik.  Your carts are strongest PVC karts I've seen.  They're on the heavy side, but well worth the extra weight.  I need to make one too.

So... do the couplings also allow the cart to breakdown easily for transport and storage?

The couplings allow you to break the cart in half, but you still have that solid axle to deal with.  You could probably figure a way to create two shorter axles that are supported inside the "axle tube" so that the couplings allow you to truely  break the cart in half if you want. 

Yeah, these carts are a little heavy, but that's a small price to pay for all the labor they save in allowing you to cart your kayak over a lot of different terrain. 

I now know the strength limits after busting my old one up last year.  ~100# of gear including kayak bouncing down the big rock steps at Stillwater cove (north) was all it could bear.  I can live with that.

Used my wheels for the first time in months last Saturday and they broke after about 20ft of use.
I think I need to start using pure metal.  Plastic has been letting me down.  The weight of my eXtreme loaded with
gear is too much for PVC.  This pic should go under "How NOT to build a kayak cart".
The plastic arm with the foam broke off and the cart was unusable after that.
Back to the drawing board.