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Final Wishes and what to do with hoards of parts

4K views 17 replies 14 participants last post by  BillyM 
#1 ·
Dave's post in another thread below got me thinking about something important we should do, not with reproducing parts but with the hoards of parts that many of us are sitting on.

That last HOLY GRAIL NOS part I saw someone find and buy was a MKII fuel tank!
I think that drjim's racing mirrors qualify as well.NOS sunroof seal in the wrapper?

Japan must have some really BIG warehouses of Toyota parts!
How did Seamus FIND a NOS arm rest pad?:32::sadsmilie
A while back someone grabbed a NOS complete rear hatch!
My (NOS )last part was OEM whiskers for my L type.

We have to MAKE some rare and high-failure-rate parts or even close reproduction pieces.Plastic and rubber,mostly.
Greg has molded new whiskers.

Molded or 3D printed or get crafty and modify some parts that will work.
Lately I have been looking for those triangle garnish parts and I have Arch sending them to me,but Mutant colors needs those to make 3D printed ones! His triangles are missing also!.....Sooo Arch to Dave>Dave to Mutant colors>back to Dave in Seattle.

I would call that a win-win-win.

Has any of our members found a NOS part still in the package for their Supra's,lately? I just want to drool a little.
**** Thy shall not covet thy neighbors parts.***
Supply and demand dictates prices,as usual.
Not lately, but about 15 years ago I stumbled onto a huge hoard. Some newby posted a for sale thread with a mere two lines that said something about miscellaneous parts and gave no details. I contacted the guy and his wife sent me an Excel spreadsheet listing several dozen parts, and most of them quantity of two. Turns out an older guy owned two Supras and planned to restore them one day, but his health had gone downhill and he wasn't going to be able to. Apparently Malloy knew the guy and told him to post here, but I think that was during the time Malloy was between Supras so he didn't buy them (anyone remember Malloy's parts closet?). Anyway, Bill C was in the middle of his stellar restoration and needed a bunch of the parts right away. We pooled our money and sent them, I forget exactly now, but seems like it was between $2,000 and $3,000 for easily at least $5,000 worth of oem parts plus a few good used parts he had collected. We divided the parts between us, Bill finished his restoration and I'm still sitting on my stash. I had also started back in the 90s buying extra bits. Anytime I needed a part for a repair, I'd add a couple of trim pieces or a switch or something to my order. By about 2002, it was hopeless as everything I tried to tack on was no longer available. (Sadly, I kept thinking about getting a spare dash pad, but at over $900 I never pulled the trigger; I finally got a good used one after another 13 years of searching and buying three not so good ones). Hopefully I'll get these parts installed on my Supra before MY health goes. If not, you vultures will have a treat.

But there's no telling how many of us are out here sitting on hoards of parts. I just recently finished a 72 Corvette (stoked it got an NCRS Top Flight its first time out in October), but throughout that process I met a whole bunch of people who were sitting on hoards of Corvette parts and would occasionally let some go if they found themselves with extras or found a "better" part while rummaging through swap meets. Sometimes you buy an NOS part, but its not perfect because its been stored in a damp basement or something. NOS often doesn't mean "mint".

I recently got to thinking how many parts might ultimately go to waste too. Sadly, a very good friend of mine who helped immensely with the Corvette project passed away in September unexpectedly of a heart attack. He left a HUGE stash of rare parts as well as four collector cars. He was recently retired and had made a hobby of going to swap meets and looking for rare Corvette parts. Nobody knew when he had passed because his only daughter didn't know his circle of gearhead friends and his phone and computer were locked so she didn't have a way to contact anybody. My brother tried to contact him and eventually after getting worried, found his obituary on a funeral home website two days after the funeral. The funeral home gave him the daughters phone number and we made arrangements to meet with her. We made sure his parts are now safe with a Corvette parts vendor, but it got me to thinking about how many people die leaving a hoard of car parts that the family won't be inclined to do the right thing with. How many would see a bunch of old car parts on a shelf and just throw them in the garbage, the most expedient way to clean things out so they can sell the house and move on? I bet it happens a lot.

