DIY stroller repair

Everyone knows that a stroller is necessary for daily walks in the fresh air with a small child. It is quite logical that the stroller is operated in an increased mode, which often leads to wear and tear of mechanisms and breakdowns. Failure of a stroller, even for several days, can be a serious problem for young parents. Therefore, the vehicle has to be repaired immediately and very well, if for this you do not have to contact the master, because many of the breakdowns of baby strollers can be easily eliminated with your own hands... In addition, it is important to pay attention to some of the nuances when choosing a stroller, as well as to follow the simple rules of operation and storage of the mechanism, so that the child's vehicle will last longer without causing problems.

To make the stroller last longer, first of all, even before starting operation, you need to read the instructions, and then follow the requirements specified by the manufacturer. It is important to remember that the maximum permissible load on the stroller should not exceed, on average, 20 kg (manufacturers indicate the maximum weight for which this or that model is designed). Otherwise, the vehicle's wheel hubs will gradually begin to loosen, which after some time can make the stroller unsafe for transporting a child in it.

To keep your favorite stroller looking as good as new for as long as possible, it is recommended to use a raincoat during bad weather (it will protect not only the child, but also the fabric parts of the stroller from possible stains). If the fabric is still wet, be sure to dry it. Compliance with this simple recommendation will avoid possible deformations of the fabric parts of the baby stroller.

Among the most common breakdowns of baby strollers are:

- failure of their system of depreciation;

- damage to wheel mountings, retaining rings, axles;

- wear of wheel tires and flaring of bushings (most often occur in cases of pumping the chamber, skewing of the stroller's supporting frame, very long-term use);

- breakdowns of the spring folding mechanisms;

- damage to the attachment of the fork, rear beam, crossbar;

- breakage of hinges and regulators, rocker handle mechanisms;

- abrasion and wear of the visor, foam rubber, leatherette on the handle;

- breakage of arches and ratchets of the visor;

- failure of brakes, bearings, cables and bushings.

If you systematically lower the stroller on the steps, and not on the "rails" of the ramp, the disc may fail, since the mechanism will be exposed to vibrations and uneven loads. Also, in this case, springs, bearings and bushings may suffer, axles, circlips and damping system deteriorate.

In the event of a breakdown of the folding mechanism, the manufacturer is most likely to blame. High-quality models of baby strollers have a reliable design (they can be used for up to 5 years).

In addition, the manufacturer can be blamed for malfunctions of the handle's rocker mechanism and its adjustment, breakage of the hinges. When choosing a baby stroller, without fail, you should check the reliability of all nodes.

One of the most fragile and prone to breakage elements of a stroller for newborns is handle height adjuster, since it is the handle that carries the most intense load when driving a child's vehicle. Hinges are the most frequently broken part of a stroller... This applies to both cheap and very expensive mechanisms.The cause of the breakdown can be a large weight of the mechanism or too aggressive use (for example, a baby rocking in a stroller). The quality, in this case, largely depends on the manufacturer and model of the stroller. If the part is made of low-grade materials (for example, low-quality plastic of the handle itself and screws), then troubles are possible.

The situation is aggravated in the cold season, as due to temperature differences, constant compression and expansion, plastic can become more fragile. That is why, experts recommend giving preference to models without hinges, choosing a stroller with solid tubes of handles. If adjustment is necessary, then it is better to choose a stroller with the thickest hinges and it is desirable that they have metal pads on them. Strollers with sliding handles do not have such problems, but since the handle pipes are hollow, if they bend and adjust them it will be extremely problematic.

There are many types and designs of stroller frames. The less plastic in the frame, the more reliable it is. Steel frames are more reliable compared to aluminum ones, and they weigh about the same! The most reliable, by right, are the cross-shaped frames (this design has been used for more than half a century). In the case of twin strollers, the cruciform frame is also relevant. The option with pipes sliding along each other is not so reliable, since with a slight bend it will already be problematic to assemble or disassemble the stroller. Other types of mechanisms with complex folding systems are not always reliable.

