Brent's 1950's Trike

    This past summer I restored a trike for a long time friend of mine. It was a back yard find and the previous owner did not take care of it. Brent restored it to good riding condition but over time the outside elements took its toll on the paint and components. When the bike was given to me to restore, it had been wrecked. The front wheel was bent and would not turn without hitting the forks. The paint was badly weathered and fading.                                                                                                                                                        

I took pictures of all the bolts and connecting points on the bike, so I can properly reassemble it after it is painted. The bike had about three coats of paint on it so there wasn't much rust to deal with .The seat is in bad shape ,so I replaced it with a black one. Also the white brake cable housing was replaced with black as well. I replaced the front wheel , the old one was bent and could not be straightened out.                                    

           Before I disassembled the trike, I took pictures of where the bolts were and how the bike went together. If this is not done and documented, it will be difficult to reassemble any bike. Especially a bike you have never seen before or worked on.  Next are some pictures I took before I disassembled the trike.   

           I removed the handle bars, stem and forks. The cranks came off along with the pedals. The headset bearings and bottom bracket bearings were cleaned and re greased. The seat and rear basket were removed.

         

The Trike frame consists of 2 sections. The front section that holds the seat , cranks and forks. and the back section , it holds the rear sprocket and rear wheels. the back section is attached with 4 bolts.  This picture shows the rear sprocket and the chain guard screw and bracket.

     Rear view of back section. Rear sprocket and bolts that attach the front frame to the rear section of the trike. you can also see the bolts that hold the drive shafts and the sleeve bearings for the rear wheels.

                                                             Front view of rear section

         After taking pictures of the complete bike, I sprayed all of the bolts with PB Blaster to loosen any rusted bolts.  The chain was cleaned and soaked in oil for about a week. All frame pieces were then stripped of paint using a heavy duty paint stripper. This trike had about three layers of different color paint.                         

         While stripping the paint, I was looking for clues as to what company made this bike. Sometimes you can remove one layer of paint at a time with stripper and expose a name or a model of the bike. There were no markings or decals under the layers of paint. So I started to look up trikes and trike manufacturers on line and trying to narrow the make by the components that were on the bike. I narrowed it down to Sears or Western Flyer. They both made trikes in the 50's and 60's.

        After stripping the bike, I sand blasted any remaining paint from the welds and hard to reach places. Then I sanded and primed the frame pieces, forks and chain guard.  The handle bars, cranks and all other chrome pieces were taken apart and cleaned and polished.

                                                    rear end ,primed and ready for paint

                                                                            frame

                                                                    rear seat support

                                                                      chain guard

                                            Cranks before they were cleaned and polished

                                              one of the rear wheels ,cleaned and polished

       I applied two coats of primer and then wet sanded with 1500 grit wet dry sand paper. then the next day I painted the bike pieces with victory red paint. Victory red is a paint color that Chevrolet uses on there Corvette. The paint color is a deep dark red. I applied three coats of victory red paint. After the paint dried over night , I applied 4-5 coats of clear to bring the bike to a nice shine.

                                        These next pictures are of some of the painted parts.


                                                                             Forks

                                                                        Chain Guard

                                                  Rear assembly, Bolts and headset cups

                                                                       Front frame

   


          I let the frame and the other bike parts dry for a couple of days before I started reassembling the bike.   I bolted the front and rear frame pieces together. Then I greased the crank bearings and installed the crank. Next I lubricated the rear wheel shafts and bolted them in place.

                                                rear wheels and cranks polished and installed

                                                 Handle bar and stem cleaned and polished

                                                                       rear end view

                                                             More pictured of the assembly

                               I cleaned the white wall tires with Bleche-Wite and a scotch brite pad

Next ,I installed the chain guard, western style saddle and grips. After that I installed the front brake caliper,brake lever and new brake cable and housing.

The last item I installed is the rear basket and front fender. This trike turned out nice ,considering it's age. All of the era correct parts were still in production, so I did not have to buy any used parts to complete the project.  The next pictures are of the complete trike.

                                                                                         

                                                                                   

                                                                                     

                                                                                         

                                                                   Thanks For Looking, Tony