Wagon build, a Radio Flyer wagon...

I was wondering around some garage sales recently, trying to find a project less involved than yet another car/bike, and ended up picking up a wagon for $5:

The wheels were kind of beat up and misaligned, and it sits way too high:

Eight and a half inches off the ground is too high. How about a three inch ride height:

I decided to pretty much toss the axle assemblies, just use the wagon body and the handle, and build my own frame. This'll allow it to take quite a bit of weight. I also picked up some lawn mower wheels with bearings, so it'll roll relatively smoothly.

After scribbling out a few ideas, and taking some measurements, I dug out the chop saw, and started cutting up some 1" square tubing. After drilling the holes, and cleaning everything up, it was time for a little welding. Since the wheels need to line up, I ran a piece of 1/2" solid steel through the axle holes to keep them true. Here's the new rear axle assembly:

Once it cooled down, I mocked it up on the wagon body with the new rear wheels:

After that, time to build the lower part of the front swivel axle, which is a bit more complicated:

Once it had cooled enough, I went ahead and saw how it would look with the wheels:

It will still need a bit of cleanup and finishing work. The handle (visible in the above pic) was designed to not pinch someone's fingers, so I need to duplicate the original profile in the metal where it mounts up. I figure I'll just draw it in cardboard, cut it out, copy it to the new piece, then grind it out.

I'll run two pieces of square tubing forward to the front of the wagon, then build the upper part of the swivel mount forward of the wagon body. I still need to re-measure everything in order to get it as level as possible, and figure out how far forward the pivot should be to allow it to have a reasonable turning radius.

Not sure when I'll have time to continue working on this, but it is nice to have a smaller project that doesn't have a hard deadline. I don't know what I am doing with it when it is done, but if nothing else, it can be stacked full of stuff while in the garage, then drug out for trips to swap meets.

Another Wagon Appreciation thread!

Very cool.

Dude awesome. I need to do something like this, my in laws bought my son a wagon for his first birthday. freaking wheels squeak all the time any ideas? Are you putting bearings in there?

Modified wagons are the best wagons! I have two right now: a stock Radio Flyer All Terrain Wagon, and a modified Radio Flyer Town and Country wooden wagon riding on Harbor Freight pneumatic knobbies in place of the metal solid wheels that were rusting.

I also have an old 70's Radio Flyer carcass at my parents house that needs some metal work that I wanted to turn into a "rat rod" wagon. The sides are still intact, but the floor is rusted and the axles are all messed up. I found it buried in a hill last year.

This thread reminds me that I have the pieces of a wooden stake side radio flyer in my storage shed. It is only in need of a new bottom panel, a couple of pieces of threaded rod and some fasteners to be compete again. I have a regular pull handle and a dog harness shaft fork thingy.

Mad_Ratel wrote: Are you putting bearings in there?

Yup, the wheels I picked up have ball bearings, so they should be quieter than the stock plastic wheels. They are dry now, but when its time for final assembly, I'll probably grease them so they run even quieter.

SilverFleet said: Modified wagons are the best wagons! I have two right now: a stock Radio Flyer All Terrain Wagon, and a modified Radio Flyer Town and Country wooden wagon riding on Harbor Freight pneumatic knobbies in place of the metal solid wheels that were rusting. I also have an old 70's Radio Flyer carcass at my parents house that needs some metal work that I wanted to turn into a "rat rod" wagon. The sides are still intact, but the floor is rusted and the axles are all messed up. I found it buried in a hill last year.

Cool, did the harbor Freight wheels fit from the get go, or did you need to modify the axles?

I'm keeping my eyes open for more wagons, to be modified in different ways. I wouldn't mind building an off roader, possibly with a high torque/low speed motor to use at rallycrosses and anywhere else I may end up hauling tires/etc. around. I'd also like to find a really ratty one to build an extreme (and completely impractical) lowrider out of. I'm thinking no pivoting front axle, and maybe 1/4" to 1/2" of ride height.

If anyone else has built or wants to build one, please share ideas/pictures. I'd love to see them.

In reply to eastsidemav:

The HF wheels sorta fit. The axles on the wagon are a bit smaller in diameter, so it would be best to try and either mod the axles or somehow make a spacer for the holes. Since it usually rolls around the yard hauling my wife's gardening tools, it's fine for that.

The Radio Flyer I had as a kid is sitting down in the car port holding fishing rods. I might have to touch it up. Looks like mostly surface rust, and the wheels still spin so those are good signs.

Okay, after a long hiatus, I managed to get a bit of time over the last couple of weekends to work on this. A little over a week ago, I laid out what parts I still needed to cut, and chopped them up. This past weekend, it was time to try to get everything together.

First part was finishing up the frame. I cut the rails, and drilled holes where the body holes already were, and welded it up:

From there, I bolted up the wagon body to help keep everything aligned, and started welding up the front of the frame. It needed a slight rise in order to keep the body somewhat level:

After removing the body, here's what I had:

At this point, its time to do a test assembly of all these parts and see if I need to make any changes:

Oh yeah, got a little ahead of myself, I also had to grind and test fit the front axle in order to fit the handle. Should help keep anyone from getting their fingers pinched in it, which I recall happened to me years ago on the wagon I had as a kid:

Here are some pics from the test assembly, I'm really liking this:

I'll need to drill out a few holes on the frame a bit to make the body easier to install, as one bolt didn't line up well enough. Everything is a 1/4" right now, so will just bump up the front frame holes to 5/16", and that should give me enough room to account for slop.

