I had a camouflage jeep when I was young, early 1990's. My dad took the plastic fake engine cover out and wired in an extra battery so 12v became 18v. I could do donuts on my neighbors smooth blacktop driveway. 
It also ate a 30 amp fuse every now and then. But, such things happen with hot rods 
looking at pricing on these I have simply decided to purchase my daughter a 50cc JC baby kart.
Just add a battery and a starter drive and it's yeefreakinhaaaaaa.
Last weekend MIL mentioned in passing that it looked like our neighbor was throwing out a power wheels. At a glance it looked like it was missing a steering wheel and battery charger. I promptly wheeled it into my garage.
the dump bed has a few cracks in it, but other than the missing parts it essentially looked brand new.
I asked the neighbor about it later that evening, he said he had the steering wheel and charger and he would get them to me. They never could get the steering wheel attached properly, and the thing could never get moving under its own power. They bought it new in the summer, gave it to their kid 6 months later for christmas and had these issues when they went to assemble it. So its basically brand new and they were stuck with it, not even working, for the past year year.
Today taking things apart and reviewing the instruction manual, it appears there was a manufacturer defect on the steering rod, it was missing a hole that the steering wheel was supposed to bolt through so we were able to fix that quickly. Still waiting to see if the neighbor can find the charger, but I am going to start looking for one.
We tried it on for size today. SWMBO and I talked about trying to hide this till her birthday in June but quite frankly I am a little too excited about all this.
This thing is 12v with a motor at each rear wheel. under the seats is where the battery is, but under the passenger seat is essentially an empty space where a 2nd battery could fit. Also all the lights/lenses have space behind them......ideal for adding LED's
That thing is so awesome that myself as a 4 year old would have instantly been driven insane with excitement. I didn't know they made dump trucks.
this is not a power wheels brand machine. It is a dynacraft. The internet tells me these were recalled from the shelves due to 1 catching fire.
Our little one was pretty excited. She was so eager to use it she started pushing it around because its currently "broken". She started handing me tools while I was inspecting it. That kind of stuff just warms a dad's heart.
ronholm wrote: See... It works like this... You need the Peg Pergo ones.. The Motorcycles are the best to find. They have smaller drive wheels under the "exhaust pipes". But what they do have is the bigger motors.. and the gearboxes used to drive those smaller wheels.... Which means when you mount them up on the jeep or whatever with the taller wheels... Speed happens..
Like this ? Nmna. https://nh.craigslist.org/tag/5985261934.html
Hopefully not a hijack - I've tested 4 6 volt power wheels batteries and they are all under 3 even after a long time on the charger. I assume I'm looking at replacement. Is there a better option than $53.79 for 2 x 2, that I found on amazon? I'm not seeing it.
if you know your current battery brand/model number, sometimes you can google that and find a chart of compatible batteries from other manufacuturers. I am in the midst of this myself and found this chart for mine:
http://www.beiterbattery.com/tonka12vmightydumptruckreplacementbattery.aspx
Should give you more options to widen your search for something cheaper
The wiring on these things is pretty simple if you don't have 2-speed setup. I wired up a dead Walmart Banshee and got rid of the computer controller. Sure it doesn't have reverse, but the kids learned to work around it. Use that extra battery space for a 6v battery and bump it to 18v once they get good at driving it.
The motors are small enough you can run a brushless 540 and lipos pretty easily, ans it will be stupid fast.....
The most expensive part is the battery, so when it goes, the toy often goes to the trash. I scored a free John Deere Tractor with Trailer for the cost of a new battery. The motors also melt down with abuse. $20 on Amazon to replace. I scored a free John Deere Gator with one blown motor. (that causes neither to work).
My daughter started with a 6v bug, and even at 3, it was too slow for her. She quickly wanted something larger and faster. Her next model, a Jeep, had a steel frame beneath the plastic body. Most of the newer models are all plastic, I think the older ones can handle more abuse.
New project!
Found it sitting beside a dumpster and hauled it home today. Looks like the gas pedal power wire broke off, so I'll splice in a new connector. We'll see if the shifter switches still work, or if I'm going to just straight wire it like I did the Quad. Gotta find my heat gun to remove the stickers and bring back the faded plastic. The good thing is if I leave it pink the boys will leave it for their sister to use.
So grandma bought my kids their first 'power wheels' a few weeks ago, and I've got to say, they're pretty awesome. One became one for each kid, so at the moment we have a Power Wheels Escalade (which is enormous), a chinese 'jeep' ride on (kinda meh) and a Peg Perego John Deere tractor, which is the bees knees. My little ones (3/4/7) took to them like ducks to water.
My oldest is way too big for them though, and it seems that she and I were both feeling a little jealous... so off to fbmarketplace, and now I'm the proud owner of two new (toy) motorcycle projects. I'm in the research phase, but modding will begin shortly.
nderwater said:So grandma bought my kids their first 'power wheels' a few weeks ago, and I've got to say, they're pretty awesome. One became one for each kid, so at the moment we have a Power Wheels Escalade (which is enormous), a chinese 'jeep' ride on (kinda meh) and a Peg Perego John Deere tractor, which is the bees knees. My little ones (3/4/7) took to them like ducks to water.
