3macboys Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 7 hours ago, TAKerry said: I like seeing your behind the scenes look of a parts re-seller. I often see things on ebay and such for say a shop manual for a 74 whatever. The ad will say something like 'only 10 left'. I think to myself 'who has 11 of these laying around?' Now I know, LOL. Yes I am that guy! Sadly a bunch of those manuals are for front wheel drive cars and vans - not big movers but somewhere someone will be looking for them. I just sold a set for a 1992 Ford Festiva this week. You can tell which cars must have been problem ones when new, those manuals are well worn from the dealership. One of my pet peeves on here is when someone asks what the value of something is and inevitably someone will reply with "Not much" which is such a subjective term. I wish they would just give a dollar amount and let the poster make up their mind what to do with the object they are asking about. Those "Not Much" guys wouldn't walk past a $10 bill laying on the sidewalk. Well my shop is full of $10 bills. Ok, I'll step down off my soap box now. Actually, the longer that I've been doing the selling you realize just how regional the hobby is and there are very distinct interests depending on where you are located. Datsun stuff is hot on the west coast and in Toronto. Volvo's tend to be an eastern thing along with Washington State and British Columbia. I don't know why but GM books are tough to move but Ford and Chrysler stuff will always find a new home. Of course Hawaii has a distinct flavor with a lot of 70's import cars out there. The earlier stuff tends to be east of the Mississippi, along with Texas and California. Of course these are only just general observations but they mirror where the cars were originally sold and where people with cars have moved to as they seek out warmer climes. For all the complaining people do about Ebay I couldn't do what I do without it or similar platforms as I'd never reach those niche markets going to swap meets. I've sent Volvo parts to Japan in the same week that I sent Japanese parts to France. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 6 hours ago, Joe in Canada said: You should try Lindsay Swap meet that is worth the extra drive. I keep looking at it - It is only a little over 2 hours away but this year it might not fit into my schedule. My wife is getting back from a trip with her mother right around then and our oldest is being deployed overseas at the same time and we hope to see him off if we can. If I don't go to vend I'll at least try to make it to shop, it's a meet that I've never been to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 8 hours ago, TAKerry said: Rarely does my truck get off a paved road, hence it stays nice and clean most of the time A new car wash just opened up here that has a fixed monthly fee that allows you to go through once a day. It just happens to be on my route from the post office to the shop every morning - I can tell you that my per wash cost is very low. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 Yesterday when I got the mail I was happy to find that the water pump packing that I had ordered a couple of weeks ago. The first use will be in the 26 Star. I figure that this is about a life time supply at just over 3 feet long. This is the pump on the car - lots of room to work but I want to give the car a bit of a cleaning first before I get at it. Now my next conundrum is to get things moved around a bit more so that I can actually get at that side of the car As happens to most of use when we are doing rather mundane tasks, my mind tends to wander. I know I've mentioned before on the forums that I'm a retired police officer - as I was taking those gauge clusters apart earlier this week I started to reflect that when I started my career we were taught about speedometer needle slap from gauges like these. For those not familiar with that term, in crashes involving some speed the speedometer needle will actually slap the face leaving a transfer of the fluorescent orange paint. Basically it's a result of that flexible light weight needle still moving forward at the time of impact, the gauge has stopped but the needle is still moving. It's the same principal as the occupants still moving forward after the vehicle has come to a stop. At the time that was one of the most reliable means we had of determining speed at the time of impact. One other thing that was taught was to seize the tail light bulbs and the headlights as experts at the time could determine from the filament if the lights were on and if the brake lights were activated as well. It seems pretty rudimentary by todays standards but at the time that's what we had. Today there's computers on board that record all sorts of information that is much more precise and of course with the advent of digital dashes and LED lights the old methods are somewhat obsolete. One of the other things that we had to do was determine the point of impact, sometimes that was quite easy, other times we experienced what I termed self clearing intersections where the momentum of the vehicles carried them off the road. In those cases you would be able find gouges in the road where the front suspension compressed and dug into the pavement. As vehicle design has improved and the way vehicles bend to absorb the impact you don't necessarily get those same marks. As I continued down the reflection rabbit hole I also recalled how frequently people were injured in collisions and the amount of time that I spent in Emergency departments checking on them. I started in 1990 when driver's side air bags were just coming into being and ABS wasn't mainstream yet. By the time I left it was rare to have anyone hurt that required transport to hospital - as the saying goes, they don't build them like they used to...and that's a good thing! So congratulations to you all, you have now passed basic collision investigation circa 1990! One final thought on the day as this speedometer was from a Volvo, remember when their advertising was all about safety, when was the last time you heard a car company pushing that? Now you just assume that any vehicle that you are buying is safe. