Tricycle Fetish Blog

I purchased the Irish Mail Car in Stanley NC at a used furniture shop for $60.00. Had no idea what it was, but thought it would be fun to restore for my 2 year old grandson. Knew it was probably from the 20′s or 30′s because of wooden seat and cast iron gears. Brought it home and started taking it apart to see if I could find any markings to help identify it. Only marking found were on the drive gear, JR – 2 and the drive hub on the right rear wheel, IM 23J, which I figured were part numbers. The Mail Car was in operable condition with a slight bend in the frame near the drive gear which had misaligned the gears. All parts seemed to be original. Paint on the rims of all wheels under the tires was the same and matched the paint under the seat. Paint also original on the frame under the seat. Did color match to find paint available to restore to original. Biggest problem was the tires. All were dry rotten and falling off the rims. Did Internet search for solid rubber tires. Found www.speedwaymotors.com that had tires for Peddle cars. Wheels were different sizes front and rear. Rear tires from Speedwaymotors fit perfect on spoke rims. The solid wheel on the front was smaller so I had to cut and splice the tire from Speedwaymotors to fit. Used Zap-A Gap adhesive to glue the new tire together. Sets in 15 seconds worked great. Cleaned, degreased all metal parts and primed with Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer. Straightened slight bend in frame to align the gears. Cleaned and primed all wooden parts then painted with original color spray paint from local hobby store. Reassembled the Mail Car and it runs like a champ. Now I just have to teach a 2 year old how to use the push/pull handle bar.

This restoration project was done by TricycleFetish.com visitor, David Ballard. Below are some additional pictures that he took during the restoration process.

Kevin B. sent us the above photo of a completed restoration of a 1950′s era Midwest tricycle that had been passed down in his family for the past 50 years. Kevin did the restoration to pass the tricycle down to his own son. Below are the before and during photos of his project.

TricycleFetish.com visitor Donald R. recently sent us this photo of his restoration of a 1961 Evans Defender tricycle, which he did as a baby gift for someone. The before picture is below.

One of the most popular questions we receive is whether or not to restore a particular tricycle. We recently received the photo at the left of a vintage Colson tricycle, and the owner was wondering whether a restoration was in his best interest. This is a question that has no real specific yes or no, right or wrong answer, and depends on many factors including: intent for tricycle, age, maker, design/model, condition and budget. The first thing anyone with a tricycle has to realize is that nobody ever gets rich, or in fact, makes much money at all “flipping” a tricycle by restoring it an reselling it for more. Someone doing professional restorations can make some money doing them, but you won’t likely be able to sell a restored tricycle for much, if any, more than the cost of the tricycle and the restoration.

If you want to keep the tricycle for nostalgic or decorative reasons, it’s best to decide for yourself if you want to restore it. A lot of readers on our site want to restore their tricycle for their kids or grandchildren to actually ride. Others just want to use it as a decorative object. A professional restoration shouldn’t hurt the value of most tricycles, if you choose to have it restored to original condition.

When a tricycle is older and retains much of its original paint, it’s usually just left as it is. If it is really beat or rusty, then it might be better to do a restoration. You also can consider something short of a full-blown restoration project. With a bit of clean-up of the chrome and rust and the addition of parts such as grips and new tires, many old tricycles can be improved significantly in both their appearance and utility without having to remortgage your house to pay for the restoration.

We recently received the following email along with before and after photos of a restoration project done on a vintage Angeles Carry-All trike with built in wagon.  I restored an Angeles SilverRider Carry-All tricycle and thought you might like to post the photos. I took the liberty of making an oak plank bed so I guess it could be considered a “resto-mod”. Angeles liked the before and after photos and the marketing department asked my permission to post the photos on their blog…..We’re always happy to receive before and after photos of tricycle restorations. If you’ve done one that you’d like to have us post on our blog, please email us for instructions on sending us photos and any pertinent info about the restoration.

This tricycle that appears to be from the early 1950′s was recently restored by TricycleFetish.com reader, Keith C. for his wife who had a similar tricycle when she was a child. The restoration looks great and you can see just how much work went into it and the improvement made when you consider the “before restoration” photo below.

