THE LITTLE RED CAR

Debbie and Janet  (1967)

     A few months before Christmas I saw an article in a magazine about building a battery powered kids car using an automobile generator as a motor.  I figured that I had over a couple of months to build it and that would be plenty of time.  Wrong!  I did finish it but I had to put in every spare minute I could on it and I was upholstering the seat about 2:am on Christmas morning and still had a few touch up things to do after Christmas.

     First, I started by building the body and that went very well.  (Probably because I mainly followed the directions in the magazine).   The body was built out of 3/4 inch plywood and was very sturdy.   The steering knuckles were made out of iron plumbing "T"s.  My neighbor worked for The Exide Battery Company that manufactured golf cart batteries and he said that from time to time they would have one come off of the line with the top put on too early after welding the cell and the heat would cause the top to bubble up.  I could get one of those "seconds" cheaper and they were as good as the others so I waited on one of them.
      A friend from high school and guy I worked with, Jim Muse, had a welder and made the steering wheel and brake pedal for me.  I ordered a generator from Sears and tried it out after I got a battery but it didn't have enough power to pull on level ground much less on the hills.  I was looking at a Ford starter motor and it had an open shaft and would fit in the space.  I bought one to use but it had a shaft way too long so I had to saw it off.  It could not be returned after the shaft was sawed off so I was committed to using it.    

     I sawed it off and tried it on my bare chassis and, YES, IT HAD ENOUGH POWER!  I  was kneeling on it to connect the jumper cables and it took off dragging me across the basement floor with me hanging on.  It was too fast for the size pulleys that I was using.  I changed to the largest pulley that would fit on the driving wheel and the smallest pulley that would fit on the motor shaft.  It was going to be faster than I wanted but I was out of time for  more experimenting so I went ahead with it.   I planned on adding another pulley and shaft to "gear it down" later but Debbie handled it fine even though it would go at a fast running speed.  (See the video).  The brake was a piece of "V" belt wrapped around another pulley that tightened when the brake pedal was pressed and stopped the car very well and would lock the wheel with a good press.  The car had plenty of power to spare so I made a sort of a trailer hitch to hook their coaster wagon on the back.  It didn't seem to slow the car down any even with the extra weight of another kid.


     Christmas morning went well and Debbie caught on quickly to driving the little car and her and Janet took some rides early that morning.  They rode down the hill of our subdivision and turned around and rode back up followed quickly by our down the street neighbor.  The car, being electric, was very quiet.  A neighbor ran up to me and said "She coasted down the hill and then turned around and coasted back up the hill.  How did she do that?"  I showed him that it was electric and not magic.

    Nancy's family was coming over for Christmas Day and during the day many rides were given to all of the cousins.  The Ford starter motor was never intended to be a continuous duty motor and would overheat after a while.  It had to be parked to cool off.  Later, I guessed the total amount of time the little car had run that day and realized that Debbie could have, and probably would have, driven to the shopping center.  The following Monday I bought and wired in a key lock switch for the car.

     I had promised Nancy that the car couldn't turn over because the golf cart battery weighed about 70 pounds and was mounted about 2 inches above the street level.  WRONG, Debbie somehow managed to slide it sideways into the curb in a tight turn in the sand and it dumped both of them out into the grass and the car then fell back on four wheels. Lucky it didn't break anything.  Oh, the girls were okay too.

     Yes, the picture is me riding the car.  You can't let children ride anything that is untested.  Research, don't ya know.

(NOTE:  No, it was not that warm on Christmas.  These pictures are from Easter.  Some video is Christmas. )

A recent independent study has shown that it takes less energy to lower a toilet seat than to raise it.

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