My oldest is way too big for them though, and it seems that she and I were both feeling a little jealous... so off to fbmarketplace, and now I'm the proud owner of two new (toy) motorcycle projects. I'm in the research phase, but modding will begin shortly.
Yesss!! I've been hoping to find some dead Razors for the collection. I know throttle control will be more important than the on/off I'm used to rigging up for PowerWheels.
In reply to slefain : There's an MX500 just like mine for sale for $50 south of Atlanta right now. Not sure what part of town you're in, but the bike is in Locust Grove and it's listed on FBmarketplace.
The Razor toys make a good platform for modifying because they feature metal frames and big motors. As a test, I rigged up a 4th battery to one of the bikes pictured above to raise it from 36V to 48V and the top speed went up 40%. Result!
My bikes are sold with "500 watt" motors but it's easy to get double that from them while still being reliable--for as little as $40 you can get an aftermarket controller and throttle which increase the motor's output to 1000w.
Sky's the limit from there. Common mods are lithium batteries (the stock SLAs are *heavy*), brushless motors, programmable controllers and suspension/wheel/brake upgrades swapped from small dirt bikes or mountain bikes.
We had a baby before I got very far on my own kids' razor upgrade. I got two working razor 24v scooters for $50 (!!!) only to discover that they only come with on/off throttle. It's like $45 to get a real accelerator setup for the power wheels from there, so I'm kinda bummed about that part. $150 is harder to justify for something my wife KNOWS the kids don't really care either way about.
In reply to P3PPY :
You're right, $35-45 each is in the ballpark. Aftermarket throttles start from about $15 but probably won't work with the stock controller... so kill two birds with one stone by pairing it with a higher wattage controller ($20+). That will get you a faster scooter with a variable throttle. If you get your kids excited about the scooters as is, the upgrades make sense. Otherwise... don't ;)
The main reason I'm modding the bikes I got is because I can ride them myself.
This connector allows the user of generic 12v batteries instead of the power wheels grey boxes, that have the plug built in.
I did that on my son's together with a 15ah battery vs the factory 12ah.
15ah 12v battery, fits in same spot
Nothing drastic but should increase run time while being cheaper.
Also have plans with an old pink 6v Mini and a 18v cordless drill that may end up together...
In reply to nderwater :
My plan was to scavenge the scooter hardware and put it into my kids' power wheels. I already knew I was going to be jury-rigging but didn't realize how MUCH. I'll do one and see how it goes on the younger one's who has a 6v single motor Mini Cooper that I have a 12v battery in. It used to be painfully slow but is now halfway between my eldest's twin motor 12v Shelby Cobra's slow and fast speeds, and still therefore very much insufficient.
I'd LIKE to figure out a way to make a live axle back there instead of a motor per wheel
No doubt. Power Wheels and other ride-on toys usually have R/C car motors and plastic gearboxes; the Razor stuff is way beefier, so not plug-and-play.
Well I suppose this is the best place to ask these things: It wouldn't be too hard to have a small plate welded onto the rear shaft and screw the wheels onto there, as well as a gear to be a diff of sorts, except that the holes the rear beam runs through are not bearings at all, so that bar across the back seems to only be there connecting the two wheels together for the purpose of keeping the rear wheels lined up. Therefore I'd be reinventing the wheel (or axle, as it were) that way. Still, does someone know of a cheap diff/axle I could use for this?
Alternatively, I've thought about putting the Razor 24V on one of the rear wheels and keeping one of the 12 or 6V motors on the other side for three reasons:
1. unless I get a new "brain" controller for them, the Razors don't activate until 3mph
2. a 24V start is QUITE a jolt, even for me on the scooter
3. the Cooper is a one wheel wonder at 6/12V and slides the front wheels laterally on take-off, this would be much worse with 24V
Of course, those concerns are mitigated by the fact that I'm looking to get an actual accelerator for them, except for the one wheel part... I guess it doesn't hurt for my 3 year old to learn to moderate her acceleration based on traction considerations. Of course, the 5 year old in her wheelstanding Shelby Cobra has no such concerns. c'est la vie?
I have the Razor bug as well, got a MX650 off of marketplace for a steal and kids love it. Had to weld the rear hub together and the chain pops off occasionally but quiet yard cruising is the way to go when you live in a development with and HOA where go karts and stuff are not allowed. Would love to find a couple more, I like riding the thing as well.
I took apart the 6V gearbox today and the Power Core E100 razor's too. The motor body is the right size but it's just barely off with the shaft output gear > gearbox input gear (which overlaps the shaft gear by half a mm). One thought is to soften the plastic gearbox input gear with heat; maybe that will be just enough of what I need (to not spend money, that is). I wasn't able to pull the gear off either output shaft; I was going to see about swapping. I used heat on both as I saw on YouTube but nothing. I'll post some pics later.
I'm still figuring out how to make it work with the 3mph kickstart requirement that the stock Razor controller has. Current plan is to get somebody's old gearbox and put it on the other wheel (as it sits it's a one wheel wonder) and give it either its own 12V power supply or see how long it would last on the same 24V I'll be using to power the big motor.
Two questions:
Bad idea to run the 24V motor on 12V?
Any ideas on a simple live axle for these?
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