# MTD/Western Flyer/Firestone Hi-Lo/Vagabond 16" Take-Apart Bicycle Thread



## Squiggle Dog

This thread is dedicated to the Hi-Lo bicycle, built between 1965 and 1967? by The Modern Tool & Die Company (MTD). Please share any pictures or information related to these unique bicycles. MTD built them for Western Auto and Firestone. The Firestone version was known as the Vagabond. These portable bicycles had 16" wheels and the frame came apart in the center with the turn of a knob. Here are some observations which may or may not be correct:

MTD Hi-Lo:

Sticker-type headbage.
Available in black or red.
Had a frame decal with a red stripe inside white stripes.
2-speed Bendix blue band or Sachs Torpedo Duomatic overdrive kickback hubs.
Deep, plated seat springs.
Crash rails on seat and carrier.
Basket on carrier.

Western Flyer Hi-Lo:

Riveted headbadge.
Available in black only.
Had silk-screened frame graphics in white only, no red stripe.
Western Flyer handgrips.
Single speed only.
Shallow, painted seat springs.
No crash rails on seat nor carrier.
Basket on carrier.

Firestone Vagabond:

Riveted or sticker-type headbadge.
Available in blue or green.
Decal on frame with red stripe inside white stripes with Vagabond lettering--sometimes the lettering is inside the stripes, sometimes below it. Sometimes had "Tires by Firestone" on rear part.
Single speed only.
Shallow, painted seat springs.
Crash rails on carrier, not on seat.
No basket on carrier.

I have noticed that in the advertisements they show a Wald 52 tooth sprocket, however I have only seen them with the Monark-style sprockets. Front baskets are shown as an option, but I have never seen one with an original front basket.


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## Squiggle Dog

I've been interested in vintage bicycles since I was a kid. The owner of the local bicycle shop knew this and he gave me a black MTD Hi-Lo that he found in a dumpster. He was a bicycle collector (and claimed he had the bicycle from The Wizard of Oz and the tandem from The Sound of Music) but wasn't interested in the Hi-Lo. Because of the sprocket, I had always assumed it was built by Monark. I couldn't find any information on it other than Colson used to make a Hi-Lo, but it wasn't anything like this one.

It was in very nice condition with all the accessories. The only thing it was missing were the original tires, the headbadge sticker had been peeled off, the grips were replaced with foam ones, and the pedals had chunks of rubber taken out of them. It had a Bendix blue band 2-speed hub. I installed coke bottle grips and put an NOS Carlisle tire that I found at a thrift store. 

It was a very fun bicycle (one of my favorites) and I rode it often. I used to put things in the basket when I would go to the corner store. I remember riding it once with no hands and having the front wheel whip around and I got a good amount of road rash on my arm.

My parents wanted me to get rid of most of my bicycles. So, I ended up selling them off. I sold the rear wheel to a collector who wanted the blue band hub. I hate myself for that. I sold the rest of the bicycle to a collector whose name I can no longer recall. It is one of the bicycles I have most regretted selling, second only to a 1940s Hawthorne comet (which I bought back this year from the person I traded it to 17 years ago).

I recently purchased another one from thecabe member klunk!. It is just like the one I used to own, but has a Sachs 2-speed instead of a Bendix. The frame has broken and was brazed. The chainguard is missing and the mounting tab is broken off. So I will need to figure this out.


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## Squiggle Dog

I have another one (a Western Flyer version) on the way from California which looked great in the small craigslist pictures, but when my friend picked it up, I can see that it is very rusty under the paint and the chrome is peeling. The grips are in good condition. The previous owner said he donated the original seat to The Salvation Army. I'm still casually looking for spare parts and complete bicycles.


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## partsguy

About four or five years ago, I had a West German-built folding bike from Sears. It was a Ted Williams-brand bike, dating it to the mid 1960's or 70's. It had a Sachs Torpedo 2-speed kickback. I don't know who made it, and I don't have any pictures of it either. I sold it for $50-$70 to a guy who bought it not to ride, but put with his classic Volkswagen Beetle.


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## Squiggle Dog

I now own three of these bicycles. I plan to make one out of the best parts, a second decent one for my roommate, and then a third incomplete one for resale.


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## vincev

Have this one and another model but same type bike.........


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## Squiggle Dog

Thanks for your contributions of the MTD Hi-Lo and Firestone Vagabond, vincev! I'd like to start a website and serial number registry at some point to see how many are around.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia: the black paint used on MTD-branded Hi-Los was matte metallic, while the black used on Western Flyer-branded Hi-Los was solid gloss black.

I managed to get one of mine rideable. It was lots of fun today! I'm taking it to the GoodGuys car show and swap meet in Scottsdale, Arizona so I don't have to do as much walking and won't have to lug around a backpack. My roommate will also be taking his, which is currently disassembled for rust removal.


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## Squiggle Dog

We got the chrome on my roommate's Hi-Lo de-rusted and now it's all greased up and ready to ride. The frame still needs to be cleaned up. I like the lift-off basket. I intend to install one on mine, but Wald only makes them in black and white, so I will probably have one stripped and plated.


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## Squiggle Dog

And here is mine (a bit customized)! I have new old stock material to recover the seat. These are going to be fun to ride at GoodGuys next month.


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## Squiggle Dog

The seat was bugging me, so I recovered it and straightened the bent crash rail. It was difficult getting the vinyl to bend and it kept wrinkling, but a heat gun smoothed things out.


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## Squiggle Dog

My roommate and I had fun riding the Hi-Los at the GoodGuys Car Show & Swap Meet in Scottsdale, Arizona. It made it faster and less tiring.








