[wired]

Super job. All of those little mods turned out really nice. The taillight panel, start button and shifter look perfect. Great looking car and a very happy little man. Keep up the good work.

[toycrusher]

Awesome job! !!

[wired]

Breakxloose: Try and repost this again. I asked the admin to look into your posting issues. It may be a glitch in the new website.

[MR_Pat]

I can only see posts by you and ToyCrusher. I was wondering what was up with that.

[breakxloose]

My original post got deleted by mistake. I'll retype it below

[breakxloose]

The little man had his 3rd birthday a short while ago and since he's a bit of a petrol head I thought I'd buy him a car so he could practice driving. Unfortunately Power Wheels are not available in Japan so there's no 2nd hand market. After exploring some options I ended up importing the blue BOSS 302 out of the US. The postage cost was plain stupid...





BOSS 302 isn't bad in its own right but SHELBY GT500 looks a lot cooler.
First things first: getting rid of the BOSS C-stripe and popping on some Shelby racing stripes




Top tip: I bought a heavier vinyl for the stripes thinking it will be more durable. Bad move. While better for application and easier to avoidd the air bubbles, it behaves terribly on any sorts of bends or uneven surfaces. I had to buy the thin vinyl and re-stripe the entire car.

Got some cheap Shelby key chains off ebay as well that after some grinding action made for perfect side and dash emblems




Also got the Tiger Imports LED kit. It comes with them monster big LEDs. Very cool. Front was pretty easy, Drilled few holes, popped the LEDs in the position and job done (Edd China's voice in my head). The rear panel was a bit more tricky. Originally I was going to buy the older version panel with those cool lenses but had no luck tracking one down so I decided to work on the exiting one. Few hours of drilling and cutting plastic, acrylic sheets, silver liner for drawers and a couple of food containers (!!!) and I think I managed to achieve a rather acceptable result:











One of the not-so-great features of the Power Wheels is the gear shifter. Real eyesore.


To fix it I picked up a GT500 knob off ebay for about $20 with free postage from China (yeah...) and got down to cutting a lot of stuff in half



Popped in the reverse gear beeper:


added a real leather, hand stitched boot and some many hours of serious fiddling with my tools later:


Hood pins made from scratch. Originally I made them fully functionable but as I was about to drill the holes in the bonnet I had a different idea. I drilled, cut and polished a couple of regular bolts, soldered them to a couple of washers and popped them on the bonnet with a double sided tape. The wires are attached to the underside of the bonnet so the whole thing lifts up.



Got rid of the plastic key and replaced it with the LED ENGINE STERT button



Chucked the fake SHAKER radio in a bin and replaced it with a bit of aluminium which turned the radio space into a working glove box with Carroll Shelby signature and the GT500 SUPER SNAKE emblem (also made out of a key chain). Instead of the fake SHAKER radio I bought a cheap blutooth speaker that is mounted under the dash and plays anything off a smartphone. Recently my boy is into The Killers and Rancid so that's what's on shuffle all the time. Also popped the real thing in the side mirrors and mounted the horn button on the left side of the dash. Originally I was planning to get it into the steering wheel but the amount of work scared me off. It works mounted on the dash just as well.



License plates, laminated and glued to a 3mm acrylic.


And the last thing: in the test drive them plastic wheels made so much racket on the road that you couldn't hear the music at all (it's a really small speaker lol). 4x 12" bike tyres that I popped over the plastic wheels and the car has a million times better traction and no longer sounds like a road roller going over broken glass.




It took me about 2 weeks to finish the car and although at times super frustrating it was the most fun I had this year so far. Especially that the little man is now having a blast.

[Suburbancharlie77]

Now that is slick, and some very creative thinking! Awesome job, and thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas! I look forward to stealing some soon.

[Rob222]

Wow. beautiful.

[breakxloose]

Breakxloose: Try and repost this again. I asked the admin to look into your posting issues. It may be a glitch in the new website.

Thanks,
Yes, it's all sorted I think. I used to have to have all the posts pre-approved by a mod but that's gone now, toycrusher fixed the issue. Thanks again!

When the lad gets a bit older and better at driving I'll definitely look into the battery / motor upgrades.

This forum rules

[MR_Pat]

Awesome work wow... nice thinking on the tails and the working glove box too I may steal your glove box idea as my youngest sons junk radio that was originally in the car never worked anyway, He's already got a Cobra emblem I have had for almost 15 years. only had a rght hand side one so its stuck on his hood for right now

[breakxloose]

I actually wanted to change the grille as well, get rid of the horse one and pop in a metal net or that horizontal bars kind that's on 1967 Eleanor with COBRA badge on the side.

I couldn't find a right material for cheap though and I don't have any special tools to fabricate things at home.

Any suggestions? That big horse on the front breaks the general GT 500 theme...

[Csalemka]

What did you use to stick the thread end of the bolt to your cut off shifter? I see some gray bondo like stuff in there.

[Roadmonkeytj]

Love the custom gearshift ... I agree on the grill ... Maybe cut it all out and custom fit some gutter guard mesh painted black in place epoxy it on the inside of the grill. Holds up to vibration real well.