Today we ask readers of Hagerty Media for stories about parts acquisition, especially if they are wild or a little weird. The question was inspired by this article about parts hunting by Kyle Smith, who has long understood there’s more to acquiring parts than just going to a place like Autozone, your local dealership, or a computer screen to get your car running and/or restored.
That’s not to say that interesting parts-hunting stories do not happen in the above-mentioned examples. Two weeks ago, I made a large order from a well-known parts vendor on the Internet. One of the four disc brake rotors that arrived was clearly the incorrect part. A quick glance revealed it was the wrong diameter and lacked internal venting. While the vendor was the source of the problem, the snowball effect in returning that part was the real story here:
Things got better from there, mercifully. I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly the staff was at both the local Office Depot and the FedEx shipping center. Then I was delighted to see that the vendor shipped me a new part the moment FedEx confirmed the old one was in their possession.
Two days later I had the new rotor in my hands, and proceeded with the repair and restoration of my car’s brakes. (The order included new rubber brake lines, so I indeed consider this a restoration.)
But this is only the most recent parts hunting story in my arsenal of automotive restoration tales. I ask you, dear reader, to dig a little deeper than my failures with modern technology—I am sure you can do better than I did. So tell us:
What’s your Weirdest or Wildest parts hunting story?
Not sure if this qualifies as either weird or wild, but it certainly struck me as highly unusual at the time:
I had a ’66 Chevelle SS396 in the early ’70s (and my story about that car will go under a “weirdest or wildest car finds story” someday). Simultaneously leaving a four-way stop, some guy across from me forgot what turn signals were for and turned left in front of me – putting his right front corner squarely into the center of my bumper, grill, and SS hood, also causing a crinkle in my right fender between the headlight trim and wheel opening. This was well before the days when repop body parts were available for popular cars online. (Heck, this was before there was even online!) The options in those days were the junkyard – or if you had either skill or money, maybe DIY or a body & paint shop. Since I had neither of the latter, I went on a search of all the scrapyards within a day’s drive of me. The car was less than 10-years old, and there were still quite a few on the road – although they were quite popular to be hacked up for small track stock car racing. But the boneyards had not gotten enriched by an influx of SS396 Chevelles yet. So I drove around with a “v-shaped” indentation on the car for months, figuring I was never going to find the front clip parts I needed.
At the same time, my wife was driving a Fiat 850 Sedan for her daily drives, and I had found a few local sources for parts and info for working on it. One fella – I’ll call him “Floyd” because, well, that was his name – was a particularly good contact. He actually had European friends and imported a lot of stuff that no local parts houses had. One day I was at Floyd’s place picking up some gaskets or something, and he looked out at my crumpled Chevelle. “You want some parts to fix that front end?”, he asked. I told him I’d looked all over and there were none to be found. He led the way to an overgrown grassy area behind his shop, where EXACTLY the parts I needed were lying. And I mean ONLY the parts I needed. He had a right fender, but not a left one. He had the right-side headlight trim but not the driver side. Valance, grill, hood latch, even the SS396 grill emblem. Most importantly and amazingly, he had an unmolested SS hood without the fake ‘scoop-louvers’ – of which mine were still good. Now for the most unusual part of the story – – – he GAVE me the stuff so he could clear out that area and mow down the tall grass and weeds out there – making his wife happy.
So, the car drove around for a few years with different colors on the front clip until I got a better paying job and could afford to paint it. But it was ALL straight for those years – because of the random sequence of my hunting for Fiat parts from a guy who I thought was just a foreign car enthusiast – a guy who wanted to clean up his yard, and who just happened to have PRECISELY the parts I needed for my A-Body GM muscle car, and who obviously also had a big generous nature! [or was just scared of his wife?]
Showing up at someones house to help move and inheriting a bunch of Toyota parts they decided they did not want to move to their new house. That was a unexpected find.
As gor the retail stories I’m on the retailer side and could really tell you some crazy stories. Things like a wiped lobe on a cam claiming a soft lobe? You then ask how he broke it in. Well I went up on the 4 lane and hit a lick.
Or a Good SAE mechanic that said his new Stroker crank was wrong and hitting the block. Then convince him that he had to clearance the block and needed a new pan.
Problems go both ways.
On used parts junk yards were always fun to wonder around.
We went yo one run by som Amish like guys that spoke German. We pull a lens from a 1965 Tempest for the dash. We took it and in 1980 they wanted $20? My buddy said pass and so the broke it up.
Another we went to junk yard and we would fine a half of a Corvette and then on the other side of the road another half in the other part of the yard. This fave us pause.
We later saw they were busted for stolen cars.
The day I stopped and saw a complete Tri power gor sale. The guy told me $90. I could not pay fast enough.
I was given a 1990 Fiero emblem. I then found a few more on EBay. I had spoken to the company that made them and even got the engineering drawing from GM.
I then started to find them on E bay one in a while. They were always in Michigan. I expect they were pocketed when the car was canceled as there was no 1990 Fiero ever sold.
My self and a few friends own the 24 known to be left.
The company that made them sent me what ones they had left. 12
First, toss that ink printer in the trash, and get a laser printer! Second, get a USB cable and create a fixed link from your new, reliable printer to the computer. Now that your printer issues are solved, here is my parts story-
In the mid 80’s long before the internet, there were swap meets, including the monthly one in Pamona, CA. I was restoring a ’64 GTO and found a guy selling an entire ’65 GTO, sitting on a trailer, at the swap meet. The only part that I wanted was the OEM dash tach, but he would only sell the whole car, with it’s Chevy drag strip engine. A challenge, as I had driven a car from my home in Phoenix. After a few long distance phone calls from a pay phone (remember the year), I arranged to buy and then resell the car to three friends who wanted various parts, arrange for free transport back to Phoenix (where everyone lived), and a place to part the car out, at another friend’s shop. In short, a CA drag car was parted out in AZ, in under a week, to multiple buyers, and I got a rare dash tach for free!.
Ah yes, I do need to get myself a laser printer. Thank you for the reminder!
Pretty involved for just a tach, but that is a pretty wild story for sure!
