leoriding

I spent a couple of evenings restoring this battery powered ride on car the other week and I’m really pleased with it.

I found it originally in a skip:

skip

…and I thought ‘Leo would love that’. The house was being renovated but I put a note through the door with my contact details in case it was a problem (The legality of getting things out of skips is oddly complex so I’m definitely of the ‘ask permission’ persuasion)

I successfully (it was a tight fit) got it in the back of the car and spend a few evenings tracing wires around the inside to work out what was going on. Helpfully the control unit was labeled “JR1738RX” and I found a wiring diagram online. I also found a listing selling it new:

Screenshot of a website that sells the car

I bought a 12V battery from Amazon (I don’t recommend this one - I feel like the driving time ends up quite short and I should have spent more), fixed a wires that wasn’t where it should have been and magically the thing started working! I gave it a thorough clean and made a replacement seat and bonnet out of some MDF - helpfully I had a matching charging adapter in my projects bin.

Both kids have been using it to tear up the garden over the last few weeks. I’m really pleased with it as a little project (even if I did end up spending about the same in time and parts as I probably would have done buying it new.