sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Apr 18, 2022 12:26:50 GMT
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I have a few projects in temporary limbo as a result of buying a property with my partner, and still have itchy creative fingers. My workshop is a short drive away, and my home has very few facilities for anything more than the most basic of car maintenance. I do however have two interested little people around me who like a more than a little involvement in my hobbies and interests, and I like teaching them that they can do anything if they really want to and put the effort in. So what I need is a small engineering construction project that can be built through the living room and garden with a little guided assistance from small hands.... After a lot of consideration, a Toylander has been chosen with the blessing of my partner 😀 Plans have been acquired and read, youtube build videos watched and the dining room table measured! Of course, I can't just build anything to the instructions so a lot of research has gone into a cheap budget and diy method of engineering in some basic extra requirements. These are full suspension on front and rear live axles, all wheel drive and proper brakes. I've made a few purchases to get an idea on the viability of building fully functional scale live axles, and have started the mocking up and measuring phase The plan is to use mobilty scooter differentials in custom made axle cases, somehow create a 90 degree drive (a set of differential planet gears may work for this), driven by a pair of driveshafts using steering column u/j's and a central longitudinally mounted mobility scooter transaxle as a transfer box driven by an electric motor or two. Suspension will be small coilovers, wheels/tyres the specified Toylander 4.00x8 but on 4x4" pcd ,on custom made hubs with mobility scooter brakes, and somehow I need to incorporate u/j's into the front axle driveshafts whilst keeping the entire axle steering mechanism compact close to the wheels. Lots of specific pieces of metal have been ordered, and I'll soon be taking a trip to one of the local builders merchants for two sheets of marine ply to construct the Toylander body.....
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Apr 20, 2022 19:51:28 GMT
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What a super project - really like the planned extras too so may well take notes! With my newly organised garage and work bench this may be just the thing 🤔 Bookmarked and looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Apr 21, 2022 18:09:48 GMT
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A few more deliveries came this week. Four new wheels with a slightly chunky tread, a third scooter transaxle to build a transfer box from, another set of scooter brakes so there'll be 4 wheel braking, steering column u/j's for the front axle driveshafts and a few lengths of steel tube and round bar to start making the axle cases, shafts and hubs from Proper fabrication will soon be starting....
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Apr 21, 2022 20:14:47 GMT
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Where are you getting the various bits like the scooter brakes and axles from?
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Apr 21, 2022 20:53:21 GMT
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Where are you getting the various bits like the scooter brakes and axles from? Just searching through ebay. After an hour of searching I'd made up a bit of a shortlist on potentially suitable donor parts then bought the cheapest and went from there
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Frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death
Posts: 3,874
Club RR Member Number: 15
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Toylander 4x4 projectFrankenhealey
@frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member 15
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Apr 26, 2022 11:21:17 GMT
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Now you've got me wondering whether the axles on a ride-on mower would be suitable?
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Tales of the Volcano Lair hereFrankenBug - Vulcan Power hereThe Frankenhealey here
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Apr 26, 2022 16:37:52 GMT
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Now you've got me wondering whether the axles on a ride-on mower would be suitable? I'm sure they would work, I just went with the mobility scooter since they're significantly cheaper to buy off ebay in the quantity I want. You do have the added complexity of gears to deal with, which could be fine on a rwd only build, or as a central transmission? I expect I may have to build a second Toylander to save on squabbles between the sibblings old and young
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Frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death
Posts: 3,874
Club RR Member Number: 15
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Toylander 4x4 projectFrankenhealey
@frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member 15
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Apr 26, 2022 19:45:29 GMT
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I expect I may have to build a second Toylander to save on squabbles between the sibblings old and young You'll need to buy a second manual then
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Tales of the Volcano Lair hereFrankenBug - Vulcan Power hereThe Frankenhealey here
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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A few weeks back I got round to the local builders merchant and bought two sheets of 12mm marine ply. Yesterday I found the time to draw out all the pieces from the plans and jigsaw them out And of course a quick mock up just because! All the edges are to be tidied and straightened then I can begin the job of constructing the body....
