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Scooters are being touted as a car-combating mobility solution in cities around the country, but those things are kind of missing the point. Those vehicles are a mediocre solution to address a specific problem. What we really need are scooters that do not address any problem. A homemade Harbor Freight-powered off-road scooter with 35-inch tires is really what we need. Trust me on this one.
Just such a vehicle is being built on TikTok by Brost Builds, a creative tinkerer whose account features playlists with names like “Noisy Junk,” “General Fabrication,” and most importantly, “Scoots McGee V.2.” What happened to the original Scoots McGee? Don’t worry about it. “V.2” is better, stronger, and armed with the aforementioned 35-inch mud tires. It rips. Kind of.
The vehicle features a custom-fabricated frame and front fork which form the mounting points for two automotive wheel bearings from full-size GM pickups. As such, any six-lug wheel in the right pattern bolts right up, including ones with 35-inch tires mounted to them. The engine itself is a generic single-cylinder unit produced under the “Power Fist” brand. It’s available in several different displacements, but this one appears to be a common 212-cc version with around seven horsepower. Many different companies, including Harbor Freight, sell this same basic engine, which is a clone of an original Honda unit.
Seven horsepower may not seem like much, but with the right reduction, anything is possible. Brost’s scooter has a two-stage sprocket and chain reduction, which seems to give him the most trouble out of anything on the build. Whether it’s chains snapping or stretching and losing tension, they only work intermittently. Many comments on his videos say he should install a proper tensioner, but for the sake of simplicity, one has yet to be put on.
This is the sort of build that gets iterated in slowly. Eventually, all of these problems will be addressed and the scooter will be an off-road beast. Suspension might be in the cards, too. In one clip, our brave host says the lack of suspension on the scooter is “apparent,” which is something of an understatement. It bounces all over the place.
That’s kind of the point, though. If this thing was practical, it would lose its charm. I say skip the practical mods and go straight to bigger tires and more engine. Brakes can be figured out later. What could possibly go wrong?
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