18V Disney lil quad 2wd stretched wheelbase & lighting

[toycrusher]

Finished?

This little thing was really bugging me, just sitting there untouched. I HAD to do SOMETHING, but what? Well, I had extra 'lil jeep tires and gearboxes so why not? Tires were too big to fit in the wheel wells and the motors were too big to fit in the narrow tub so what could I do? I decided to build a sub frame to widen the track, lift it a little, and stretch it farther out. I couldn't find any decent angle iron so I went with the next best thing, PVC :roll:

It was a cheap mod. Built the frame, cut an axle to width and mounted my two gearboxes. It's running regular 6v 3a's on 12v so it's not bad but I can already see I will need to take it to 18v or find another set of super 6's. It will also be painted soon. We're quite sure my daughter will prefer neon green and black over pink once she's old enough to say so :)

[toycrusher]

Moved to 18V now. Batteries actually fit quite well in the compartment now that there isn't a motor in there taking up space. Ordered 80 amp relays someone had recommended from EBAY. They came with harness plugs and leads which sounded great, until they arrived. How is 16ga wire supposed to handle 80 amps??? Oh well.

Bike originally was forwards only so I mounted a fwd/rev switch on the fender. Looks tacky but saved me from having to modify the harness I was using.

[taz11]

MUH HAHAHAHA :twisted: :twisted:


I'm startin' to like you. 8-)

[toycrusher]

Yeah, my wife isn't buying the "it's for the kids" line anymore... :lol:

[toycrusher]

I'm somewhat capable at doing many different things, but I've never been accused of being a good painter. This is my first attempt at painting a ride and if it doesn't come out, big whoop, this thing is ridiculous anyway! :lol:

I'm using a fusion white for a primer and then going with black and neon green for top coats. I hate prep but I cleaned the plastic first, sprayed it down with brake cleaner to remove and oil or grease, and then made an interesting discovery. Brake cleaner has a cooling effect and when you live in an area with constant relative humidity near 100%, it means as quickly as the solvent evaporates the plastic now becomes drenched with water. I used a heat gun to slowly dry it back out. We'll see what happens, and i'll be sure to only take pictures from a distance... :)

On a side-note, the regular 6v power wheel motors are definitely the same as the 12v motors. Running at 18v with 3a gearboxes, it's FASTER than his 12v super 6 jeep on 3b's and bigfoot tires! 8-)

[toycrusher]

I know why I don't paint much, I don't have the patience! I've been cheating on dry times with a heat gun, though I've already blistered a spot by getting to carried away. Once this green cures then I'll mask everything off and paint my black body and accents. I'm shooting for 60-70% quality, the kids are going to crash it, the sun will bake it, and no one in their right mind would buy it if I tried to flip it so what's the point of shooting for perfection? :lol:

[toycrusher]

My first (almost) finished paint job. Came out pretty decent with the exception of a few spots and some tape lines that didn't come out quite right. I also decided to add a headlight and tail light (not in pictures)

[Sum Ting Wong]

That's Cool!!

[toycrusher]

And what project is complete without lighting? (Actually, what project is ever really complete?)

It was a big hit with my baby girl. Couldn't keep her off it! Fortunately it's scale-able depending how I connect the 6v and 12v batteries. Once she masters walking I'll move her to 6v training, then 12v practice, then 18v drifting... :twisted:

[toycrusher]

The time has come for the next stage. To be honest, it only got about 10 minutes of use after I "finished" it the first time :(

The steering was lousy, too much play in the linkage and it turns out cutting off the steering stops was a BAD idea :roll: The other big problem was the push button throttle, my boy's thumb would start hurting pretty quickly from trying to maintain pressure on it. The final nail in the coffin was that his feet didn't fit so there was no point in correcting matters.

My baby girl is 13 months now and she LOVES all things BPRO! :D When we do our night runs her shouting, roaring, and laughing is louder than the racket from the motors and tires. She thinks it's hilarious whenever my boy tries to crash into us or runs us off the road. :x

So, this will be her first ride. I cut it back to slow-as-molasses 6v and put in a throttle pedal. It now has a brake function too, as if the rolling resistance on the front tires wasn't enough already! She can't quite push the pedal down on her own yet so I may take the spring out for now and just rely on the internal spring in the switch. I picked up a donor quad and swapped in the front axle. Also made a retainer to keep the steering shaft in place. I'm not sure they could have cut any more corners when they designed these things!

[toycrusher]

Looking back, I hadn't realized how bad the sun faded my paint job!!! :x :x :x

[toycrusher]

Yes yes, free time is dangerous. Even more so when you have more important things you should be doing... :lol:

I'd wanted to do this from the beginning. I took another pair of bigfoot tires I had, cut me a longer thicker axle, drilled out my pvc pipe frame (Hey! It works! :roll: ) and here we are :)