So moral to the story, if you are sitting on a hoard of Supra parts, make sure your family knows what you want done with them if something happens to you and leave somebody your passwords and contact lists and very importantly, leave instructions to post something on our forum so WE know what happened to you.
 
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#3 ·
Thankfully I bought most of what I needed back in 2000. The dash and the seat backs were discontinued back then though. If anyone want to retire early and has a new black dash LMK :D

Pretty much anything on these cars could be recreated, there just isn't a market to do so. I looked at doing the rocker mouldings, but you probably need to get up near 100 sets to even break even. I figure you'd sell about 10 and everyone else would complain they could just wood screw a $4 2x4 on for less. Corvettes you can easily sell 500+ without too much difficulty.
 
#4 ·
Someone out there could probably draw a reasonably solid line between car enthusiasts (collectors, restorers, etc.) and a tendency for hoarding.

It's incredibly challenging to let go of something that might be useful(say, an expired original alternator from your LS400) or to let something pass by that might not come around again (an OEM-style CF hood you have zero intention of ever using).

There's a line between that and keeping buckets of stuff you know you'll never use. Twenty years from now, no one will need the 82 cruise control on/off switch. Unless...

BAH!

Sometimes seeing how someone else "does it" can be enough to jostle you from your current thoughts. I know when I saw Ryan's (funkycheeze) "setup", it certainly changed my view on what a person needs to keep around. Simply have good stuff in one car, and keep that car in good shape. The rest will figure itself out. That's my goal.
 
#5 ·
Most of us DO have extra parts that we pick up along the way. Used and new stuff from the 2,000's.Some OEM new,some aftermarket parts or used items that back then ,were around.Gasket sets,seals,alternators and starter parts,motor mounts and trim parts. I gave a LOT of stuff away because I have no more room to store them.They went to a forum member,of course.Free stuff for a MK II:come and get 'em.Interior plastic in BLUE,a steering wheel and wiper parts and a (CORE )5 MGE engine was free.
My rebuilt engine runs great and my car will be here long after I take the big dirt nap.
I don't have a 40 foot trailer to store my stuff and I'm a hoarder,too.My 2 shops are packed full of an assortment of house hold and automotive related items. I'm a home owner and I have to have those parts to fix or replace broken things.
If my car BREAKS,I'll look for a replacement part for about 2 days on line and then come to you people.An engine.
Tail lights,electrical switches,a radio,Window and wiper motors,mirrors,fog lights, and other small Toyota parts.
TWO 4.10 LSD's.Rubber hatch seal.
https://i.imgur.com/GZYIpjW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0z0pHVl.jpg
FREE:
[url=https://imgur.com/W59pySo][/URL]
The plastic parts that are NA,we can make.
 
#6 ·
Hello all. First post I've read here in at least a year..... Most of us sitting on a stash of parts have a car (or 5) we plan to put them on someday and just never get to it. Even needing money it's hard to let go of things like this black dash I've stored on a shelf in my house for the last 16 YEARS because I know I will never find another if I do. (But otoh I'm fixing to sell most of my MKII's and it doesn't make sense to put it in a car and then sell the car when I can get more money selling it individually, so I might consider seeing what SilverMkII considers early retirement, lol.)
What I think I will do right away though is put a card with some names and phone numbers on it with some of my better parts, for my family to call if anything happens to me. I would like to make sure you guys end up with this stuff in that event.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Early retirement? You bet! 62 1/2 for me in 2013. I'm GLAD I'm out of my shitty 9 to 5!
22 years in an automotive tire shop just about killed me. 3 hernias.

You own a Black dashboard? Gawd!

I need to talk to my lawyer and get a notarized statement that my Supra will NOT be sold on the open market.
It gets posted here,first.My heirs have no idea what this '84 car really is.

