[metaprinter]

This is my first post on this forum and my first PowerWheels project. I picked up a free non-working Yamaha Raptor 700R on junk day. My kid wants a camo paint job and to go fast so i'll be cleaning this thing up, adding more battery, painting it, and straightening out the front end alignment. Below are progress pics to date.

Here is the state of the vehicle as i got it. pretty rough, but no part of the body or frame is broken so I can work with this.
----------------------------------------------

Even after an overnight session on my fancy battery charger the 12v battery shows 10v leading me to believe it has a dead cell. No worries though, my plan is to shoehorn 18v or 24v into this badboy.
----------------------------------------------

A milk crate makes for a good lift. The teardown begins!
----------------------------------------------

While removing the body from the monocoque frame I discovered two plastic standoffs under the seat area were indeed broken off. I'll use some JB Weld to stick these back on the frame so the body has a secure mount.
----------------------------------------------

Wheels off. Its amazing how much play is in the suspension of these things...mostly because they use cheap plastic bushings on everything. I did find new bushings online so I'll replace those. The wheels themselves are fine so I'll just paint these.
----------------------------------------------

The front wheels are toe'd in from years of abuse. My plan is to cut the steering rod and install a turnbuckle in there to set the toe. The play in the steering is terrible, there's nothing obviously worn or broken, I suspect this is just a stack up of tolerances from the handlebar, headset, pitman arm, centerlink, steering arms..I have plans to fix this.
----------------------------------------------

The body suffered from severe sun rot / oxidation so I had to do several repetitive steps of washing, removed all the decals with a razor-blade, washing, sanding, washing....
----------------------------------------------

I set up a mini spray booth in my well-ventilated garage and applied the first coat of primer, Rustoleum something or other.
----------------------------------------------

First coat of primer dry, the areas protected by decals are still plainly different from the rest of the body. I figure two more coats of primer will take care of this.
----------------------------------------------

That's it for now. Further updates coming soon I hope. Feedback and questions are welcome!

[6772owner]

Looking good, keep it up.

[Slimbob]

Yo Metaprinter,
I bought one of these Raptors for my grandson and it's having problems. Like what you're doing so far.
I have electrical problems and possibly a gearbox stripped out.

Keep us informed on your progress. I just linked you as a friend. I live in Telford, PA. Was working in Raritan NJ for 2.5 yrs until April 26.

Hope we can share ideas.

Slimbob

[metaprinter]

Thanks for adding me...nj...small world!
What kind of electrical problems? After pulling out the entire wiring harness...there isn't much to them.
As for the gearboxes, there are two, one with a motor powering each rear wheel. this place sells replacements http://shopballardpacific.com/collectio ... 00r?page=2 for cheap. I've never bought from them but at that price might be worth trying it out.

[metaprinter]

Front end photographed from below. Notice the cracked plastic all the way on the right end of the floor support bar. I would up repairing this with JB Weld once everything was taken apart and cleaned.
-----------------------------------------

Here is another view, with the front end removed now.
-----------------------------------------

Front end disassembled. I will replace the tie-rod / centerlink with an adjustable unit. I actually found one the right length on a go-kart website for $14, if I'm ambitious I could just get a couple of Heim joints and build one myself... TBD.
-----------------------------------------

Couple bolts and the drivetrain unit drops right out. The rear suspension is actually a dummy that has a coilspring sandwiched above it. The dummy is shock is 5.5" center eye to eye and I found a real coilover shock with the right dimensions on eBay for $9 so I'll be putting that in there!
-----------------------------------------

The drive unit is two pieces held together with nothing but like 6 wood screws...which doesn't inspire confidence.
-----------------------------------------

There are two gearboxes and two motors. I marked the red and blue with sharpie just in case it matters going back together.
-----------------------------------------

Speaking of motors, what size are these stock motors? The motor is stamped with 12v 12,000RPM N-013182C8. The can diameter is 40mm and the mounting holes are 3mm, if you have more info let me know.

[metaprinter]

While waiting for my new batteries and motors to show up i spent time cleaning and painting the body parts. Kid wanted a camo paint job. I used Rustoleum spraypaint for everything.

I applied 3 coats of dark grey primer, then did two coats of flat sage green paint.
----------------------------------------

For the camo patterns, I drew some random shapes on pieces of cardboard and then cut them out. I used these as a mask, holding these in one hand while spraying with the other.
----------------------------------------

Here's how the body turned out. The paint is still wet in the photo, it flattened out after drying.
----------------------------------------

Did the wheels too.
----------------------------------------

I really like how the wheels came out.
----------------------------------------

More updates to come. Any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

[taz11]

Looking good.

Now that I know what town you live in, It occured to me that you beat me to this one on trash day Dammit!

I'll have to step up my game.....

I have a some parts for that if you need anything..... shipping will be cheap..LOL

[metaprinter]

Here's the rolling chassis. At this point i have the wiring back in and the front end and all that put back together.
----------------------------------

There she is, in all her pride and glory. I think it looks pretty good. I have not yet replaced the motors though and i'm afraid i'm going to be popping fuses when my kid goes to ride it.
----------------------------------

annnnnd there it is. The Raptor went like a bat out of hell for 3 seconds then blew the 40a fuse coming off the battery.
I'm hoping once i get a pair of HPI GT 550 1145 motors installed i won't be popping 40a fuses. If I do, I either need to come up with my own beefier wiring harness and switches OR got with an ESC... the esc is expensive though. Any ideas?