The funny thing is people there thought they were made recently. We got asked from what store we bought them. One lady commented about mine, "Oh, look, he's trying to make his look retro with whitewall tires." My roommate was negotiating with a guy selling an "Australian" (actually Norwegian) take-apart bicycle, who was asking $300 for it. When my roommate said that we paid less than $100 for each of our bikes, he responded, "Yes, but this is a CLASSIC! Bought new in 1970. A guy earlier told me it's worth $600." We told him ours were from the 1960s and he said he didn't believe it and they looked "too new". People are funny. My roommate ended up talking the guy down to $150.




There were a few other old bikes for sale, priced at retail or above. Boy, those Wal-Mart Black Friday Sting-Rays sure haven't lost their value...


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## Squiggle Dog

The Bicycle Museum of America has an MTD version with Bendix Overdrive in the basement!


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## ricobike

I picked up a beat up Hi Lo at Memory Lanes last year.  It was missing its seat post.  Small problem, right?  Um, not so fast.  It's 15/16" in diameter.  I can't find any seat posts this size.  Even tubing is hard to find in this diameter.  It's always something.

Nice job on restoring your bike and especially that seat.  Where did you find that material?


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## Squiggle Dog

Hmmm... I know that the handlebar stems were made in Japan, so it's possible that the seat post could be a metric size equivalent of 15/16" (24mm). Or maybe someone just tightened up the seat post clamp without the seat post in there. I wish I could find my calipers so I could check the one on mine.

I found new old stock seat material on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-NO...lted-Tufted-Bicycle-Seat-Cover-/291689780927? . Also, I imagine this would work: http://www.ebay.com/itm/191819570475?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT .


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## ricobike

Cool that someone makes that kit for the seat.  I'm pretty sure this bike had a seat on it that looked just like yours did.

I'm not exactly sure what the seatpost size is because I don't have a good caliper here.  I just have the cheapo pointer kind.  But I can tell you, the seatpost is bigger than 7/8" and less than an inch, so it's somewhere in there.  And it is not an easy size to get.  It'll work fine with a 7/8" post if you just want to put a bolt on it and squeeze it together.  And you could shim it too.   But if you want it to work the way that it should with a quick release, you gotta have that in between size.  I'm looking at buying some 15/16" tubing to see if that will work.  The bike will be a rat so I don't really care what it looks like as long as it functions.

I had to replace the gooseneck too and had no issues there.  It took almost anything I had in the box .


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## Squiggle Dog

Pretty neat that the original material from the closed-down Persons factory was found by that eBay seller. I really lucked out there. He also has new old stock crash rails for the seat. Hopefully you'll be able to find a 15/16" seat clamp for the seat if you find the tubing. On my bikes, the seatposts taper to 7/8" or something at the top. I'm upset at myself because when I put the bike in the back of my trunk, I lowered the seatpost all the way down in the frame instead of just removing it. The seatpost ended up with gouges from the frame. The whole reason I didn't use the shiny original one that came on it was because it was gouged from when it was slid all the way into the frame by the seller. I need to get a hone to deburr the inside of the seat tube. And you're right--I have a 1" hone that I attempted to fit inside the seat tube on the frame, and it didn't fit.

I found a new old stock handlebar stem on eBay for the one I ride. The seller said it's made in Taiwan, but it's extremely well made and could pass for American (it's not one of the cheap stamped ones, either). I bought it solely because I prefer the drop forged look over the one it originally had. It worked out, too, because the handlebar stem on my roommate's was rusty with horrible chrome and the brazing up by the wedge bolt head broke. So he got the nice one that was originally on mine.


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## ricobike

Well, what I did wasn't pretty, but it accomplished the task.  I took a thinwalled piece of 15/16th tubing that I stole from a paint roller extension pole I had and stabilized it with a 7/8th inch piece of thickwalled tubing that I cut out of a piece of medical equipment.  I sleeved them together with the 7/8th tubing sticking out of top so the seat could be attached.  The 15/16th tubing was too big for the seat clamp.  Then I took a spare seatpost clamp and clamped them together at the top toward the seat so that it distorted both tubes so they couldn't twist.  Problem solved.  There's always a way...


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## Squiggle Dog

Creative! Spare parts for these bikes are certainly nearly impossible to find (one of my bikes is missing a chainguard, doubt I'll find another without having to buy another bike), but who would have thought a seatpost would be so difficult to find in the correct size? 

On a different note, I'd love to see what type of paperwork these bikes came with new (brochure, owner's manual, etc.).


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## ricobike

I know what you mean about spare parts.  The only reason I bought the one that I'm working on now was to get one of the rails and one rear fender strut that were missing on a blue Vagabond I have that I bought years ago.  And this bike didn't have a chainguard either, but a 26" Schwinn wingtip guard with the front bracket removed works nicely.  The Wald replacements would probably be fine too until you can find one.  Plus you get the added benefit of not having to remove the chainguard to fix a rear flat.  The Wald guards also come with a bracket that you could use on your seatpost tube to attach the guard so you wouldn't have to deal with the missing bracket.

You have the most documentation I've seen on these bikes by far.  I copied all of them so thanks for posting them .


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## decath6431

I found a couple of these at a garage sale 2 weeks ago...anyone know a relative value or if any members on here are looking?  Also I presume that the hub is a Sachs 2 speed? Thanks.


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## Zach

I just bought one of these in Denver off of Craigslist.  I was looking for something portable as I'm a long haul trucker, and it fit the bill.  Had no idea it was from the 60's!  I have the blue band hub.  I'm about to start rolling, but I will add more pictures next time I have it out.


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## Zach




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## Thads Skunk Works

This is my Western Flyer Hi Lo. It's in near new condition all original. Fun bike to ride. I'm selling off most of the bikes in my collection & will let this one go. It's been fun but time to let some stuff go. Located in Wichita Ks. Any advice on value ?


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