REDLYNER
Mall Crawling Race Rig
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2008
- Location
- Mountain Island
I have an 18 month old son and he has been the best excuse to buy some cool toys for the house 
. I know they sell $1000+ RC crawlers, but for an 18 month old, I didn't want a high dollar truck being thrown down stairs and tackled on concrete. Walmart sells a Maisto RC crawler for $30 that takes 6 AA batteries, so I thought I would give it a try. Monsterous success! He loves it! He can drive it and turn it, it's amazing to watch. But the batteries were only good for about 10 minutes or so of playing and then I would have to buy more. Even worse, the thing would climb anything. Not enough power. Wheels wouldn't spin, bogged down, etc.
So it was time to get to work hahaha.
Maisto RC crawler out of the box:
Removed front bumper and highlined the fenders. Gained 1" of uptravel:
Comp cut the rear and trimmed rear bumper:
My son weighs 31lbs and he literally will tackle this thing. Sit on it, etc. The tires were all into the body, now it clears 100%:
Next up was addressing the power issue. It has none. It bogs on climbs, wheels stop spinning if bound up. Batteries die after 10 minutes (runs on AA's). Time to supercharge this thing. Getting to the guts and cutting the power wires:
Picked up a new NI-MH 9.6v, cut the wires and added some connectors to splice into the stock wiring:
Drilled a hole through the battery box for the new wiring:
Cut off the end of the box, then dremmeled out the plastic to fit the new battery in the stock location:
Charged the battery and mounted it up:
Ready to Go! The crawler drives like it is on NOS! It pops wheelies because it has so much power now. I was..... I mean.... my son was driving it for forever with no battery drain. HUGE improvement and tons of fun. Well worth the $30 (plus battery).
I'll probably paint it white and give it a 4500 number. You know, for my son.
. I know they sell $1000+ RC crawlers, but for an 18 month old, I didn't want a high dollar truck being thrown down stairs and tackled on concrete. Walmart sells a Maisto RC crawler for $30 that takes 6 AA batteries, so I thought I would give it a try. Monsterous success! He loves it! He can drive it and turn it, it's amazing to watch. But the batteries were only good for about 10 minutes or so of playing and then I would have to buy more. Even worse, the thing would climb anything. Not enough power. Wheels wouldn't spin, bogged down, etc.So it was time to get to work hahaha.
Maisto RC crawler out of the box:
Removed front bumper and highlined the fenders. Gained 1" of uptravel:
Comp cut the rear and trimmed rear bumper:
My son weighs 31lbs and he literally will tackle this thing. Sit on it, etc. The tires were all into the body, now it clears 100%:
Next up was addressing the power issue. It has none. It bogs on climbs, wheels stop spinning if bound up. Batteries die after 10 minutes (runs on AA's). Time to supercharge this thing
. Getting to the guts and cutting the power wires:
Picked up a new NI-MH 9.6v, cut the wires and added some connectors to splice into the stock wiring:
Drilled a hole through the battery box for the new wiring:
Cut off the end of the box, then dremmeled out the plastic to fit the new battery in the stock location:
Charged the battery and mounted it up:
Ready to Go! The crawler drives like it is on NOS! It pops wheelies because it has so much power now. I was..... I mean.... my son was driving it for forever with no battery drain. HUGE improvement and tons of fun. Well worth the $30 (plus battery).
I'll probably paint it white and give it a 4500 number. You know, for my son.