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Oct 13, 2022 22:43:56 GMT
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Liking very much...great carpentry!! waiting to see the comparable mechanical engineering!!...
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Liking very much...great carpentry!! waiting to see the comparable mechanical engineering!!... Thanks, I've never done woodworking on this scale before! I'm putting ideas together in my head about how to support a pair of live axles underneath, and how to change the transverse drive layout of the mobility scooter axles to inline to allow for a centrally mounted centre differential and drive from a motor source. The top ideas are basic 1" box steel frame under the body for suspension and driveline mounting, and cannibalising a small car differential for the planet gears and use those on the mobility scooter axles to create a simple 90 0 drive. I'm also thinking maybe mounting a pair of 24v motors in the cavity under the bonnet with a chain drive to the centre differential unit. I should still be able to fit two batteries under the bonnet, and then hide all of the motor controls under the back seat. Watching lots of Grind Hard Plumbing Co and similar builds have got me thinking of either a basic rear swing axle mounting so no rear articulation, or if there is space some sort of anti roll bar setup so it articulates but doesn't lean if slightly unevenly loaded. No I can see the standard wooden Toylander body will be highly restrictive for all of my plans, but if things go according to plan, there'll likely be a more advanced second build so the kids can't argue as much lol
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Oct 17, 2022 19:42:57 GMT
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Doing a little research on motors, most mobility scooters and wheelchairs seem to be powered by 250w motors, with some upto 400-500w for the higher end ones. The motors supplied by Toylander themselves are listed as 180w on their website. With that in mind, I've ordered a pair of cheap ebay 24v 500w motors for my project Browsing ebay there seem to be loads of cheap 24v controllers that should power the motors. I know nothing about this area of electrics so will be researching controllers a bit more.... One idea I've come up with is building in a mechanism to run either one or both motors depending on who's driving (kids or me). A simple dog clutch and isolator switch to the second motor should be sufficient? The motors come with a chain sprocket so I'll be learning about different chain sizes and specs once I figure out how to do the axle drives and what ratio I have to work with....
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Toylander 4x4 projectsowen
@sowen
Club Retro Rides Member 24
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Oct 23, 2022 20:15:50 GMT
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Managed a few more hours tinkering on the project today. With it still turned over I decided to have a look at the axle with the idea of how seeing much work is needed to get it rolling, and what space I have to play with for suspension and running gear An idea I'd had was to scavenge and old Land Rover Salisbury diff as they're huge, in the hope that the centre planet gears were large enough to work with the scooter differential gears. With luck, the drive gear is just large enough to work, and the smaller planet gear should give a handy 1.6:1 gear reduction Next up I cut four squares of 10mm steel plate, marked out the centre and four holes at 4" pcd and drilled out all of the hub faces. So far two have gone in the lathe and had the centres turned out to take a short length of thickwall pipe which has been pressed in to make the hubs And with some more measurements I roughly positioned both hubs on the axle driveshafts and sat it on the body After lots of thinking, I believe the best option for the axle is to weld a custom made planet gear carrier assembly directly to the Land Rover drive gear instead of trying to attach the new gears to the existing scooter drive gear. Then I can fabricate an axle casing to suit. The input drive should be quite simple, turning down something to press and weld to the new pinion gear that can run on a needle roller bearing with a short stub to take drive of some form. And finally my two motors have arrived, and roughly sat on the front where I intend to fit the inside. There's plenty of room for them to be mounted side by side in the front, and room to possibly build a mechanism to disconnect one for single motor driving
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jonomisfit
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,736
Club RR Member Number: 49
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Toylander 4x4 projectjonomisfit
@jonomisfit
Club Retro Rides Member 49
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Oct 23, 2022 21:20:39 GMT
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.....There's plenty of room for them to be mounted side by side in the front, and room to possibly build a mechanism to disconnect one for single motor driving If you have an electrical isolator to one motor that fully disconnects both cores, then the motor will free wheel. no need to have a mechanical disconnect, and should have minimal drag. It has to disconect though as if its still connected to the motor controller you will get substantial reluctance through the motor and it'll act as a brake. Are you going to use one motor controller feeding both, or twe seperate controllers
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