Amelie, a very bright young 11 year old fell in love with an old faded Xootr Mg at a garage sale. With a little help from her dad she has not only restored it but made it uniquely hers by it painting purple!
We asked if she would keep a running diary of her restoration and you can read that below:
The Purple Xootr - by Amelie
This is the old Xootr that we bought. It was very faded and COVERED, from handles to foot brakes, with rust. It had a giant lump of gum on the board and a dead spider caught in the handle bars, the soft handle grips were ripped and chunky and none of the brakes worked because the brakes had shaved the wheel down until it groves into the shape of the brakes. I wasn’t too surprised when the price was $17 dollars.
We needed better wheels already so we looked on the Xootr.com.au website to find the right wheels. This photo shows us measuring the wheels so we would know how big they needed to be. We also bought, new handle brakes, handle bars, foot brakes and wheels. We cleaned the scooter up and got rid of the spider.
We also needed to buy the paint that I intended to colour the board with, because I could not leave it that horrible faded blue. We got everything we needed about a week later, we also got a good 50% off each item.
We spray painted the old board purple and it looked so much better, we then sprayed it with a paint sealer. Turns out, that stuff ATE the paint. This photo (below) shows how the paint got ruined by the sealer.
But, that same sealer worked really well on the back brake pad.
The back brake pad looked so cool when we sprayed it with the sealer. We had to wait awhile for it to dry but it was great fun. While the brake pad was drying we decided not to spray over the board. We kept it all mangled up because the sealer actually sealed the bad paint to the board, and it gave extra grip.
We put everything together while we waited for the brake to dry, and if you want to know how we cleaned all those parts, well let’s just say the dishwasher chipped in a bit. Ok, it chipped in a lot.
After attaching the back brakes on, I decided it would look nicer if I painted the metal nuts on the back. So I did. It matched the colour of the brakes perfectly and I was really happy with what it looked like.
This project took WAY longer than expected because we moved house mid way through, but the finished scooter looks really good. And the dishwasher got all that greasy grime off all the important parts.
I then hand painted the zootr sign onto the board and let it dry, though, when I ride the scooter it gets really, REALLY, dusty, but that’s ok, I can just wash it.
This scooter is really close to me now. I have always preferred scooters more than bikes but this scooter is what I have spent so long trying to fix up. In the end, I love this scooter, it’s a smooth ride every time and I love having hand brakes. The board is big and sturdy. This scooter is so fun to ride and I hope you guys enjoy riding it too :)
Amelie Age: 11 years