September 2019 GCOptions Sep19 MG | Page 29

How Do You Cart? Send us your story [email protected] and had everything running smoothly, he took the entire body apart again to improve its looks. Rulien says the finished cart could clear 120 mph and use its four-wheel- drive system to tear up even “Every vehicle I own is red. I’m a red kind of guy,” Rulien says. For the deepest sand traps. He the Overkill build, he added the International Harvester Scout’s red is waiting until golf season to engine and painted the shock absorbers and the driveshafts. really push the vehicle, but it has already made an impres- That let him shrink the truck's wheelbase sion. When a truck driver eyed the beast, he and get closer to cart scale, but it also means declared, “Jeez, that’s overkill!” And thus was riders will feel every bump in the road. "We she christened. didn't care about the ride," he jokes. How It Works Curb Appeal Red All Over Time: 2 months Cost: $4,300 Off-Roading Rulien doesn't plan to rip up any golf courses with his V8 cart; he's thinking about showing it off in parades and events. Either way, the look was important to him, so he searched There won't be any shifting to four-wheel on for the right add-ons—chrome headers for the fly: The driver has to get out and reach the engine, aluminum diamond plating—and under the cart's floor to change into off-road spent four 12-hour days grinding and clean- mode. The good news is that despite the orig- ing the Scout's chassis to get it ready for inal Scout's brake problems, Overkill can stop painting. because Rulien replaced all the brake lines and calipers. The truck's master brake cyl- inder still worked, but Rulien moved it from the engine area to the middle of the vehicle, under the seat. "There was no real room up front," he says, "and I wanted people to just see the engine." Suspension The Scout's rear axle had large suspension springs for off-roading, but Rulien swapped in shorter, heavy-duty ones from a trailer. SEPTEMBER 2019 29