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Jayden's JEEP

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.



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.

Paint and the finishing touches!

Been awhile since I posted. Christmas break threw me all off. Anyhow I am back and here is what became of THE SARGE!

After hours of playing with star shaped paper and cutting tape I managed to tape off the star on the hood and the eyes and spray them.


The purple seat gets a new coat of black (hope it sticks well!)

For the front grill I took off the headlights and marker lights and sprayed it making sure to tape off some white behind the headlights so they don't look green.

After assembling all the painted body parts it was time to finally put on ALL 4 MOTORS! yea baby! Four wheel drive for the win.
I used hot glue as a spacer to keep the motors from flopping around.

Fried 2 sets of relays trying to get the wiring to work but it looks as if I am going to have to skip the forward/reverse for now. just the regular foot pedal and a solenoid to help save the foot pedal from overcurrent. I will later be building a 24v wiring harness and using a series/parallel circuit, but that's for later. for now the kid needs his jeep.

With all the wiring in place it was time for a test. And here is what I discovered
It turns out that the bigger tires rub just a bit on the frame.

To solve this I hooked 2 cheap ($2) ratchet straps around either end of the rear axle and the rear part of the frame and ratcheted until the rear lifted just enough.

Now with everything tested and working it is time for a test drive and delivery to its home.

The Sarge works awesome in the snow, even with 150lb me.
I gotta say it looks even cooler than I thought it would.

And here it is on a bike trailer, behind my mobility scooter. Being towed to Racerocks Auto for Marty to pick up.
 Jayden is going to love it!



 JAYDENS POWER WHEELS SARGE JEEP. VISIT #2

It has not been long since Jaydens Sarge Jeep has been in my garage. The 4 wheel drive conversion worked great except for a few flaws.
- The hot glue spacers did not work
- No forward/reverse
- Steering seemed to be dysfunctional

Time to fix the first issue; No forward/reverse. Instead of the regular on/off switch type pedal I will be installing a pulse width modulator (motor controller) and potentiometer pedal. I will also be running it at 36v and wiring the motors in series/parallel so that each motor is over-volted to 18v


 Here is the potentiometer pedal that will replace the stock on/off pedal


 Here is the 36v PWM

I have laid out the 3 batteries with the controller and charger
I plan to build a camo canvas canopy to cover the rear batteries.

I will be running 14 gage wire from each motor up to a connection bar under the hood that will then be wired to the 36v controller in two parallel 36v sets (Right and left). I will be using 12 gage for each motor set and 8 gage for the power cables. For the forward / reverse switch I will be using 4 automotive relays. 2 for forward and two for reverse. They will be placed after the PWM so they should not short like in the original version.

That's all for day #1 of visit #2 for Jaydens 4x4 power wheels Sarge Jeep.

Post #2 (months later..)

 The last time i posted here Jaydens jeep had just been brought back to the garage. Unfortunately it is still here. I finally got the motor wired up and.... only 1 motor of the 4 works. After months of waiting for a parts vehicle to come along (as new motors are $50/piece) Marty finally just said "is there any way under $100 we can get this thing to move". YES! A spark went off as I recall a couple projects i had seen online using RC motors. Traxxas sells a 550 motor slightly more powerful than a stock power wheels motor for $25 a piece and they apparently fit perfectly. Because they are different we will need 4 of them. I had initially thought pinions would be easy to find.... NOT! Now the only issue will be removing the pinions from the stock motors and "fingers crossed" the traxxas 550s have the same diameter shaft. Tomorrow I will be picking up some 550s and making a stop at Racerocks auto to see if the pros can help me get the pinions off without damage (something I have failed to do in the past). 

Post #3 November 2015 


Day 365...


At long last Jaydens Jeep (The Sarge) is done! As it turns out the stock pinions do not fit the Traxxas motors however if you know what you are looking for pinions are easy to find on any hobby website. The new motors were installed and she runs great once again.

Be weary if you ever intend to build one of these that 4 electric motors wired together in any way eat electrical components. The combined 4 motors have a total draw of 40 amps (10a each). At start-up they can often peak at over 60 amps. WOW! Thats a powerful little jeep. 480w of power whitch is about equal to an electric moped scooter.

After frying 4 automotive relays, 4 25a industrial relays, and all the stock power wheels switches It became apparent that motor power is much different than other power. Even The 10-15 amp draw of each motor was enough to instantly fry 30a components.

Attempt #5 of re-wiring left the only solution. A wiring system using 4 automotive solenoids. $60 worth of solenoids seemed a bit ridiculous to run a little kids toy but i guess it was the only option left before going to a PWM speed controller.

I also decided it was in need of a lift kit. Sarge now rides on a 1.5" lift and steering extension. I cut 1.5" lengths of tubing and fitted them on the mounting posts between the axles and the frame to give it a lift similar to a suspension lift as opposed to a body lift. Many people will try to give there power wheels a 6" lift or so... While that might look great on your real truck it looks ridiculous on a little power wheels especially when larger tires ARE NOT available. A tasteful little lift is all that required to make it look like a big beast.

No pics for now but I will try to get a video on here so you can all see it in action.


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