Awhile back a Tricyclefetish.com visitor inquired about NOS headbadge decals for a 1950′s era Evans Colson tricycle. We get a lot of questions like this…the head tube decal on the tricycle is worn badly or missing and the owner wants a new one. They are about impossible to find. You can find some here and there at swap meets, but other than that, they just aren’t out there.

So our usual solution to the problem is to get photoshopping and use what images you can find to make a suitable replica. Most people who face this problem of missing headbadge decals want to know about whether this will affect the value in a positive or negative manner. We think that, if done nicely, whether identical to the original or not, a nicely done photoshopped headbadge deal will increase the value or at the very least, not detract from it in any way.

Vintage tricycles are a niche field to say the least. As long as a replica/fake/photoshopped head tube decal is done in a way that is nice and clean and professional looking, it can only add to the appeal of a tricycle. You can spend five or ten years looking for something that you’ll never find, or you can redo it on a computer and have it made up by a sticker company for a nominal fee. Our thoughts are that it is better to be nice, but not necessarily original, than to have a void on the head tube where the original sticker might someday be…..if you can find it, but most times, you never will.

Anyway, the owner of the pictured tricycle sent us photos of a nearly done restoration that still needs the handlebars added, and it looks great.

Update: Today we received photos of the finished project. Very nice job indeed.

Q: Any ideas as to manufacture and time of manufacture?  Any information would be greatly appreciated.

A: First of all, nice job on the restoration. Looks to be very well done.  There was a similar tricycle offered for sale on eBay earlier this year. The seller said that the maker was Glamb Engineering. Where they got this information or idea isn’t known. A Google search for that company brings up nothing but the blog article from April that we wrote about the tricycle.

At first glance your tricycle looks like an earlier Colson frame circa 1920′s, based on the seatpost lug, handlebar stem and forks. Usually Colson trikes had headbadges. If we find out further info or maker’s name for sure, we’ll update this article and let you know.

OK, so it looked like a Colson, but it isn’t. Just a day after doing this blog article, we got this picture of the same identical tricycle.  This little sidecar trike actually has the original headbadge and it is clearly a Steelcraft made by Murray. The tricycle does look to be from the 1930′s or possibly the late 20′s. The tricycle surely appeared in Steelcraft catalog from the year(s) it was produced.

I would guess that the tricycle had a very limited production run though, based on the few that you see. The construction is quite good, so they should have survived. My guess is that the child riding in the sidecar ended up getting their legs bent under the seat and/or foot rest, resulting in injuries.

The owner of this tricycle would like to know if he should restore it to sell it in order to gain more value. Like most tricycles that have this much wear, it would cost far more than any gain in value to restore the tricycle. In other words a restoration would increase the value if done properly, but the cost in time and money restoring it would never be fully recouped, and almost certainly not for a profit.

The Harley themed tricycle at the top looks to be a great restoration (though not original) but probably not worth in dollars the cost in parts and labor that it cost to do it, and if so, not worth a lot more. Tricycles aren’t like the paintings you see on Antiques Roadshow where a conservator could fix some damage for a few hundred dollars and it would increase the value by $10,000. With tricycles, it’s usually the opposite, you put in thousands of dollars worth of time and effort and get a few hundred dollar increase in value.

We’ve covered this type of question many times, and again it fits for this question. Whether or not to restore something should 9 times out of 10 be based on a personal desire to restore it for use by a child or for a fun project. Unless you have access to some 38¢ per hour laborers, monetary gain isn’t a realistic cause for restoration, or expectation.

Below is a “before” photo of the Harley restoration pictured at the top of the page.

Q: Hi, Recently completed a restoration of a trike I found last year at an antique store. Not sure of the brand. Best Regards, Doug

A: You have a mid-1930′s Hedstrom Minuteman tricycle. From the photo it looks like you did a nice job restoring it, even more so considering you didn’t know what kind of tricycle you had.

You can find a bit more info and some other Minuteman photos on our Hedstrom manufacturers page.

A couple of things you could do to make the restoration a bit more authentic is add either period or repro teardrop shaped rubber pedals and some black grips – the kind with the balls at the end.

