Featured Hot Rods Things I don’t need

I did NOT need another Flathead, this is number 3, I have one car.
Last week I didn’t need another banjo, and the week before I didn’t need a 40 front axle.
I guess the thrill is in the hunt.
Who else has had a problem stopping after the parts needs are met?

 

You got the sickness.

 

I believe I do. I’m going to need more space…

 

It occurs to me @Rehpotsirhcj , that you’re hooked ( addicted that is, you got it bad) on traditional hot rods.

 

But it has EAB heads. You need it!

 

Good to have spares and extra parts for our old engines.
Especially since we like to stress-test 'em once in awhile.

 

I buy all sorts of parts for builds I haven't even thought of yet just because the parts are cheap.

 

If you can’t help yourself and need to find someone to donate parts you don’t need and spread the gotta have themits sickness to, I’d be happy to help. Of course my wife is already upset that every broke or abandoned vehicle I see has me thinking about how it could be saved or used to save something else. It’s a good thing my wife can’t see the stack of parts I have for the 51.

 

Over the last decade I sold off or gave away most things I don't have a specific plan for. I'm tired of hoarding stuff. I've learned that the more stuff you own, the more stuff owns you and your time. Doesn't make it right, but it works for me.

I'm not buying more, but I have a 283 I won't let go of, a 4.280 big block chevy I could put together with either a 3.76 or 4.00 crank I have on hand, the ST10 and 2 TH400's.

Devin

 

Spare parts are better than money in the bank.

 

It's a sickness. A good sickness.

 

If we didn't collect these things ''for safe keeping'', it would fall on a few and they will get pissed off holding it for everyone that may need it and they would then thin the inventory to a more managable size and a lot of good shit would be lost. It's our duty to do this the best we can. JW

 

When I started into this hobby with my build, I met a young guy who had a treasure trove of flathead related parts. He had a beautiful shop with a lift, a lathe, milling machine, etc. He was actually a machinist. He had three cars in his shop at the time. Upstairs was his trove of parts. He had some rare speed equipment. I was impressed. In his shop he had 3-4 flatheads sitting on industrial shelving. More stuff than he could ever use. When I asked if I could buy some benign part (I went there via an ad to buy some others parts), the answer was - no. Left a bad feeling in my mouth. Folks new to the hobby come across this kind of stuff, and it can put them off. I understand the high of finding stuff for a build, but holding onto stuff that one will likely never use when someone else could, I can never understand. I’ve also seen and benefited from folks wanting to clear their hoard out - those are the folks who really made a difference in my journey.

 

I never question the reasoning behind why somebody might not be willing to sell me their good vintage hot rod parts that took so much time and effort to collect.

What I can never understand is anybody willing to sell dumb old me their perfectly good vintage hot rod parts that took so much time and effort to collect.

But I'm glad when they do.

 

I never realized it was a "problem"...maybe that's my problem......?

 

As I got older I started to weed out all the stuff that I had had for 20 years and hadn't used yet. Then then it went to 15 years, then 10. I'm down to 5 years now and will try to keep it at that age. I now have a shop without a lot of clutter that is way easier to work in. Surprisingly I have only missed a few things of all the stuff I got rid of. So that proved to me I didn't need all that stuff in the first place.

 

I wanted to do a flathead. I scrounged 1 up that was a good builder and it is in my roadster. Before too long everybody around here that had one somehow heard I was into them and before it made sense I had 4 of them. Hey parts are hard to get right so I figured why not have everything in triplicate! Well after tripping over them for years I parted them out and got rid of them. Welcome to the world of hot rodding!

 

Close to home with almost no travel/time costs is allways a bargain.

 

Lots of things I don't need are the most important things to me.
Being old and divorced for 20 years means there's nobody to stop me.
More fun to buy than to sell.........

 

needing and wanting are two differnt things ... ie -I dont need another beer..I just want one.

 

With me, it was space, or the illusion of it. Before I went OTR trucking, I collected up some parts, mostly cast off stuff from other buddy’s race or hot street car efforts. They were always chasing “new tech” , when I honestly couldn’t see the difference in a lot of it over what they had. It did get me better prices though!

Living out in the country, I don’t have to answer to anyone but the wife about the clutter around here. She never fussed too bad when her good car sat out in the weather so my piece of crap project was on the concrete floor. But when the yard started getting hard to walk in because of the crap I piled up, she made it known things had to change. By then I was trucking full time, gone 5 to 10 days at a time, my little home time was spent getting rid of junk. Slowly, my yard began to reappear! No longer did my place look like a hermit lived there. And since I retired, I’ve continued, now it looks like decent people might live here, lol.
I sold, traded, gave away a bunch of stuff I knew I’d never use. Hauled off the parts cars that were basically skeletons. Bought a portable building and got more stuff out of the carports. Feels good to be able to walk through the yard and carport without a piece of rusty metal waiting to open up gash big enough to look like a railroad track. And the real funny part, I haven’t missed one damn piece of that junk I thought I had to have at one time, and then never used!

 

And truck pumps. Ready to drop in a high boy

 

want it all.......and I want it now.......great song lyrics....

 

This is a reminder that need to start digging stuff out to haul to a swap meet in two weeks. I need to do a lot of weeding out of parts that don't have a project to go on and never will at my house plus refill the parts fund kitty for the 48.

 

Not me, I NEED one!

 

Truth be told.... you don't NEED an old car either......

 

This of course is entirely untrue.

 

No, you need more than one

 

Years ago I had hoarded a bunch of really good parts, a couple Pontiac 3 duece setups that were complete minus air cleaners, ram air 3 heads, factory gm 12 bolt 4-series posi rear end etc. etc and I was the envy of many many Pontiac guys.

But then I started to sell a bunch and I mean a lot of it and it actually got used, on real cars being driven instead of sitting on shelves and collecting dust and looking pretty AND I ended up spending the money on things I WOULD actually use.

Now I'm down to stuff that I will actually use, my friends get the stuff they need if I have it and I get the stuff I need if they have it.

But then again I'm one of those guys that feel if it ain't being used it ain't worth having.

....