Wheel breakage

Tire problems appear more often, but fixing them is much easier than others.

Baby stroller wheel malfunctions:

This kind of breakdown is not a reason to get upset and buy a new stroller. The curved rim can be straightened out. But a safer option would be to replace the entire wheel to make the stroller more manageable.

The hub is most often erased due to the frequent removal of the wheels. You can find and buy a new one in stores where spare parts for wheelchairs are on sale (or order from a turner), and it will not be difficult to replace the bushing.

As for the wheel of the stroller, almost everyone can repair it (most men gained such experience in childhood, I train on bicycle wheels). Sometimes, a flat tire is simply enough to pump up with a pump.

If this does not help and the tire will still deflate, then you need to coat it with soapy foam or lower it into water to find the puncture site. Next, you need to take a rubber patch (you can buy it or cut it out of an unnecessary piece of rubber), clean it from dirt, degrease it (with acetone or gasoline) and the problem area, and then just glue it. After the glue has set, the place of damage must be warmed up. The tire can be continued to operate approximately 24 hours after the repair.

Sometimes it happens that the wheel rotates with difficulty, but not deflated. This may be due to insufficient lubrication in the bearings or simply accumulated dirt. In the first case, it is necessary to unscrew the wheel cap with a screwdriver and loosen the clutch that holds the bearings. After that, remove the wheel from the hub with light, precise blows. The bearings can be cleaned with aggressive grease, which removes contamination without problems. Next, you need to apply regular lubricant to them.

In the event that a wheel is broken and cannot be repaired, it must be replaced with a new one. Some models of strollers are supplied with spare wheels. If there is no spare wheel, then you can contact the sales point where the stroller was purchased (often they have the necessary spare parts on sale).

The stroller leads to the side

Sometimes it happens that the stroller starts to "lead" to the side. There are several reasons for this behavior in a child vehicle. The problem may appear due to uneven air pressure in the wheels.Or it may happen that the axles on which the wheels are attached are not parallel to each other. This problem can be identified by measuring the distance between the front and rear wheels on each side of the stroller. If the values ​​are different, the axes are not parallel. Owners of four-wheeled strollers are often found with such a marriage.

But even such a nuisance, in some cases, can be corrected by yourself. To begin with, you need to carefully examine the stroller in order to find out which of the axles (front or rear) is located less evenly relative to the stroller body. On the side of the stroller, where the distance between the wheels is less, it is necessary to unscrew the screw and nut connecting the front post with the frame on which the basket-mesh is mounted (almost every stroller has it). After that, it is necessary to find such a position of the front strut in which the axles of the wheels become parallel (when the distances between the front and rear wheels of the stroller both on the left and on the right side become the same). Next, mark the new position of the hole in the rack relative to the frame and drill it into the frame. After that, all that remains is to secure the A-pillar and frame in the new position with the screw and nut.

Many other parts of the stroller can be repaired in the same way. Damaged or broken metal elements are not difficult to weld or replace by choosing a tube of a suitable diameter. If a plastic part breaks down, you can restore it with epoxy glue and fiberglass (to be sure, it is better to apply several layers at once).

- it is necessary to regularly lubricate and clean the bushings and wheel axles (this will significantly extend their service life);

- in cases with pushchairs with sliding frames, after a walk, you need to wipe the movable tubes (otherwise they will scratch and can jam due to dirt trapped between them);

- do not use the stroller handle as a lever when overcoming obstacles, especially if the handle is adjustable;

- before operating a child's vehicle, carefully understand its structure, test its mechanisms. If you trust someone to take your baby for a walk in the stroller, tell us in detail the rules of use (it’s easier to show where to press and what to pull, than to repair the stroller later).

In conclusion, I would like to recommend, if possible, as scrupulously as possible to check the performance of all units and mechanisms of the baby stroller before purchasing. But if the defect has already manifested itself at home or the trouble has occurred during the operation, there is no need to get upset, since sometimes it is quite possible to fix the breakdown on its own, with a little effort.