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Byrd Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 3macboys, you are an interesting and informative character ! I sure am enjoying your posts and lust after your stash, lol ! I had loads of "stuff" too when we were still on the mainland, it is a wonderful habit/hobby/sickness/ side business to be in . I only have 3 oldies now, and am trying to sell one of them, so we don't need as much as we used to. Please keep up the reports and pictures for all of us "used too'rs and wanna-be's", ha ha ! As you can see from my garage, it is now a small stash ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 Thank you for the kind words @John Byrd My intent is to keep going for the year - as you can no doubt tell, I've got more than enough to keep me as busy as I want to be. I'm pretty sure that anyone who has gotten into the parts and manual business didn't wake up one day and think "This is what I'm going to do with my life". I know for me I had no intention of it getting to the point of where it is. I started off with a large lot of manuals from a Chrysler dealership in Milverton, Ontario, the old Kipfer's Motors. This was another family run dealership in a small town that basically got shut down by Chrysler wanting them to build a multi million dollar building which financially made no sense. That first lot of books took up two skids on the floor and it seemed manageable to sell things that way. As happens, things morphed and I kept buying more lots of stuff that I found and I also started to get people reaching out to me asking if I buy large lot of manuals and parts and that's where the ongoing changes of how the heck do you stock this stuff and keep it sorted. For the manuals I lucked into some library shelving that a community college was selling off and as luck would have it I was the only bidder for the online auction so that problem was mostly solved. The Redi-Rack shelving came about as a local company was clearing out a bunch of it but that as you can see that presents another challenge as it quickly became this: It has sort of become a made up process as I've been going along. Stuff is organized in a certain fashion, I've got my Ford Section, my Mopar Section, Heavy Truck etc but it hasn't always been the most user friendly to find stuff as it sells. I usually have a pretty good idea where stuff is and in what bin but I do end up moving three to get to the one that I need. I've had this table of sorts sitting around for a couple of years - I actually made it to support the Christmas tree in the back of the 64 D300 when we had parked it outside for a few years all decorated. The tree that we used to use gave up the ghost last year, so today was the day that the table got cut down to help with the parts section And the other side of the aisle I'll admit that these are "magazine" pictures and the rest of the shelving needs a lot of work to look organized. Each one of these little projects will save me time down the road. All the material that I used I already had on hand so it was just a couple of hours making it happen. I had tried the Excel spreadsheet thing and labeling the bins with numbers and tracking where each part was but I found that I was spending more time messing around with the computer than actually accomplishing anything. I'm sure with time I'll come up with a better mouse trap but for now this will work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 Yesterday I had a fellow come to the shop who I've sold a few parts and manuals to in the past. He's from only about 30 miles away and his car of choice is Ford Taurus SHO's - when was the last time that you saw one of those? In preparing for his arrival I kept going through my Ford section to seek out any parts that might be of interest to him. I did find a few pieces for him but more important to me was that it was an excuse/reason to go through most of the parts that I hadn't identified yet and get the shelving squared away. To continue on from the pictures above rest of that aisle on the left now looks like this: To do the shelving over I would not place it directly against the wall. Shelving is like work benches that there is a maximum depth of around 24 to at the most 30 inches. Anything more and stuff falls into a dead space that you can't reach and this industrial shelving is just way too deep against the wall. It's there now and not likely to be moved. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JACK M Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 My mom had an SHO. She didn't know or care what she had. She drove it into her 90s until my sister hid the keys. That car didn't have a straight panel on it. The last straw was in her parking garage when she backed into a cart that was stacked with heavy fire doors. They slid down onto the roof of the SHO sort of crushing the roof causing the moon roof to leak. (fortunately, it stayed in that parking garage until she passed). Not a single straight panel on that car, she had scratched, dented, bent every part of that poor thing. However, the leather interior and running gear were perfect. I had no problem selling it as was. The kid that bought it told me later that he was getting to know my mother thru some weird cosmic thing, My sister is a wack job too. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 Today was most a house cleaning day. The poor 26 Star I think was feeling neglected and need of a cleaning. The dust/dirt is just from sitting in the shop. I like to have the cars cleaned up before doing any work to them. It avoids grinding the dirt into the finish and I find that I stay cleaner and am happier and even a little bit more careful working on them. A little elbow grease and it looks a lot better. Now that it's cleaned up, and I've made a bit more space as well I can tackle the water pump packing 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 I am actually kind of proud of myself that in the showroom I've managed to keep the counter top clear on this one display cabinet. I cleaned out a bunch of stuff that was in front of it and have organized a few treasure inside. The Oxford Winner cigar box is a local piece, we are located in Oxford County. Though unofficially known as the Dairy Capital of Canada, we also used to have a large number of tobacco farms in the south end of the county. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skvitt Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Are those reel-to-reel tape decks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 5 hours ago, Skvitt said: Are those reel-to-reel tape decks? Similar vintage but they are record players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 The last couple of days have not been terribly exciting - it's that time of year to get the books caught up One of the great joys of running a small business in order to keep the doors open to the shop. I'm still kicking it old school and use the leger books to record everything. I know that there's plenty of software that I could use but between the cost and the learning curve I find the old pen and paper method works and is cost effective. There's something about writing it out as well that re-enforces what the actual cash flow is and the way I record things I can see immediately on every transaction where I stand. At the end of the day it takes me less than 20 hours to get everything together to ship off to the accountant, which for a years activity I figure is pretty good. I don't dare do the same thing keeping track of the expense of the cars - I don't want to have to order a bunch of red pens! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Today was another recovery day of bringing parts home that had been scattered at friends for several years. The end result is that we now have another Lego car with a lot of assembly required for a 55 Metropolitan. The car has been on quite a voyage over the last 20 to 25 years, having at one time thought to have been lost in a barn fire. Now the job will be to sort through the pile of parts and determine what is good, what's bad and starting the restoration process. Fortunately, my youngest is home from university on his reading week so I had help and he's keen to help with the car as we get to it. Some of this stuff I had been searching for years at my parents garage and basement, not realizing that it had been moved to another spot. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 This seems to have been a week of dragging stuff into the shop and filling up some of the space that I've made, which is partially true, but with a couple of busy days next week it should mostly be cleaned up and put away. Today was another day of bringing stuff in, but it was a completely different and I found these literally in my own back yard, less than ten blocks away from home. Filled the truck with Chev/Olds Kent Moore tools from about 66 to 72 with a few later ones in the mix as well. Really neat stuff and some of the tools still have the plastic/wax coating on them from the factory. Interesting thing about the GM tools is that a lot of them were packaged in cardboard boxes with only a few in the Styrofoam ones. My previous experience with tools of this age from Chrysler/Miller Tools was they were all in the Styrofoam. I've only found later Ford/Rotunda ones in the red plastic cases so I'm not sure who they were shipped in this time frame. Better part was finding out a bit more local history and confirming a local urban legend about the previous owner of the building the tools came from. Fun day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 24 Author Share Posted February 24 After a solid afternoon's effort today the pile of Metropolitan parts have been reduced to this: Either into a labeled box, placed with the car or put on shelves upstairs and labeled I've taken to putting a clipboard with every car with a list of either the service it needs or parts to order. In this case of this car as I was sorting the parts I started the list of what I'll need to get in order to complete the car. The list is by no means complete but it's a start of what we'll need and I can start ordering parts as finances allow. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 Since it was beautiful sunny, warm day in southern Ontario and the seat frame from the 55 Met was handy I decided that it was a perfect day to attack it. It was either keep messing around with a rusty piece of metal or give it a quick sanding and clean it up. The weather dictated that today was the day so after a light sanding outside to knock of the loose rust and dust etc it was set up on the saw horses. I used some 3/8" bolts with nuts to support it through the track mounting holes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 A couple of coats top and bottom with Por15 from a spray can and I'm happy with the end result. One little bit of progress on the day! This picture was after the first coat on the top. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 You ever have one of those days where you think that you have the world by the tail, only to have the world turn around and slap you to remind you who is in charge? Yesterday I went to the parts store on my way home and picked up a pail of cleaner for the parts washer. I thought bonus, it's even on sale this is good! Fast forward to this afternoon and I'm casually pouring it into the parts washer not thinking about much other than making sure that the fluid isn't splashing back on me. Then it happens, I start to notice a little different sound but don't think much of it. Slowly I realize that sound is the reservoir under the tub is overflowing and that sound is my on sale fluid running down the side of the machine and all over the floor! It's a good thing that it was still a nice day today temperature wise so I opened both overhead doors to vent out the fumes for a couple of hours. I don't recommend this method to degrease your shop floor, however, it is surprisingly effective! