I found a wheelbarrow with a broken handle and a flat tire in the alley alongside someones garbage the other day and I grabbed it. Home Depot sells a pretty hefty wooden replacement handle for fourteen dollars, which I installed today.

The new handle was a bit bigger than the old one. I found that one side of the new handle was the same height as the old one, so I installed the new one sideways. First I measure the length of the remaining good handle and then I cut the new one to match. Then I remove the old handle, held it against the new one, and used a speed square to mark the mounting holes. After drilling them out I attached the new handle. I found it’s greater width made the horizontal bar at the front end of the handles a little tight, but still was satisfactory. I had to replace a few bolts along the way as some old ones were a bit rusted and bent, as well as the new handles size changing a couple dimensions.

I removed the tube from the tire, pumped it up a bit and felt around for the leak. It was a small cut, about an eight of an inch. This was easily patched with a bicycle tube patch. After the wheel was reassembled and pumped up, it worked out great.

Fifteen dollars is a bit of savings over the fifty it would have cost for a new one, but it was nice to take an hour and repair something that was going to be thrown out. This wheelbarrow will be put to good use at one of the Alleycat Acres sites.