MINI STOMPER CONVERSION

Way back in the mists of time (OK then, the late 1980s) it was possible to go into a toy shop and buy a Mini Stomper, like the one above.

When you took the body off, you got a nice little 4-wheel-drive power unit, with current supplied by a single AAA battery.............

.............. with the motor and gear train alongside. The whole was switched on and off by a switch on the underside, which also cunningly disengaged the gears when off, to avoid stripping them if the over-enthusiastic owners went "bum, brum" and tried to push it.

It was a very simple matter to remove the road wheels and substitute Binnie wheels.............

............... make up a suitable frame (I used a Binnie skip chassis) and footplate - notice the hole for the motor, which provided a location for the chassis - the small square of plastic added to the chassis on the picture above stopped the body from wobbling on the chassis. The two were fixed together in a VERY high-tech fashion - Blu-tac!

Bodywork was made up from styrene sheet and strip............

............. with vaious added details - a re-railing jack, lamp irons, pins heated to red heat, then plunged into the couplings to make more user-friendly ones............

.................. and a (now broken) starting handle.
The fiction was that this was the PW Dept's "speeder", powered by a Citroen 2CV engine and gearbox, cobbled together with a marine gearbox off a narrowboat, to give 5 speeds in each direction. It's the only active item of MDLR stock to carry the line's origanal LNER Garter Blue paint scheme, and was recently revived after kicking around in the workshop (including a lengthy spell on the floor under the workbench) for many years. The only work that was needed was to clean the corrosion off the battery terminals and the place where the "switch" made contact with the motor casing to complete the circuit.
It does go a little fast, but hanging a couple of (empty) skips or a flat truck on the back slows it down. It was very cheap 'n cheerful in the days when there wasn't much else around. An appearance on Phurcombe Hall at Peterborough is threatened!

............................... And the video.........................

(Courtesy Rod Nipper)