Restoration & story by John H. – A few months ago I was at my parents house and found my old Murray “Thunder Rod” tricycle in the attic. I received it for Christmas in 1966, I was two years old.  Since I have a 2 year old son, I thought I’d let Santa give it to him.  The chrome only needed polishing and I just waxed the frame, leaving it original. The wheels were rusted so I masked off the tires, sanded, primed and painted the rims. The seat was rusted so I sanded, primed and painted it.  Then I took the seat to an upholstery shop and had it recovered with a thin layer of padding underneath.  The handgrips and leather streamers were purchased online and were not cheap.  I looked for a bell at many stores and found this one at K-Mart.  It’s large and has an authentic look.

This project was a lot of fun and I hope one day my son will appreciate the old tricycle as much as I do.

If you have a restoration or reburb of a tricycle that you’d like to show off, send us an email and we’ll post your work.

Q: How can I buy goods off you , Also can you join solid rubber tyers back together as the ones on the tricycle have been cut off thank you
A: First you can buy things in our online catalog by clicking the add to shopping cart button.  When you’re finished shopping you can click the checkout button to choose your preferred form of payment.

Now the tires… Sadly if you’re talking about semi-pneumatic tires, you’re pretty much just screwed, especially if they were cut a long time ago.  You can check out our Do-It-Yourself-Re-Tiring article…that might help, but probably not.

In that article there is a bit about wire tying tires.  You could probably do this with your semi-pneumatic wheels.  The results might not be perfect, but you may be able to get them back to working order, and if your tricycle has fenders, you could hide the cut under the fenders.  Good luck!

This tricycle is an old Arrow trike that was made in England.  The whole thing was completely restored by TricycleFetish reader Doug, who says his next project will be to restore a Toledo Tomboy tricycle.  He added the saddle bags and some bells/sirens to the handlebars of this one.  If anyone has any info on Arrow bicycles or their parent company, we’d be interested to know.

Q: I have a old CCm Tricycle I think it is a 1930-1940. I need to install new front wheel bearings on the 7/16″ axle. How do I do this? Need the bearings

A: This is a difficult question to answer via email.  Whether you have the type of bearings that had a retainer clip around the bearings or just loose bearings, you can simply clean the cups, fill with grease and put new bearings inside and add more grease, then put it all back together.  If you are missing pieces or don’t know the size of the bearings to be used, you should take it to your local bicycle shop for help.

Q: We came across this Western Flyer tricycle and I wanted to see when it was made and if I should spend the time cleaning restoring it?  Would you have parts for this one if I need them?

A: First, all the parts we currently have available are listed in our online catalog.  We sometimes get parts and add them to our catalog, but a lot of the parts are pretty hard to find.

Your tricycle looks to be a Western Flyer chain driven trike made by Murray circa 1940′s/1950′s.  They were sold in Western Auto stores.  Pinpointing an exact date would be nearly impossible as they probably made very similar tricycles for years.

Whether or not you should restore it depends on what you are trying to accomplish by doing so?  If you are doing it for nostalgic reasons, for a child or grandchild to ride, or for a “fun” project….it is probably worth doing – provided you feel it is worth your time and effort.

If you are planning on restoring it to increase the value or for resale, it is not a good idea.  You will never get your money back out of a restoration and certainly never make a profit.  The type of tricycle that it is, isn’t a super valuable type and isn’t something that collectors are yearning for, plus many collectors like to do their own restorations.

Our advice would be to refurbish the tricycle as best as you can.  A wire brush to the rust and some chrome polish such as SIMICHROME POLISH-8OZ 390250 will go a long way to making your tricycle look not quite so rough.  After you use a wire brush, use Permatex Naval Jelly Rust Dissolver on bare metal parts, like wheels and handlebars.  Naval Jelly will remove virtually all rust.  It will only take you a couple of hours and your tricycle will have a huge improvement.

Good Luck!

Nick P. sent us photos of his restoration job on his wife’s 1950′s Hedstrom tricycle.  He used all original parts except for the grips, tires and pedal locking caps.  He went all out and had parts re-chromed rather than just painting them.

