Getting my PHD in antique car parts shopping

[Jack Bennett]

My suggestion to anyone who shows inclination to become involved in antique car restoration and/or collection is that they acquire the services of a good psychoanalyst and talk to a behavior modification therapist first.

A decision to redirect every spare, or stolen, minute of time and a indeterminate amount of money, into a hobby which, at best produces a car capable of doing 35 MPH, and the possibility of not stopping until it hits something, deserves some serious thought.

Planning a vacation tour to Panama would include the consideration that the mosquitoes are voracious, and the bulk of the tour may be spent shooing them away. Why then would the choice of a hobby not include the pitfalls of the gremlins hiding in the car hobby.

I chose, and, more frequently than not, enjoy working on. looking at, and occasionally driving my old cars. But I do get vexed when the hobby forces me to leave the comfort and security of my garage or workshop and enter the world of the internet and uninvited/unwelcome personal confrontation.

Sometime in the 1970’s, I completed, what I believed, was a sufficient amount of scholastic, and vocational, education that I believed would take me through my entire lifetime.

However, I have found that this sort of education, in no way, prepared me for the simple task of finding a part for a ninety plus year old car.

I have discovered that the fairy tale, “Little Red Riding Hood”,  could be rewritten into a stage play, presented to old car hobbyists, staged as Red Riding Hood, and those posing as fellow hobbyists, but actually parts scalpers and lonely antagonists, or protagonists, staged as the hungry wolf.

Not to stereotype anyone involved in the hobby, and speaking in the first hand sense, actual, physical, labor entailing intensive, work on my old machines is a small part of participating in a hobby which is as much related to social interaction as it is a interest in mechanics, history and evolution of industry.

Yet, I find myself being diverted from trolling the internet, intent on finding the interchangeability of engines and transmissions used in my old truck, to a site, cluttered with irrelevant advertisements selling something, and features a person, who obviously don’t know the difference between a motor and a engine, diligently adjusting the magneto on a old motorcycle and selling Kroil.

That said, I still value the conversations with, and the information they share, every member of this forum who has the tenacity to put up with my own human traits.

Jack

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Jack Bennett (see edit history)

[ddavis]

Enjoyed and related to your post! In my first year of owning a 1932 Studebaker Dictator and researching parts has been an eye opener. I was fortunate enough to have received an entire set of running gear- engine, transmission, axles, driveline etc. I have developed an appreciation of the completeness of my vehicle and the huge amount of work done by the previous owner. While the car is a 'driver', I have become very careful about not damaging any component due to the difficulty of replacing anything I might break.

[Terry Bond]

PHD = Piled High and Deep. That's the way it can get with old cars.

Terry