Another Power Wheels Build

[fantomas]

Nothing really ground breaking here. In fact, I'm admittedly stealing a bunch of ideas from Jack_Fauth's build viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1782

Picked these two jeeps up a few months ago.

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I chop shopped the smaller one pretty quickly and it's been sitting in my basement collecting dust in pieces for about 2 months. This week I finally got around to working on it, although it's kind of tough working when the kiddo isn't around because of fumes and it is way too cold outside to work in the garage.

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Started cutting and fitting for the "YJ grill conversion"

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Got them glued in and filled the gaps with plumber's epoxy. I couldn't think of any other products that would fill such a large gap, so I hope I made the right choice. Lighting kind of sucks but the housings sit flush with the grill. It cured enough for me to sand down and started with a layer of bondo.

In the mean time, I now had leftover lenses and light grills, so decided to make functioning fog lights.

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3" PVC fit almost perfectly. Getting the lenses/grills to stay in was trial and error.

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Lights are in, and can be removed easily for access to the lighting. I will also be deleting the front center license plate. I need to come up with a good way to come up with inexpensive front and rear "mini" JP plates.

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Aaaand reupholstered the seat. Not sure if I'll spray on the pouches or add real ones, or just leave it like this.

So the other plans are to add functioning head lights, tail lights, and fog lights. Also, I'm going to "delete" the gas tank cap. No idea why they designed it to go there on these Power Wheels (rear passenger side). Probably going with JP13 for this one, JP14 for the bigger PW, and JP15 for my *real* Jeep. I don't think I'm going to add a winch (can't find one!). I'm also going to look in to deleting the spot lights on the roll bar. I might have to replace that whole thing with a length of PVC. I've read making them functioning lights just shines light on the back of the driver's head, so I'm not too concerned with losing them.

[fantomas]

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And this evening did a few light coats on the grill to get a better idea on the high and low spots around the headlights. Need to figure out how to make a lens for the lights... was thinking about about using a cover off a fluorescent light, but cutting it to shape is a concern.

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Epoxied the gas hole and started the bondoing. Unsure if I'm going to relocate it to the other side or just leave the jeep without a way to refuel it.

[Jack_Fauth]

your making some good progress on your Jeep, i had to put mine on the back burner while i was doing another full sized conversion but i hope to get back on it by spring
here are a few links for you to get the parts you still need

first is a guy on e-bay that sold me a bumper with the winch on it. I then removed it from the other bumper and added it to my jeep bumper
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Wheels-Je ... 4110wt_916

second is a ride on toys parts site. here i bought lenses that i am going to cut down and epoxy into the new square headlights of her jeep
here is the site, there shipping rate is messed up so you may want to call them
http://www.kidswheels.com/Peg-Perego-He ... T8408.html

the parts are real cheap so if you mess up you arent out much money

I also got my spare tire from this site

Good luck and i hope this helps, you should be done before me it looks like

Jack

[fantomas]

Thanks for those links! They were really helpful. Not too keen on spending $40+ for the spare wheel though. I found this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dora-The-Explor ... 461915b675
I wonder if I can paint the spare without running in to any issues, or if it would kind of just look weird? I'd also hate to be "that guy" that only buys one and leaves her with 3.

Getting there... a few more bondo/sanding cycles and the grill should be done. I don't consider myself a perfectionist so if it's not perfectly blended I won't spaz out. On the other hand, it's still far too cold to start stripping the interior of my real Jeep which also means it's still too cold to paint the PW outside, so I have plenty of time to get the feathering just right I suppose

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Close enough for government work I guess...

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Tomorrow I'm going to spray the front bumper and work on removing the "lights" from the roll bar. I picked up some 1-1/4" PVC but I don't know if it is going to be too thick. The 1" seemed too thin... so I dunno. Also, I bought a broken troffer lens http://www.lowes.com/pd_163816-337-R-A1 ... facetInfo= for a discount. I'm going to try to cut it down to make a pair of lenses.

I can't believe how awful these pics look on my iPhone 5

[fantomas]

Not sure why some of these pictures were uploaded 90 degrees clockwise, so sorry about that.

Front bumper painted. Need to do a little more work smoothing out where the Power Wheels emblem was. And have to wait a week before I can respray it.

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Started working on the lens. I guess this will do the trick, but not sure how it will look like with the LEDs behind it. 100 LEDs ordered... from China so it will be a while before I can get to that part.

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Used a heatgun to try to mimic the curve of the lens that came with the housings, looked away for 2 seconds and then this happened. Oops

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Got both sides cut out

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Closeup of my cutting (melting) skills. I don't think I can get it any better without some sort of computer aided laser cutter or something.

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Drilled the mounting holes... but oops, diamond pattern is going the wrong way on the left side.

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I ended up cutting a few more lenses and doubling them up for more diffusement. Depending on how the LEDs go, I might go with 1 or 2 of the lenses. We'll see.

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Currently working on the roll bar... waiting for the plumber's epoxy to set a bit more. Will get pictures up later.

[Cyrix9445]

Great work so far!

[fantomas]

Replaced the top section of the roll cage that had the two lights on it with a piece of 1-1/4" PVC, with a length of 1" PVC inside that, and some 3/4" PVC at the ends. glued (epoxy) the pieces together, then at the seam filled it with plumber's epoxy. I might same the plumber's epoxy down some more, but it kind of looks like a welded seam, so we'll see. Painted black. Not entirely sure if I'm keeping them black seamstressing together some spice padding, or if I'll just respray them spice at a later date.

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[ratrace427]

That does look welded. I like the look

[Jack_Fauth]

Thanks for those links! They were really helpful. Not too keen on spending $40+ for the spare wheel though.

here is the site i got my spare from...not the other one
here is the wheel
$3.50
http://www.hobbymasters.com/Power-Wheel ... -2469.aspx

the center cap
http://www.hobbymasters.com/Power-Wheel ... -2679.aspx
$1.75

here is the tire
http://www.hobbymasters.com/Power-Wheel ... -Tire.aspx
$13.00


total $18.25 plus shipping

[fantomas]

total $18.25 plus shipping

Found some 10% coupon codes! Where did you end up finding the rear bumper? I contacted a guy on MPW that I think you contacted about them but he's been saying it's too cold where he is to go out and get them so I've been kind of sitting in limbo deciding what to do