Baby strollers canes are fragile enough by their design. The more functions a kid's vehicle has, the more chances of a malfunction. What to do if a wheel has fallen off, the brake does not work, or the frame is bent? Our service center will hurry to help.

The availability of the necessary technical base allows for reliable repairs in the shortest possible time. Works are performed with branded or identical spare parts. Correctly done repairs can not only eliminate the breakdown, but also extend the life of the stroller.

A full diagnostic examination will not be superfluous. It is better to prevent possible breakdowns than to experience the hardships of a sudden malfunction and once again go to the workshop.

Different parts are subjected to unequal loads. The design features of cane strollers lead to the fact that the front wheels are most likely to break. They either fall off, come out of the spoke grooves, or the whole wheel just cracks. In some cases, a complete replacement of the part is necessary, in others less radical measures will help - for example, restoration or partial repair.

Other parts of the stroller, in the process of use, are also susceptible to breakage:

• handles, footrests and hinges on them;
• damping blocks in the frame or on wheels;
• brake systems and their parts;
• curvature of the entire frame or its individual sections;
• clasps, latches and carabiners.

It is the parts listed above that are subjected to the greatest loads during operation - which leads to natural breakdowns. Comprehensive repairs in an official service center, capable of eliminating almost any breakdown. If it takes a lot of time to fix the problem, we recommend using the wheelchair rental from our partners.

With the necessary tools, skills and spare parts, the process is quick and easy. All procedures are carried out according to approximately the same scheme:

1. Before starting repairs, damage assessment and complete diagnostics are carried out.
2. Calculation of the required materials and work - agreement with the customer.
3. Directly the work itself.
4. Checking the main components of the product.
5. Returning the finished stroller to the owner.

Our workshop is equipped with the most suitable equipment for the repair of wheelchairs, in addition, the stock of spare parts is constantly replenished - you can check the availability of the parts you need by calling the above numbers.

The cost of work is calculated from the complexity of the breakdown. If it is possible to eliminate the malfunction without using a spare part, the total price will be significantly lower. The repair time is calculated according to the same principle - the more complex the breakdown, the longer it will take to fix it. However, our masters will be happy to meet you in any situation - we will be happy to help you!

Baby carriages, with a careful attitude towards them, serve for a long time and are repeatedly transferred from one family to another. A small child has to walk regularly at all seasons in any weather, overcoming bumps on the roads and obstacles. From time to time, young parents do not always get their hands on the bearings in the wheels, therefore, due to wear on the wheel bushings, they break over time.

The stroller has a tight ride and when rolling it leads to the side. And if the retaining ring that holds the wheel breaks, then it constantly falls off the axis while driving and it becomes impossible to walk the child. Wheels and lock washers, as spare parts, can be bought new, but saving the family budget, you can repair it yourself.

To fit the wheels on the axles in wheelchairs, two types of bearings are used: sliding and rolling. Plain bearings are cheap, therefore they are often used. In rolling bearings, sliding occurs due to the rolling of the balls in the cage. These are expensive bearings and therefore will only be used in high quality branded wheelchair models.

With timely lubrication, rolling bearings serve almost until the entire structure of the stroller is worn out. In the event of a breakdown of such a bearing, it is easy to replace it with a new one. It is impossible to replace a worn-out sleeve bearing, usually the whole wheel is replaced. But if you wish, you can restore the sliding bearing with your own hands, which is demonstrated in the article by the example of the restoration of the wheels of the Korean children's stroller COZY.

The wheels on the axles in the stroller are usually secured with starlock washers or the like.

The lock washer and bearing are usually covered with a decorative cover, which, in addition to its aesthetic appearance, serves to protect the bearing from dirt and water entering it.

In order to remove the cover from the wheel, you need to squeeze the latches on the inside with a screwdriver blade, as shown in the photo. There are two of them in this wheel cover.

The stop on the axle turned out to be plastic, consisting of two parts. One is fixing, and the second is for securing the retainer. As the operation of the stroller has shown, plastic clips often break, before that they had to be noticed with metal ones on three wheels.

