Fixing a couple of Lionel prewar tinplate train cars

I wrote a post about a week and a half ago about having been given a couple of boxes full of old Lionel tinplate train stuff. You can find that post here.
https://steemit.com/hobbies/@amberyooper/antique-lionel-toy-train-cars

When I sorted through the various train cars, I noticed that a couple of the cars were missing a few parts. The really old tank car was missing a set of wheels, and the flatcar was missing the 4 side stakes. You can see in this picture how the tank car is missing a set of wheels.

I decided to see if I could find a source for replacement parts for the two cars, so I did an internet search. I know that these old cars are collected by a lot of people, so I figured that there's a demand for replacement parts. It didn't take too long to find a company that sells replacement parts, and they have an on-line store front. The place is Henning's Trains, and they have a store in Lansdale, PA, U.S. This is the link to the parts for the prewar Lionel train cars.
http://hennings-trains.shoplightspeed.com/parts/prewar-rolling-stock/

Of course, they have a lot more than that on their website, but that's where I bought the parts from. It didn't take too long to get the parts from them in the mail. I got a set of wheels and 2 axles in the one bag, and a set of 4 stakes for the flatcar in the other bag. I ordered 1 axle, but got 2 for some reason.

I matched up the parts to the cars.
The tank car.

The flat car.

It doesn't take very long to put the parts on the cars, there's not much to it.
The finished tank car. I tried to clean up the original wheels as best I could, but they're not going to be as shiny as the new wheels. There are several details on this car, such as the hook type couplers and lack of axle covers that indicate that this car was made somewhere around 1925.

Here's the flatcar, with the stakes in place. The copper colored axle covers on this car indicate that the car was made between 1932 and 1935, that's the only years that Lionel used the copper colored axle covers.

The paint on the flatcar is not in the best condition, but I'm not going to mess with it. I prefer it with it's original age patina. I know that there's people who do restorations on these old car, but I wouldn't do it unless the paint was completely trashed or rusty, then it might be worth it.

One problem that I've found with being given a couple of boxes of these old cars and stuff is that you go on line to find out more about them, and pretty soon you end up wanting to add to the collection. I succumbed to that temptation on ebay last week, and added this car to my collection, because I didn't have one like it, you know.

This car is actually in pretty good condition, better than a lot of the cars I was given, and was a quite reasonable price. This car was probably made somewhere between 1935 and 1938. At some time in 1938, Lionel changed the couplers to what is known as the box type coupler. The box coupler was used up to 1942. I don't know if the box coupler was used on Lionel cars after WW2, I haven't done any research on that yet. I have 2 cars with the box type coupler, so I'll probably end up writing a post about Lionel couplers in the not too distant future.

That's all I have for this post, thanks for stopping by to check it out!