[metaprinter]

I'm pretty sure I have my blown 40a fuse issue figured out. Not sure what fixed the issue though cause i did a couple things.
1. I think i had the High, Low, Reverse connectors connected wrong so I switched them.
2. I made the battery jumper wire connections more robust with bigger & better crimps.
I tested with just a 30a fuse and one 12v battery and it worked fine so then I connected the second battery for 24v, keeping the 30a fuse and it still worked!

Kids drove around and beat the hell out of the thing for a good 15-20minutes without any failures. It started getting dark outside so we packed it in. I think this video shows how happy we all are with the outcome:

[metaprinter]

Ok, the original 550 motors didn't last long...

burnt the brushes
----------------------------------

and destroyed the armature.
----------------------------------

I have a new pair of RS-550 motors from Banebots coming...I hope they work out better.

The 8T 32p pinion off the stock motor has a bore of 0.125" (or 1/8th in) and the new Banebots motor shaft diameter, on paper at least, is identical so there should be no issue migrating the stock pinion gears over to the new motor. However, I ordered some new 11T pinion gears to help with top end speed and minimize wheel spin on launch.

[Rob222]

Are the new motors 12 or 24v ? Direct 24v, without an ESC, will kill 12v 550 motors or gearboxes sooner or later.

[metaprinter]

The new 550 motors are rated to 14.4v and at a cost of $7.25 each, I'm willing to try them out and see how long they last.

I completely understand what you're saying about the need for higher rated motors and/or an ESC. I've been doing some searching here and elsewhere online to see what my cheapest options are, from what i can tell an esc with forward and reverse is about $100 and one that just does forward is $40 like this one off a Razor.

I've got an arduino uno laying around and am looking to see if i can use that to roll my own esc

Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for cheap/diy esc. I'm trying to keep this project as cheap as possible.

[Rob222]

Ya at $7 they can be science experiments and probably will last longer than the stock ones. May want to add heat sinks.

If you can stand the long shipping times I've found 24v 500w ESCs for $18 on eBay w/ free shipping (perfect for 500 series motors). A used Razor 24v ESC (quad or old mx350) is a great idea as they are good controllers. And eBay 12v 30a relays are about $7 (need 3: on/off, brake, fwd/rev). It's cheaper to do fwd/rev with a relay than in the ESC. I can't find a real inexpensive hall-effect twist throttle but a used razor one would work.

Or stay at 18v and the stock stuff is ok.

[Suburbancharlie77]

So is that a peg perego?

[Rob222]

Powerwheels

[metaprinter]

actually, the 12v YAMAHA RAPTOR 700R is branded under MotionTrendz, and designed and manufactured by Ballard Pacific. To my knowledge they are not affiliated with the Powerwheels brand at all.

[Rob222]

oops, I forget there is a world beyond perego and power wheels. Thanx, metaprinter

[metaprinter]

After ONE twenty minute session of driving this beast at 24v, I cooked one of the Banebot 550 motors....

Actually after tearing down the motor, the brushes were in-tact, however the magnet actually broke apart...

gah. I guess I need to bite the bullet and get 775 motors at this point. Banebot has them, but their shaft is too short so i've ordered two 775 motors from http://www.jameco.com, they only cost 5.95 ea! here are the specs:
Voltage: 14.4V
Voltage range: 1-18V
Rated power output: 188W
Current at max. efficiency: 18A
Max. efficiency: 73%
Max. Torque: 1038 g-cm
Max. RPM: 17,606
No load RPM: 20,000
No load current: 3.6A
Shaft size: 0.157" (4mm) Diameter x 0.75"L
Motor Size: 1.77" Diameter x 2.87"L
Screw Mount Dimensions: M4 x 0.7

[Suburbancharlie77]

Bummer!
Hope you ordered a couple motors, otherwise shipping was more than anything

[metaprinter]

yeah, i always get two! with shipping it was $22.38 which is still better than most places including Amazon Prime!

[Suburbancharlie77]

Wow, ya, that's an awesome price!

[playful0]

I picked up a raptor 660 yesterday for 10 bucks at goodwill, rewired it today was a issue with the relays in the box so instead of 5 bucks a pop for relays I just rewired it more like a power wheels. I only set it up for high gear, the problem was the switches they use for forward reverse and low/high speed is all ment to run through the computer, so I pulled the forward reverse rocker from a old 6v train I had laying around, all in all I have to say im happy with doing a straight conversion no low/high just forward and reverse we will see if that little 6v switch can handle the 12v for long in the near future. but if your running into any issues think about a power wheels set up, most of the rockers should fit that raptor and only takes a hour or so of rewiring to do it

[Spacle11]

Did the 775 motors work? I just burnt my kids stock motors up with 24v. Do you have a part number

[Hammer-fm]

Jameco doesn't sell that particular 14.4V motor anymore, but they have a pretty good one here ($2.95 each):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nichibo-Taiwan-775-7013F-R-12VDC-Motor-12-610-RPM-4-pcs/112230651034?hash=item1a2177d49a:g:i5gAAOSwImRYSaDp

or:
https://www.jameco.com/z/775-7013F-R-Nichibo-Taiwan-12VDC-Motor-12-610-RPM_2210845.html

I have ~20 in my garage and 10 spread between 3 power wheels. However, I haven't run any of them at 24V -- only 12 and 18v. They'll last longer than a 550 motor for sure -- 50+% more thermal mass and more area to dissipate heat. However, I burned up a Banebots (Mabuchi 8514) at 22V and that's only spinning ~24k RPM. This would be 31k RPM at 24V. Buy 4 and you'll have spares...