The end result looks stunning, especially considering how bad of a state the tricycle was in prior to restoration.  It’s hard to tell from pictures just how well any particular restoration goes, but this one looks to be fantastic. Nick says that it’s ready to pass down to the next generation, hopefully they will keep it stored inside so that his grandchildren won’t have to do another restoration project in 60 years.

If you or someone you know has restored a tricycle and would like to share the results with the world, email us photos of the before and after pictures.

Q: With regards to my Colson Tri Cycle the Size of the back tire is 14 x 1.75 I have a couple of questions?

1. The rim have a place for an inner tube, can one be put on the rim and if so do you have any tubes and tires?

2. Do you have any new Spokes for that size of the Wheel and what is the cost, also what is the length of the spokes?

3. Do you have the bearing’s for the wheels and what is the cost?

A:  I will try to answer your questions, but the easiest answer is to just take your tricycle to your local bicycle shop.  They will have spokes, bearings, tubes and tires, or will be able to special order them.

1. Are you sure that your tricycle takes an inner tube?  Are you sure it isn’t a pneumatic tire rim?  You can read our post on types of tricycle tires if you aren’t sure.

2. The spokes we currently have in stock are listed in our online catalog.  The easiest thing to do is simply measure the old spokes to get the length.   If you for some reason do not have any of the old spokes, you’ll need to just take it to a bicycle shop and have them build you one.  Because if you don’t know how to measure for spokes, you probably don’t know how to build a wheel.

3. We have bearings for press-in type hubs where the bearings in their casing are pressed into the hub.  These can be found in our online catalog in the sizes that we offer.  If some cases you can use loose ball bearings and others you can use bearings with a retainer, it all depends on what type of tricycle and wheels that you have.  Again, the simplest thing to do is to take it to your local bicycle shop and ask them.  Once they have the tricycle in front of them, they should be able to answer all of the questions and get you the parts.  They probably won’t be able to get you pneumatic tires if that’s what they turn out to be – and you may be in for a long hard and expensive look trying to find a set of those.

Q: I hope that you can help us to identify this tricycle. It has been fully restored and is in excellent condition.  The ‘Batwing’ handlebars are reminiscent of the Junior Toy Co. style.  Any assistance will be greatly appreciated including a ballpark valuation.

A: Your tricycle was indeed made by the Junior Toy Co.  It is from the  late 1930′s Sky Line, which was a series of streamlined tricycles of which the Sky King was the top of the line.  Your tricycle is referred to as the Sky Knight due to the knight’s mask type head tube design.

As far as value goes, we only give values out to those who’ve purchased our online price guide for a number of reasons.  We also don’t really like to give valuations for restored tricycles.  It’s so hard to tell from the pictures what kind of job was done.  In a 600 pixel wide photo, the tricycle looks perfect, but it may or may not be in real life when you’re standing in front of it.  Basically most tricycles are worth more before restoration, unless done by an expert restorer who has used 100% all original parts.

Q: Wondering if its worth anything or is it worth fixing.

A:  You look to have a mid-late 1960′s Murray tricycle.  From the photo that you provided it’s hard to tell what is dirt and what is rust and where, but it looks to be a combination of both.  If you were going to have the tricycle professionally restored, it will cost hundreds of dollars…and not hundreds as in two hundreds, many hundreds.  If you did it yourself, you’ll still spend a ton of money and a lot of time fixing it up.

If this was your tricycle when you were young and it has sentimental value, they sure, it might make sense to fix it up, refurbish it or restore it.  If you plan on making money on it, you won’t make any profit after restoration or refurbishing.

You can make it look a lot more appealing simply by washing it.  You can also use a bit of chrome polish on the chrome areas, and within a minute or two you will see a huge improvement.  A good cleaning and a bit of a polish will go a long way in increasing resale value

The latest tricycle restoration to be submitted to TricycleFetish.com is the cool early 1950′s Garton Delivery Cycle pictured at the left.  Normally we’d say something about the restoration, but the restoration was done by the author of the Racycle Blog and he has a nice detailed write up with lots of pictures of the process.

