Greaseable Steering Joint for 24v Grave Digger Power Wheels

If you've been following along, I've been building this ridiculous Power Wheels monster truck for my son with a variety of modifications to make it even more awesome. The next set of mods will culminate in a new drivetrain with real rubber tires, basically making it into an electric go kart. This article will cover a minor steering modification.

A few people have reported binding in the steering and difficulty turning the wheel. I've found that the bushing on the steering spindles can have a lot of friction and get bound up. I took ours apart and lubed it, problem solved. To make lubing it an easy task, I decided to add a grease zerk to each steering spindle.

I had a handful of new and used grease zerks in my shop parts bin, so I decided to use them for this project. I measured them with my thread gauge and determined that they were 1/4 x 28 threaded fittings. I busted out my handy tap and die set and found the proper tap for the job.

Since the zerk will use a 1/4 x 28 tap, I needed to drill a 3/16 hole in each spindle housing. These frames are made from steel and this part in particular is fairly hard to drill. I started with 1/16, then worked my way up in 1/16th increments until I had the proper sized hole.

After you have the hole drilled, apply a small bit of cutting oil to your tap, then carefully start threading it into the hole. Once it goes in straight, it's a fairly simple task.

Now that there is a nice, clean, threaded hole in our spindle housing, we can screw in a grease zerk. Then we can re-install the spindle and apply grease with a standard grease gun. This might only be necessary every few months with a lightly used ride, but with our extreme mods, I wanted to make service as easy as possible.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you with your kid's 24v Grave Digger Ride on toy! Follow me on Instagram to see my newest projects in real time.