Jan 16 2007, 9:47 pm / Other
I just finished up an conversation with a friend. Topic was parts and what your plans are for your car. Money was a topic in of itself. In the conversation I drifted off to the 80's: Getting performance parts in the 80"s was big dollars. Trying to locate or if it was made for a Ford was the first issue. Somethings could easily be adapted for a Ford while others the "price" cost more than the part. Then there were the parts that just made things better, like leaving a points distributor for a Ford Duraspark then upto the Mallory Unilite. If you had money the unilite was the ticket. But most of us didn't so we eithered suffered with points or went to our favorite junkyard. Yep looking/searching for that perfect distributor/duraspark set up was the goal. One could purchase the items, but if you could do that you'd have a unilite. So the "favorite" junkyard: was one consisting of grass/weeds two or three feet tall around the car, with livestock in the field. (for you city kids this is cows) One could learn about what could interchange between cars. Locating items that could trade was also good, any pontiac big block part (sometimes the whole engine) was a good trade for a GTO or Firebird. There were also times of checking behind back seats for change or whatever some kid left. Once I stuck my hand back behind a seat to have a mouse crawl over it - ya' I screamed like a 15yr girl with tickets to Leif Garrette or Shawn Cassidy. Ultimately one found the part. Some parts (mostly small) were taken without any troubles. But then came the time like when I was getting disc brake spindles from a wrecked big block mustang. The car was twisted so the part was fairly out in the open. Jack the car up, place a rim under the frame and get the part. What's hard about this you ask? It was the fresh (still wet) cow patties that were all around the car. I sometimes wondered if the cows knew that junkyard and planned their "patties" as I searched for that "perfect" car. Each pattie perfectly placed where no matter what I did I was in the s@#$T of it - so to speak. This happened on most of the "good" item, like nodular nine inch differential to 4 speed toploaders (big input shaft). I could spend most of a saturday afternoon "searching" for the perfect part. Most of the time was a success and money was saved. There were times I'd get the part home to find the little difference to where I couldn't use the part. My folks had a shed of all those parts. Today it's much, much better parts wise. There are companies like the sponsors of this website, ebay, or magazine spreads. The good thing is you get the right part the first time and the price is competitive. You even get fortunate to miss out on the mouse events and definitely the livestock situations. But what do people do with their saturday afternooons?
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