Tricycles have one of four types of tires: pneumatic, semi-pneumatic, tubular and wire-tied.  All of these types have something in common…they are made of rubber and they wear out.  Most pre-War tricycles that were actually ridden are in need of new tires, whether just for aesthetics or to actually make the tricycle functional.  Read on to see what kind of tires you need and how to replace them.

Wire-Tied Rubber Tires: This type of tire has rubber with a wire in the middle.  Often times, especially on the ones with less wear, there is a spiral pattern of “tread” along the tire.  In heavily worn examples you may see a groove down the center of the tire and possibly even may see the wire inside.  There is usually a small gap where the two sides of the tire come together.

At the left is an example of a 1930′s disc type wheel with a tied rubber wheel in pretty nice condition.  If you click on the picture you can see a line at about 7 o’clock on the tire, which is where the two sides of the tire come together.  This type of tire was used from circa 1900 through 1960′s, with production decreasing for this type at the end of that time period.

Re-tiring wheels with this type of tire is the most difficult.  You will not only need rubber and wire, but also a wire-tying machine that is very scarce.  If you don’t have a wire-tying machine, Brian at the Racycle Blog has developed a do-it-yourself method of re-tiring tricycle wheels that is pretty straight forward and even has a complete list of supplies and tools including a source for the rubber which is pretty hard to find.

For those of you who don’t have access to the tools, The author of the procedure is only a hobbyist, not a service pro, but he is willing to re-tire tricycle wheels on a case-by-case basis. You can contact him with a description of your project at the email address listed on the top right of his web log.  Keep in mind the procedure is time intensive and will likely cost more than you’d spend on a couple of new tricycles from Wal-Mart, but refurbishing grandpa’s old trike is often worth the expense.

Semi-Pneumatic Tires: The next type of tire is the semi-pneumatic type.  These tires usually appear to be solid rubber rings, but in fact have a small hollow center. These tires are common on tricycles from the 1930′s through present.  They are much wider and thicker than wire-tied wheels.  Excessive wear of this type of tires makes the tricycle virtually unrideable.  To replace this type of tire, cut off the old worn tire with a hacksaw and knife.

Once wheel is ready (painted, chromed, etc. to your liking) warm the tire in a large pot of boiling water to make the rubber more flexible.  Then stretch the tire over the rim.  We currently have a decent selection of sizes of replacement semi-pneumatic tricycle tires in stock.

When trying to retire a rim with a semi-pneumatic tire that is too small, it may be possible to stretch the rubber enough to make the tire fit.  If the rubber is not dry-rotted heating should allow the rubber to be stretched.  The limitation on how much it will stretch on a good tire is likely to be how strong an individual is.   ie. When stretching by hand, you won’t be strong enough to break the tire.  The amount that a particular tire will stretch depends on several factors including tire diameter, tire age and type or rubber used.

Tubular Tires: These tires have a rubber tire that is separate from the tube and have a bead on each side that hooks into the lip of the rim, just like a bicycle tire.  These type of tires are most common on the more modern tricycles and adult tricycles.  Any bicycle shop should have the most common sizes to fit children and adult tricycles.  Some manufacturers of the hefty or all-terrain tricycles with the large tires also use this type of tire, but finding a replacement might be easiest through the manufacturer.

Pneumatic Tires: These tires were most common circa the 1930′s and are a combination of tire and tube in one piece that is installed on the rim and inflated.  Rims of tricycles that use this type of tire are similar to those that use semi-pneumatic rims, but they have a hole in the rim for the valve of the tire to go through.  Pneumatic tires are also called balloon tires.  They were the big puffy looking tires on many Streamlined Modern tricycles.

Replacement tires of this type of extremely hard to find and very expensive, and we do not currently have a supplier (or even know of one) for reproduction replacements.

Rope Rubber / Extruded Rubber: As original vintage and NOS tricycle tires become harder to find, extruded rubber tires are an ever more appealing option. When done correctly, this extruded rubber can be glued together and installed on a rim and will look just like a semi-pneumatic tire or even a thinner wire-tied tire.  For more info on gluing and installing extruded rubber tires, check out our replacement rubber tire tutorial.

Extruded rubber tires come in a rope form, but can be glued into a perfect circular tricycle tire.