Before repairing wheels, thoroughly wash them from dirt and grease residues with a brush and detergent. Laundry soap or laundry detergent will work.

To completely remove dirt from the hole in the wheel and give its surface roughness, it is necessary to walk around its entire circumference with a round file. If there is no such file, then you can wrap a rod of a suitable diameter made of wood or other material with sandpaper, and thus process the surface.

Further, from a tube, the inner diameter of which will be freely put on the axle of the stroller, it is necessary to cut bushings with a length equal to the length of the hole in the wheel. A brass tube works best, but if you don't have one, you can use a steel tube. I made the bushings from the knee of a broken brass telescopic radio antenna, sawing it with a jigsaw with a metal file installed in it.

The bushings made on the axle of the stroller rotated easily. The gap did not exceed one millimeter.

For good adhesion of the surface of the bushings with epoxy resin, their surface was processed with a file with a large notch. To fix the sleeves during processing, they were held with round-nose pliers.

The bearing bores in the wheels had high tapered wear. Therefore, the sleeves made of a thin-walled tube were not fixed when installed in them. If it is impossible to insert the bushing into the wheel hole due to the large thickness of its walls, the hole must be bored. If there is a soldering iron of sufficient power, then the hole can not be bored, but the bushing can be pressed in to heat it up to the melting point of the wheel's plastic.

The fixation of the bushings in the wheel bores was performed using thermoplastic silicone, which also excluded the epoxy resin from flowing out when it was poured. Silicone was applied by melting with a soldering iron from the side of the hole with the minimum diameter.

The gap between the hub and the wheel bore is best filled with epoxy using a medical syringe. It is necessary to apply the resin slowly so that it has time to displace the air from the gap and penetrate its entire depth.

The photo below shows what the wheel looks like after filling the gap between the hub and the wheel bore with epoxy. If, during application, a little glue gets into the inside of the sleeve, then it can be removed after curing with a file or sandpaper.

To increase the strength of the restored bearing after pouring epoxy resin, a flat metal washer was additionally installed in each wheel. All wheels have been repaired and in a day, when the resin is completely hardened, they can be installed on a stroller.

While repairing the wheels, it was discovered that one of them had a rubber tire spinning freely around its base. Obviously, due to the tight rotation of the bearing, the rubber ring rotated and, as a result, worn out from the inside. This defect was repaired by filling the resulting gap with silicone. It should be noted that silicone hardens in depth at a rate of about 2 mm per day. Therefore, with a large gap depth, it is necessary not to operate the stroller for a couple of days after the repair.

Since three of the four plastic wheel holders broke and were lost, we had to think in advance how to fix the wheels on the axles. It was decided to fix the twin wheels with studs, and the single one with a homemade split washer.

On one axis, the groove was absent, while on the other it was barely noticeable. Therefore, holes with a diameter of about 1.5 mm were drilled in the place where the groove passed in the axes.

Before putting each wheel on the axle, its inner bore and axle surface were abundantly coated with graphite grease. Low-speed plain bearings are usually lubricated with thick lubricants. Among them are Litol-24, Filol-3, LSC-15 and the like. Motorists are well aware of these lubricants.

To reduce wear on the side surfaces of the bearings and prevent dirt from entering them, metal flat washers were installed on all sides of the wheels.If a suitable size washer is not available, then you can mount the wheels without them.

After installing the wheel on the axle, it must be fixed with a stud. A postage carnation was used as a hairpin. To be able to insert a nail into the hole in the axle of the stroller, it had to be slightly bent with an arc.

Since the length of the nail was longer than required, part of it from the side of the head was bitten off using side cutters. This operation can also be performed before installing the nail on the axle. Instead of a nail, you can use steel wire or a piece from a large paper clip.

Further, the protruding ends of the nail from the axis must be bent at right angles in different directions with the help of pliers. One of the bends can also be done in advance. It remains only to replace the decorative cover. If the cover is lost, it will be necessary to lubricate the bearings more often.

The axles of the single wheels of the stroller had deep grooves and drilling holes in them could lead to a weakening of the axles. Therefore, it was decided to make the clips from an ordinary flat metal washer.

