60FlatTop

I have been throwing away much more stuff than I used to, not buying accumulations like I used to due to the expense of selling and the expectations of buyers.. What I do sell is larger items, whole cars, abandoned projects, stuff like that. If I use Ebay It ends up costing me about 40% to sell an item online. If I sell an $80 item and charge $20 shipping that is a $100 sale. Both Ebay and Paypal charge fees on the total. And where I was once secure in estimating the USPS cost, they tend to surprise me more often than ever before. I look at tracking and see some strange circuitous trips that explain some of that. But at the end it seems like everyone got their money but me. I am lucky the car parts are just a hobby and I have a completely different business I call work. I just spend a little extra effort at work. I have a personal net positive situation but the hobby doesn't benefit. When I see a garage with a lifetime collection of parts and it goes unsold some neat stuff goes away forever. That's just the way it is. Last year I put four usable but not great '48 Lincoln Continental fenders out by the road. Someone picked them up within a couple hours. A rust free door went the same way. No regrets about the parts but a big smile at gaining the space. Quite a few years ago I parted out my Wife's '69 Fleetwood. The front bumper was really nice but had a small scratch in the side. I knew it would be an Ebay sale I would regret. I got a few more years of enjoyment from it. Then a local guy with a '69 convertible put it to its intended use. Marketing, values,perceived value, costs, and a whole bunch of stuff plays into the car hobby economy. For me, swap meets never worked, I spent all the money I took in and someone's space. Now, every once in a while I hear some old timer say "I'm not spending my hard earned money on that." I'm a baby boomer. I never had any "hard earned money". I don't recall ever working very hard. What were they doing? Maybe it's all cultural after all. Bernie

I kind of enjoyed the ad. BUY HERE PAY HERE Program. UP TO 4 Repo's---QUALIFIED At least $600/mo---QUALIFIED SSI or Disability---QUALIFIED Self-Employed---QUALIFIED Cash Income--Exotic Dancer--QUALIFIED First Time Buyer---QUALIFIED Bad Credit, No Credit---QUALIFIED W-7---QUALIFIED Ch-7 & Ch-13---QUALIFIED It made me feel, well.....kinda.... qualified.

I guess Craigslist ads really are supposed to be for local use. Up here in this neck of the woods I read he would trade some something bagged I immediately thought of a skunk or a woodchuck. And I live right in a town with 10,000 people. Imagine what the country folks thought! Bernie

Those look like questions put together by a committee of people whom don't know anything about wheel weighs. Did your instructor tell you a skilled polster can pole anything, even if they don't know about it? Ummmm, adhesive vs, clipped might be more appropriate for an MBA than sticked. Just for that extra bit of polish. Bernie

If you start working on the rear springs you can get into trouble if you just unbolt the shock and pull the axle down to slide the spring in. I always loosen all the suspension pivot point bolts where they go through rubber bushings and remove the tension. I have a large chisel that I work between the inner edge of the arm and the chassis mount. I tap it until the arm spreads enough to loosen the serrated edge of the sleeve or retainer. That way the arm can swing much farther without tearing the old rubber bushing. On a coil spring rear suspension you need to free both ends of the lower control arm, the upper control arm, and the track bar. If you don't (or they don't) you could here a pretty good rap from a torn bushing when you go over a bump. Bernie

I had a nice little '67 Skylark convertible. At the time I remember thinking both the size and performance were just perfect for that car. I am guessing a little but I think I owned it around 1975 or 1976. It really was a great balance of a car. Bernie

I took a ride down there on one of my Uncle's boats. Spent quite a bit of time on Kings Cross. I imagine a few things have changed in the past 50 years, though. And ask how the Trigeneration 2030 job in Sydney is coming along. That should be the start of a rousing conversation. Bernie

"Hey, Dad, if someone came along with $11,000 for the '50 and the Lincoln together would you take it?" "Yeah, I guess so." "Well! You're not going to believe this!" I would be proud of my Daughter if she figured that out. Bernie

See the flat flanges and the long through bolts on the inlet side. That is a bench fabricated muffler. That one doesn't make a attempt at looking original. Most of these pipe flares and only about 1/16" in seating width and do not have a tightening shoulder as prominent as the originals. This car doesn't have resonators either. If you are looking for a loud car it probably is. But when you want a really quiet car it is hard to get the right parts.

Probably didn't even like Scoopy, President of the Nocturnal Emissions Car Club. I liked it when Tanya said "all the boys want to drive, and all the girls want to ride". Reminded me of a girlfriend I had when I was in my 20's, great memories. Bernie

If it has been in Chicago for a while I guess the likelihood of getting it back shot is pretty high. And that really is a record record car.