I had assumed I'd need to add a few stoppers to the frame to prevent the front axle from turning too much and letting the wheels hit the body, but it turns out the frame is pretty much perfectly set up for that already:

Well, that's it for now. I should have time to strip it back down and drill out the frame holes soon, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to prime and paint it, and do any additional finish work, like replacing some of the hardware. I also think it'd look a lot more "polished" if I find some plastic end caps to cover up the exposed ends of the 1" tubing. I suspect McMaster-Carr or Amazon should have them.

One last photo of the new ride height. Body is just a smidge under 3" off the ground:

Loving the build. Wanted to share the coolest Radio Flyer I've ever seen. I bumped into a guy at the 2015 SOWO festival who had put together a setup for his toddler to cruise around in. He had independent air bags on each axle actuated by a controller with a compressed air tank. Wildly overcomplicated but any toddler with multiple switches for his biXXes is pretty cool.

In reply to 84FSP:

That is awesome!

I like it!

I want to find an old wagon to turn into a welding cart for my little 120V mig.

I love a build where the chassis fab tables consist of cinder blocks and 2x4s!

ClemSparks wrote: I like it! I want to find an old wagon to turn into a welding cart for my little 120V mig. I love a build where the chassis fab tables consist of cinder blocks and 2x4s!

The welding cart idea is pretty cool. I'm leaning towards an offroad build for my next one, might go garage sale hunting tomorrow for another wagon, or just base it off the original hardware from this wagon, and make it convertible An offroader could be handy for hauling stuff around the yard, and moving things around at rallycrosses.

I'd love to have a nice welding/fabrication table in the garage, but I have too much junk, and still need to be able to pull a car in there occasionally.

I did prime it over the last few days, but got some bubbling in the paint at a few spots. I suspect I just hit a couple areas too heavily, and had the paint can too close. I'll do some sanding, and hope I don't cut all the way to the metal. It's going to be very humid here for a while, so it'll probably be a bit before I can get the topcoat on. I'm leaning towards a semi-gloss black, but still open to other colors.

eastsidemav wrote: I'd love to have a nice welding/fabrication table in the garage, but I have too much junk, and still need to be able to pull a car in there occasionally.

Right there with ya! (I have a gravel floor, even) All my "bench" tools (grinder, vice, etc) are used on the ground. That's why I like seeing examples of builds with the precision basis of cinder blocks! :)

In reply to 84FSP:

I need to find out more about this.

Ask and ye shall receive. Tons of how to's out there. Youtube video Youtube video

I may have a problem. Is there are 12 step program for this?

The next build should be a lot simpler, with no welding. I'm thinking 1" body lift, using spacers between the axle assemblies and the body, swap out to 5/8" axle shafts, and bolt up the big wheels. Should make a good yard/rallycross/carryall wagon.

I'm also thinking of sourcing some 3/16" clevis pins (if they exist), in order to make the handles easy to remove for transit. (Edit: Turned out they are 1/4", so a lot easier to find)

Progress on both wagons!

The lowrider's chassis is painted. Now its just a matter of waiting for the last coat to dry, and reassembling.

Wagon #2 (I'm thinking of calling it the brodozer) came together very quickly, since it needed no welding. Just needed to make some measurements, and cut and drill some bar stock:

Next step involved cutting and grinding off the original axles. This was probably the most difficult part, since some of the spot welds were in pretty confined spaces, and I did not want to damage the original brackets. Afterwards, it was a matter of drilling them out for a 5/8" axle, and cutting down some 5/8" allthread as the new axles:

Then finish reassembly:

Wheel size comparison:

Ride height has increased by about 2.75":

You may have noticed on an earlier picture there were extra holes. I added them for a practical reason - a place to hook bungie cords to:

I figure that'll be very handy when hauling over rough terrain.

At this point, its pretty much done. At some point, I'll pick up a bigger drill bit to open up the bungie cord holes (they're 1/2" right now), and when I do that, I'll go ahead and paint the spacers. No hurry, as I want to get this out and use it, and see if there are any other changes I'd like to make.

Cool wagons, I always enjoy projects like this, they realy allow a lot of creativity in a small manageable package.

Here is a couple pic of the one I built

I built it in our basement when I didn't have a shop space. I did the steering similar to what you did, but I have found the it really limited the turning radius. My plan is to build a king pin style steering... once I get a mountain of other projects out of the way

Anyways, keep building!

Haha. Nice to see you were able to go two ways. If you stumble across a Radio Flyer tricycle in conditions as good as those let me know. I have a chain saw engine I need to do something with...

In reply to Madhatr:

That looks really cool!

eastsidemav wrote: I may have a problem. Is there are 12 step program for this?

Yes there is. The first 11 steps are to build more wagons for the rest of us. Step 12 is to move on to building something else cool.

They're done! (or as done as any project ever is). Went out to the park to take a few pictures.

Lowrider:

Down in the weeds:

Brodozer:

Together:

Slight difference in ride height:

I think this is my favorite pic of the two of them:

That's all for now, at least until I find another wagon to mutilate.

They look great! Good job! I really like the contrast between the two.

...and you are correct, it is addictive.

Here is the next one I want to do: Altered Gasser

Complete with metal flake paint, plexiglass bottom, and wheelie bars!

(Please excuse the random stuff IN the wagon )