I've always dreamed of having a jeep, and I finally have one... though it's not at all what I expected!
Power Wheels is a BIG thing where we live, but they're SO expensive we didn't think we'd be getting one for the kids for awhile.. if ever. Then we were in Goodwill yesterday and there it was.. a 2 seater Power Wheels Jeep.. with 3 batteries, and a charger... for $40!!! It needed a little work, but we went for it!
Here is our kids new Power Wheels Jeep before:
You can't really tell in the picture, but Reagan and I did a LOT of cleaning on it after. It has had 2 blown out wheels, and is missing a hood pin, the key (which doesn't serve any real purpose as far as function,) and the Barbie Tunes radio. We don;t really care about the radio.. it only plays special Barbie songs anyway. We got a lot on ebay for $4 that includes a set of hood pins, a key, and a gas cap. The biggest problem.. those wheels... But I have a local mom friend who is into Power Wheels modification and she just happened to have a Barbie Jeep she was planning to sell the wheels off of (she's repainting it and it won't be Barbie, so she didn't want purple wheels.) She stopped by last night and we bought them right off her Jeep.. really she brought the whole thing and removed them here. It was a great learning experience to see her do it, and made it SO much easier to do the change out on ours! She also had a ton of great information to share and tips on setting ours up. Thanks to her, we're going to be checking if the batteries with this one are on a recall that was done. If they are we can get them replaced, so that's cool.
Since there is no sun fading, and virtually no decal wear on this, we're planning to leave it pink for now. But the plan is to paint it up black in a year or 2. That way we can reasonably keep all the blue, green, and purple trim, but it won;t be too super girly for Adam. And of course we'll re decal it using plain Jeep decals. Not super looking forward to that project, but it should be fun anyway. lol
Today Reagan and I (pretty much all me.. she just likes watching) did our work on the vehicle. I took out the seat out to retrieve the middle portion of the seat belt. This also gave me access to the gears which were crusted with mud. We removed all four wheels and hosed down both the old and "new" ones. 2 of the original wheels are completely shot (read HUGE holes in them as you can see by the picture,) but 2 are okay, and we'll reserve them as spares. Removing the wheels allowed us to remove the rear axle and take the gears out for better access. We thoroughly cleaned the outside of the gear casings, but found them to still be very well sealed.. so we left them that way. This way we don't have to mess with greasing them up properly again. We cleaned the gear box area and in the battery compartment of the Jeep while we had everything out. With everything completely cleaned, it was time to reassemble! Seat belt reinstalled. New wheels affixed. Seat replaced. Now we did a quick test, and the original fasteners aren't really meant to be removed and put back, so some of them weren't the most cooperative. So for now we're parking the Jeep while we wait to find out from my friend what she uses as a replacement fastener. (She showed us last night.)
In the mean time.. here is our reassembled Jeep!
Power Wheels is a BIG thing where we live, but they're SO expensive we didn't think we'd be getting one for the kids for awhile.. if ever. Then we were in Goodwill yesterday and there it was.. a 2 seater Power Wheels Jeep.. with 3 batteries, and a charger... for $40!!! It needed a little work, but we went for it!
Here is our kids new Power Wheels Jeep before:
You can't really tell in the picture, but Reagan and I did a LOT of cleaning on it after. It has had 2 blown out wheels, and is missing a hood pin, the key (which doesn't serve any real purpose as far as function,) and the Barbie Tunes radio. We don;t really care about the radio.. it only plays special Barbie songs anyway. We got a lot on ebay for $4 that includes a set of hood pins, a key, and a gas cap. The biggest problem.. those wheels... But I have a local mom friend who is into Power Wheels modification and she just happened to have a Barbie Jeep she was planning to sell the wheels off of (she's repainting it and it won't be Barbie, so she didn't want purple wheels.) She stopped by last night and we bought them right off her Jeep.. really she brought the whole thing and removed them here. It was a great learning experience to see her do it, and made it SO much easier to do the change out on ours! She also had a ton of great information to share and tips on setting ours up. Thanks to her, we're going to be checking if the batteries with this one are on a recall that was done. If they are we can get them replaced, so that's cool.
Since there is no sun fading, and virtually no decal wear on this, we're planning to leave it pink for now. But the plan is to paint it up black in a year or 2. That way we can reasonably keep all the blue, green, and purple trim, but it won;t be too super girly for Adam. And of course we'll re decal it using plain Jeep decals. Not super looking forward to that project, but it should be fun anyway. lol
Today Reagan and I (pretty much all me.. she just likes watching) did our work on the vehicle. I took out the seat out to retrieve the middle portion of the seat belt. This also gave me access to the gears which were crusted with mud. We removed all four wheels and hosed down both the old and "new" ones. 2 of the original wheels are completely shot (read HUGE holes in them as you can see by the picture,) but 2 are okay, and we'll reserve them as spares. Removing the wheels allowed us to remove the rear axle and take the gears out for better access. We thoroughly cleaned the outside of the gear casings, but found them to still be very well sealed.. so we left them that way. This way we don't have to mess with greasing them up properly again. We cleaned the gear box area and in the battery compartment of the Jeep while we had everything out. With everything completely cleaned, it was time to reassemble! Seat belt reinstalled. New wheels affixed. Seat replaced. Now we did a quick test, and the original fasteners aren't really meant to be removed and put back, so some of them weren't the most cooperative. So for now we're parking the Jeep while we wait to find out from my friend what she uses as a replacement fastener. (She showed us last night.)
In the mean time.. here is our reassembled Jeep!
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