The washer was bored from the inside so that its width was about 2 mm and the diameter was equal to the diameter of the axle. To allow the washer to fit into the axle groove, a part a couple of millimeters wide was removed in it, as shown in the photo.

After applying grease to the axle and seating the wheel, the washer was also put on to the level of the groove. Then the washer was compressed with pliers until the ends closed, as in the photo.

Do-it-yourself repair of the wheels of a stroller has been successfully completed and you can go for a walk with your child. The installation of metal bushings in the bearings has greatly increased the service life of the wheels. The fact that it is time to lubricate them will be announced by the unpleasant creak that appears when the wheelchair is rolling.

According to the young mother, after the repair of the wheels, the stroller began to roll easily, straightforwardly and even better than when it was new.

It is difficult to fix a wheel, but it is quite possible!

In this article, I want to briefly share an experience that I did not plan to acquire at all. In any case, when I bought a Chicco stroller for my daughter, I was not going to become an expert in repairing her undercarriage - ideally, she had to roll back the due date and then either die on the balcony or leave as a charitable gift.

But after about five months of active use, one of the rear wheels fell off, literally remaining behind on the road. The problem was resolved quickly enough, and below I will describe how it was done.

A characteristic feature of the wheels of baby carriages from Chicco (maybe from other manufacturers as well - I will not undertake to argue) is that the wheels themselves are held on the axles due to tapered plastic bushings that are inserted into the tapered wheel channels. This design provides a fairly smooth ride, but with a large "mileage" problems begin:

As a result of the wear of the hub, the wheel simply falls off the axle.

1. Dust will inevitably get into the gap between the hub and the channel in the wheel.
2. If you do not remove it (and it is very inconvenient to do it - below I will tell you why), it plays the role of an abrasive.
3. Over time, the inner bore diameter increases and the plastic sleeve wears off.

The bushings are stitching unevenly, so the wheels fall off one by one. But if the process has begun, then I would advise at least to sort out all the moving elements.

As a result, the diameter of the hub became less than the minimum diameter of the tapered channel, and the wheel simply slid off the axle, unsupported by anything. At the very least, we drove to the house, and then we had to repair it.

The photo shows that one of the bushings has worn out more.

In such a situation, there are three obvious solutions:

1. Contact the service center - not our option, since the stroller was bought from hands, albeit in perfect (externally) condition.
2. Buy new wheels - quite expensive, while we were promised to bring them "in a week or a little later."In general, not an option either.
3. Fix it yourself.

The decision was made, and therefore I proceeded to disassemble the wheelset:

1. The wheel itself did not have to be removed - it fell out anyway. But the bushing, requiring replacement or reinforcement, was fixed on the axle not with a nut, but with a lock washer of the "starlock" type - a rather reliable device, but capricious.

1. When trying to remove the washer, it instantly cracked - severe wear affected. It was not possible to find a similar one on sale, so I had to experiment (more on that below).
2. The structure was disassembled, after which both wheels were removed from it, and the cylindrical axle and both plastic bushings were removed.

After removing the washer, the structure was quickly disassembled

Since it was not possible to fix the wheel on the axle without a locking washer, it was necessary to resort to replacement.

Instead of an axle with a diameter of 6 mm, it was decided to install a long bolt of the corresponding diameter. The replacement was done like this:

1. Since there was a slightly longer bolt, I sawed off part of it using a metal saw. The replacement for the axle has been made slightly longer for ease of fixation.

1. I inserted a pair of washers into both wheels: their diameter made it possible to securely fix the entire system in the conical channel.

Wide washers will prevent the wheel from falling off

Putting the structure back

1. I put the second wheel with washers on the protruding axle and fixed it with a nut.
2. To prevent the nut from unscrewing when moving, I secured it with a grover and a lock nut.

Tighten the fasteners with a wrench while holding the head of the bolt on the other side. After that, I added a few drops of oil to the gap between the wheel channels and the washers.

Sea trials were successful!