I worked with a group trying to establish an automotive museum in Rochester, New York, a place with a very rich car history. I still have some federal guidelines on my bookshelf. It became apparent, very quickly, that to use the name "museum" for a nonprofit organization we had to give up management as car hobbyists and turn the operation over to professionally licensed or degree holding archivists and preservationists. The deeper we got the less control over the items we had. It is regulated into being a poor environment. We dropped the cause. I remember a story about Yann Saunders of the Cadillac Club visiting the Cadillac Museum. The story goes that a group of archival interns had a large collection of photographs spread out on a table and were trying to reference them to Cadillac history without much success. Being a were hobbyist like most of us, Yann picked up pictures and immediately recognized the connection to Cadillac. But the inters had been trained for their careers. Lots of stories there; the difference between a job and a passion, regulations and requirements of employment, things one doesn't see on the surface. And a whole different set of priorities. Exceptions are always out there. I remember being at the ACD Museum one weekday morning and having a great conversation with a volunteer who was wiping down the L29 limo on the floor. I love that place. Bernie

Ten to fifteen years ago I could get a 40 foot container from Port Elizabeth, New Jersey to Gutenberg, Sweden for $2500. That would hold two cars. The guys on the west coast were building ramps in the containers to stack a second row to get four cars in. We never tried that. I would try to get two cars shipped together. They both have to be collector cars. Anything modern and competing with their existing market carries a big tariff. If it wasn't for other country's tax laws I would be shipping Chevy trucks all over the world. Bernie

By all means, do a video of you with the curved needles repairing the top. Sell me the rights to the video and you can throw the car away, neither of us will have to work another day of our lives when I market that. Oh, be sure to get good audio.

I have a Packard, too. It is a few years newer than this girl's, but if I was looking for a helper in the garage....

We all have that talent. It is just a matter of balancing your chemical intake, and a little pure Rocky Mountain water.

Throw in another 35% that you had to earn before taxes. and you get close.

Some people have done unbelievable things with maroon duct tape. The color looks close and the job is, truly unbelievable. Bernie

Think about that car. $20,000 after income tax in 2017 money. And I paid $2,000 for my '64 Riviera in 1978, after tax money. My '64 came with an incorrect exhaust system, '64 Impala seats, and a non-original vinyl top. I was able to either bear with or change those horrors and generally pretty happy with it. I imagine whoever ends up with it will feel about the same in 2057 if they keep it that long. Oh, I don't think that car was originally claret mist metallic, but mine wasn't either. It was brown. Bernie

I found a group that may be able to discuss the subtleties of Riviera styled steel wheels and a few of the other details about first generation cars. Bernie

I have a weakness for Jaguars. The first one was a V12 XJS and I have run quite a range of them. None now, but I feel like one is pending. The windows are on the west side of my garage and I use them to keep the afternoon sun from damaging the concrete floor. Anyway, here is a reply to remember. The last Jaguar that I was serious in was an early XK8, 1999 or 2000. I knew what is was and made what I figured was a reasonable offer near market price. The salesman, get this, told me that "they had more than that" in the car. Stupid takes a person by surprise sometimes and I really choked on that one. I immediately asked "Is the wholesaler's position open? You can't be serious. How did you ever expect to sell it?." Well, I guess he had heard a lot of replies, but not that one. I left my card and told him that I might consider the car as a sign on bonus if they would like to hire me as a buyer. The car sat there for about 8 months and I think it vaporized at a dealer auction. I also ended up at a store where they were having an "emergency" liquidation sale. They had a million dollars in overstock cars that needed to be moved immediately. I asked why they didn't stop buying when they got to around $400,000 and offered to fill the obviously vacant position of buyer there, as well. Maybe when I mature I won't take things literally, but I'm sure going to miss a lot of entertainment if I do. Bernie

The movie "Suckers" and reruns of Wonder Woman are enough entertainment for me. I do have a playful streak of larceny in me..... well, maybe just plain exploitation. On the finance thing, I saw an old guy walk onto the showroom floor and say "I have cash on the barrel head. A salesman brushed past him and said "I can't get one of those." I wrote earlier, ask for dealer financing, make one payment and roll the loan over to a credit union or cash it out. The ultimatum approach works great on the last day of the month as long as you are reasonable. They are counting down (or up) that quota. The ultimatum thing works for both buying and selling if you recognize the motivation. "I live 300 miles away, I am paying cash and you will never see me or this car again. If you are buying a Jaguar it's really good! Almost forgot, the first car I sold on Ebay was a Rover TC 2000. It was shipped from western New York to a buyer in California who told me he planned to disassemble it when it arrived. Wow! Talk about a sweeeet sale! Bernie

Only with Duluth Ming Company Buck Naked underwear under the coats. Ever try to get into one of those cars?

Friday I am meeting with the accountant for our corporate taxes. A decade ago she asked if I had accounting experience. I told her I knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I have no accounting skills. "This is how accounting was always meant to be." Bernie