A few more days of Jayden's Jeep.

After taking a look at the front steering assembly it became apparent that putting motors on the front was nearly impossible. Even if I trimmed away all the plastic I would still be about an inch short. The options were to extend the steering arms (creating bad handling) or use the ugly Barbie Jeep. The old style jeeps fit motors on the front.

 



Here is the ugly Barbie Jeep... (gonna be hard to make er pretty)

 

Because it was in desperate need of a paint job we decided to paint it like Sarge from Cars! I have seen a couple of these and always wanted to do one. Awesome! Two projects I have always wanted to do in one a 4x4 and a Sarge Jeep. Jayden will definitely be the only one with a 4x4 Sarge.

 

Here is the jeep after much work of tearing off stickers, disassembling, washing, sanding, and washing again.

 

And here it is after a fresh coat of army green paint.

Its all out drying in the garage. Next will be installing the motors and doing the detail painting.

Jayden's Jeep. Day 1.

Yet another project for 2013.

This one however (unlike the rest of my projects) is to be done in a timely manner.

Back in the spring Marty approached me with an extremely tempting challenge. His son Jayden wanted his power wheels jeep made into a 4x4. AWESOME!

I have heard of this being done and have always wanted to try it. For my work I was paid an electric mini bike (that's a project for another time). DOUBLE AWESOME!

I started looking into what power wheels motor would work for the fronts and how to match them up with the rears. It was looking harder and harder. It seems almost every power wheels has a different gear box. Then I sold my scooter (GIO 500w) for $230 and a power wheels jeep (the one I am using for the 36v 19a Barbie Jeep project). I looked underneath and what do you know. the exact same motors as Jayden's Jeep! TRIPLE AWESOME!

Now it is Fall and I have finally started. The first thing I did was tear it down. All of it. Right down to the base plastic tub.

 

Everything Disassembled

 

Pieces I took off.

 

The base plastic tub. (look how much mud is in the wire trench)

 

Here is the front steering rack I will be motorizing.

 

Parts Jeep disassembled.

 

Here are all 4 motors. Can you tell the difference?

The difference is the old ones are dirtier, lol. Not for long though, I'm way to OCD to leave a spec of dirt anywhere in this vehicle. Part of why I tore it down. Its gonna be like new!

 

The front tires don't have grabs for the motor or place to slide in grabs so ill be screwing on the ones from the rears of the parts jeep. (the white things are the grabs from the parts jeep.

 

Here is the "Before"

Cleaned up the surface with brake clean (the only cleaning product I'm familiar with)

 

Here are both tires with the grabs attached.

Now to solve a couple more problems. I remembered talking to Marty about possibly using rubber tires to increase traction and decrease noise. The problem with that is more traction is harder on the motors. however power wheels motors are tough. they can almost always run on double the voltage without overheating. When people add traction to that it is bad. We aren't over-volting this one (yet anyways), so we can afford to get some traction. The other issue is rubber tires don't attach to power wheels motors. No problem.
Rubber does attach to power wheels tires. I remembered that bike tires can go pretty flat (like in packaging in the store. I got an old bike tire (got plenty of those) and cut it off the rim and cut the wire off the sides. I then simply stretched it flat around the power wheels tire and screwed it in.
a little bit of black paint to cover the shiny screws and it was done. I was rather impressed at how discrete it looked and now the jeep will be quiet and get great traction. AWESOME!

New Treaded Tire.



 

Comparison. Treaded tire - Left - Stock tire - Right.



 

That's all for today. Stored away for the night.

 

 

Started Something New... Again.

Oct - 1st 2013.

Just last week I sold my GIO 500w scooter (old beaten thing with good battery life left). I was asking $280 and ended up selling it for $230 and a Power Wheels Jeep.

My new project! An old school Power Wheels Jeep, and it just so happens to be a Barbie jeep. A real legit Barbie Jeep, Barbie beach cruiser if I am not mistaken. A big deal for a PW enthusiast.

And here is the beauty!

This vehicle definitely needs some love.

It may not look like much, but under this slur of gross color and age it is all there. all complete. no missing bits. right down to the plastic Power Wheels emblems.

 Time to retire it as a Barbie jeep and start its new life as something more manly.

 

 

For more of this project project go to the "Power Wheels Jeep - 19a 36v conversion" page. or

Click Here > http://gitrdonegarage.blogspot.ca/p/power-wheels-jeep-mobility-scooter-rear.html