I was lucky enough to be able to swap in a new 5 MGE a few years back. I sit round too much and have lost 1/3 of my muscle-mass in 8 years. I'm not too fat yet,but I know that doing an engine swap @ 68 would be really hard for me.I had help.(Thanks,85p)
Swapping a pumpkin took me all day,2 years ago.I'm good for about 3 hours of work and I'm done. 10 years ago,10 hour days was routine.Suspension specialist.I really loved swinging a Snap-On hammer at those stubborn bastards. "Ball joints?" Give it to Dave. OMG,A Mercedes? Gimme 2 hours,please.

I'm getting older every day and I worked all of my life to get this far. NOW,this is the first time in all of my born days that I have both time AND money. :thumbsup:
Las Vegas in March.
https://i.imgur.com/BGnUI0A.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/R6idSjV.jpg
No really,see the links.
 
#8 ·
I am thinking that I will "semi-retire" well before I'm eligible for medicare; ditch the high-pressure office job and work just part-time, maybe four or five hours a day, in a shop doing classic car restoration. I love doing it but its a money-losing hobby so its sort of a dream of mine to be able to enjoy it while having somebody else writing the checks. Ideally I'd love to work for some wealthy collector. Then I'd fully retire when I can't do it anymore or my full benefits kick in. But yea, the statistics show that after hundreds of years of increasing lifespans what with medical advances and easy living, life expectancy is going down again. I bet its 99.9% due to people working longer and retiring later. I figure by age 60 we all deserve a bit of a break.
 
#9 ·
Like lechner, first time I've been on the board in at least a year. I turned 69 last month and have lost a sister and too many friends since I was last on here. Hoping 2020 is better than 2019 in that regard.

If any of you HOARDERS have a set of OEM ball joints for an '85 "P" Type, I promise to put them to good use. TIA.


Ken.
 
#10 ·
About 6 months after we moved here I started disposing on a lot of Amateur Radio gear and "Vintage Computer" parts I'd collected over the years.

I finally realized that I was never going to use this stuff, and selling it off was a good way to take some of the pain out of my wife disposing of it when the inevitable comes.

And I made more than enough cash to jump on those mirrors when they popped up!

Most of the PC stuff is gone now, and I made a good dent in the radio stuff.

Nice to see you pop up here, Ken!
 
#11 ·
A very rare post, indeed.

:)
 
#12 ·
Dave's post in another thread below got me thinking about something important we should do, not with reproducing parts but with the hoards of parts that many of us are sitting on.

How did Seamus FIND a NOS arm rest pad?
I didn't. He misread my post. The arm pad in my car was replaced brand new by the original owner back in 95/96, I have the receipt for it. This is why no one is allowed to put their arm on it when they get in my car.

To answer your question Phil, the answer is obvious, get your wills in order. I started writing mine a year ago or so and had a huge section on what to do with the cars, the shop and all my parts and a whole list of people to contact if I kick it early lol. I should probably get back to that soon and get it finished and legalized.

But yeah, leaving a massive pile of stuff for your family to deal with is not cool. If its really stuff you will never need, deal with it yourself beforehand. My spouses grand father died a few years back, and the man was an impulsive shop a holic, hoarder. He literally had 4 sheds in his backyard filled with tools mostly. He was in his 80s and didn't really use any of them at that point. The man had 9 electric drills, 9! We had to have a massive garage sale, filled a 3 car garage with all his stuff. Took over a year to deal with it all after he passed. You should have seen his basement!
 
#13 ·
Amen to all that, write a friggin will, and have friends lined up to help deal with your stuff. I'm the only mechanically inclined family member left so whenever someone kicks it they all come to me to sort it out. Had to sell 4 motorcycles for my cousin when her dad passed, etc. Fun times.

Luckily i share shop space with a couple buddies so if i kick it, it's all in a space with friends already except the stuff i have at home...
 
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