Modify Power Wheels
 

Just picked up a 6 volt power wheels F-150 from a garage sale for $5. It needs a battery before the kids can trash it but I cant find one today because it's a holiday.
I have read that lots of people put 12v bats in there to get more power but the only 12v battery I can find today has 165 cold cranking amps ( lawn tractor battery) Is there a way I can limit the current to the drive motors to prevent them from burning up?

my dad did that to mine, i belive he used a big coil of wire in line with the pos. you could allways use a resistor.

Med- that site is awesome.

I have one of those powerwheel things as well, but no batteries for it. I always wondered if I could just stick a lawnmower battery in it. I know it would last like 50x longer, but I didnt want to break it.

Let me know if it works.

Thanx for the replies. I was at that site before i posted but they seemed to say no way for the 165 amp bat. Well I went and did it anyway and just put in a 30 amp fuse. We have only blown 1 fuse so far and the thing just tears up those plastic tires.

I guess you could substitute a circuit beaker so you don't have to keep replacing fuses. Use maybe a 25 amp since breakers take a little bit longer to trip. The plastic tires probably lesson the stress on the motor(s) since they don't grip as much as rubber tires..

Put a couple of group49 batteries in the bed. ;)

*** Check for Recall ***
 

About 4 yrs. ago, I picked one of those up at a garage sale ("Bigfoot" PowerWheel (PW)) - found out that one of the motors was trashed and the electrical was "suspect" to say the least (They had "stored" it outside behind the garage - every circuit had some corrosion issues.

Anyways, I went on-line, found that there was a little shop in our town that was an "authorized" repair facility for PowerWheels. It also mentioned that because of electrical issues w/the wiring harness, there had been a recall on units that had been manufactured previous to the current year or so.

I went to the shop, and sure enough, he said the recall applied to that particular PW and that the recall also included the motors...pretty much ALL the electrical system...motors, wiring, switches, charger, the whole 9 yards. I ended up paying only for the new batteries (Total was approx. $60.00 plus tax).

The grandson had a fun time w/it...now we're passing it on to the next few grandsons... :kid: :kid: :kid:

BTW, I'm still waiting on the 4th one...the DIL has been in the hospital since Friday night...this kid's going to have his driver's license by the time he gets here!

Check out the Mattel PowerWheels WS and see if that unit you have is eligible for the recall ... It will save you TONS OF $$$$$$. :D
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Well after about 3 solid hours of riding it finally stripped out the gears on one motor. When he hits the gas pedal it spins both rear tires and can do a donut on asphalt. When he lets off the pedal it locks um up and then slides sideways. My kid is a maniac. Now I need to find a new motor for one side.

Got it working again here is a link to some video of Jack going crazy.
http://tednorfolk.home.bresnan.net/
Let me know what you think

hahaha you got a cool kid man. watch out tho, next he will want a quad.:D