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAKerry Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 Yes, it seems about 3 out 7 work that way for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 On 2/28/2024 at 8:53 AM, TAKerry said: Yes, it seems about 3 out 7 work that way for me! I'd say that you can take that as a win! 4 out of 7 you are still on the plus side... The rest of this week had led to little work on the fleet. I think that I've cleaned the showroom out 3 times of stuff that's been dragged home, a combination of great finds and some family furniture pieces for storage, because of course we must have room for it! A couple more fun finds on the week An yes that price for gas is per gallon! I do wonder when gas started to be a real floating price, that sometimes seems hourly. For the station to have invested in a painted sign gas must have stayed the same price for a long time. The head rest that is still intact on the one creeper is stuffed with horse hair. All of the casters are intact and actually work on them, though I'm not about to put them into use. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skvitt Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 No updates? Is weather too nice to work in the shop? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 11 hours ago, Skvitt said: No updates? Is weather too nice to work in the shop? Actually the weather has been to a benefit here, I actually had the overhead doors open yesterday to help clear out the odor from me debacle with the parts cleaner fluid. I'll have to get a few pictures tomorrow but after going a bit of a buying spree last week I've been working to clean up the mess that I've made dragging stuff home. Here's a couple more pictures of the new entries to the place. But really my favorite piece from last week was several pieces of copper work - if I claim that they came off a coach house does that count as car related? I'm also gearing up for another Nostalgia Show this Sunday in Woodstock. Sadly the cars have take a wee bit of a back seat but back to them tomorrow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAKerry Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Rain collectors, downspouts ran through them. We can say they were off of a carriage house/garage, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 I've got the downspouts as well - from what I can determine it looks like everything dates to around 1900-1910 - quite the bit of craftsmanship involved in it all and then the spikes and wedges to mount the downspouts are another neat little piece. It seems like I'm always on a time line when I'm dropping stuff off at the shop and the immediate location it all goes to is the showroom which results in the place getting cluttered fairly quickly. It's not all bad as it forces me to deal with it in a timely fashion but this is how the place often ends up looking: \ If you look closely at the magazine rack you'll notice a little promotion for the club The other side of the chassis of the 30 Dodge And along the other wall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 Then it ends up spreading out into the shop With a little time and effort today things look at least presentable 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 The office chair is my father's spot - I don't dare move it! Those wire baskets do come in handy and I've started to pack up for the show this Sunday, bonus was cleaning up at the same time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 And finally, least the vehicles feel neglected, I did get a bit of the hood waxed on the 64 D300 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 2 hours ago, 3macboys said: I know that desk, it is a secretary desk. It is supposed to have a typewriter bolted to the part that flips up. Closed the typewriter is hidden, and when open the typewriter pops up for use. I have one with the typewriter still attached. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 31 minutes ago, Larry Schramm said: I know that desk, it is a secretary desk. It is supposed to have a typewriter bolted to the part that flips up. Closed the typewriter is hidden, and when open the typewriter pops up for use. I have one with the typewriter still attached. I had no idea what it was when I picked it up - it came from an auction sale and was a whopping 5 bucks. Long story short is being an online auction, I already had to go there to pick up some other stuff so I figured I would grab it cheap and only figured it out afterwards. I think it would make a neat desk today with a laptop instead of the typewriter. Best part was that my youngest was home from university on his reading week so I had a young set of arms to help me move it! BTW he was the one who suggested what it's original use was - never under estimate the knowledge of a 19 yr old. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAKerry Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 I may have missed but are you planning on running a retail business i.e. antique store focused on cars? Your displays are wonderful with how you are laying stuff out. If nothing else your place would make a nice lunch stop for an antique car cruise. Hire a guy in the summer to cook pit beef (oops, that may be a MD thing you might have to go with poutine instead). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 31 minutes ago, TAKerry said: I may have missed but are you planning on running a retail business i.e. antique store focused on cars? Your displays are wonderful with how you are laying stuff out. If nothing else your place would make a nice lunch stop for an antique car cruise. Hire a guy in the summer to cook pit beef (oops, that may be a MD thing you might have to go with poutine instead). I've got a little bit of everything going on. When someone is around the shop the front door is always open. We do get pickers through now and again, but no plans to actually turn it into a retail shop either for antiques or automotive related items. I do two large antique shows a year with another fellow at Aberfoyle, Ont and I'll do the odd swap meet as well but I don't want to be tied to a business with fixed hours etc. We've got an older house (circa 1928) and my wife and I like to hit auction sales so this gives us an outlet for some of those finds and she is forever stealing some of the inventory for the house. I worked for a small business in high school that sold electronics (TV's, VCRs, Microwaves, Stereos) and learned a great deal from that family, the one being that you are tied to the business 365. We both had careers that we really enjoyed but both were like that (policing for me and teaching for my wife) Our community is just under 50 000 people and we are both from here so you are always "on" as they say - our joke was about going to Walmart and people saying hello to us and we'd look at each other and say "yours or mine?" The showroom is slowly being transformed from a bit of a collection of everything to a collection of Mopar and local automotive/history items just for display for us and friends to enjoy. We've had clubs stop in for a tour and are always open to that. At some point this year I'm going to try to do an open house for anyone that wants to drop in - a great suggestion from @playswithbrass. Actually, the more I've played with that in my head I've thought about proposing a day club wide for the AACA to do a shop open house - my thought is it would be kind of neat for a few people in your area to throw their doors open and you could make a mini tour of it, then next year have a different group open their doors and turn it into an annual thing. Everyone has something different to show off, and no one would be tied to it every year, it could even be used to recruit new members. Oh and by the way I can never turn down great poutine! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 Beautiful day around here today - forecast for the tonight and into tomorrow is for 1 to 2 inches of rain so I had to take advantage of the weather while I could. While giving that desk a couple of coats of shellac I thought, hey its a nice day, so I propped open the front door of the shop and gave it a coat as well. When you are the head cook and bottle washer, it's not just the cars that need maintenance but the building too. That door faces south and takes a beating from the afternoon sun. It's not perfect, but is better than the near bare wood that was there and one of these first days I find a replacement brass toe kick for it. It then time to turn my attention to the 26 Star, it's a Model F with a 4 cyl Continental engine. I'd mentioned before about needing to put new packing in the water pump. I had done my measuring and then my math and cut the the packing to length on the diagonal. Put away the left over packing - in a nicely labeled parts box I might add. As I've gone along I've been filling the parts shelves with the boxes and labeling the contents. Then when I went to move onto the install I notice quite a big gouge in the right front fender that was through the paint down to the metal. I'm not sure when that happened, if it was before we got the car or after but it doesn't matter, it simply needed to be addresses. Now how many of you admit to shopping for your touch up paint in the cosmetics section of the drug store? I'm sure some with cringe but the fenders are gloss black and the polish filled the gouge nicely and is a perfect match. I know where to look but to the casual observer they won't notice the repair and it is far better than having bare metal showing. On to the task at hand, and I back the nut out as far as I can get it and it's not quite far enough to get any new packing in so my next stop is down to the Technical section for some advice. I could have started to take things apart but I'd rather ask questions now before I get myself in a jackpot. For those not familiar with this set up the pump is driven by a shaft off the back of the generator that runs through the base of the distributor which is to the immediate right in the above picture and then onto the pump. I'm guessing that I just need to remove those two clamps and the hose but I'd rather ask first and be sure. While checking out the whole setup just in case I do need to remove more I notice that the one mounting ear of the front of the generator is cracked. It appears to be solidly held in place but it is one more of those, do I deal with it now or later and if I get into pulling it all out where does it stop? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAKerry Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 With the amount of inventory you have organization is a must, and it looks like you have that down pat. Do you have a master list of what boxes are where in the shop and on which shelf? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 9 Author Share Posted March 9 1 hour ago, TAKerry said: With the amount of inventory you have organization is a must, and it looks like you have that down pat. Do you have a master list of what boxes are where in the shop and on which shelf? The short answer is I don't. This has been an evolving process that I never really intended to get to the point that it has. As I work backwards now on the organization I have dedicated certain areas to certain items - the manuals are organized by what is for sale by brand, with the extras also organized by brand and year in another area. The parts are all by brand and now I've gotten to the point where particularly with the Ford and Mopar parts that I am getting them sorted by the different packaging from different eras to make them easier to find. The parts department is filled for the most part with inventory that can be used on our cars and I've dedicated another area in the upstairs just for parts for our cars as well. I learned a few years ago when parting out cars to tag everything as it comes off.(in some pictures you might see those red wire tags on things) The master control right now is mostly like real estate....location, location, location. Ebay acts as the closest thing I have of an inventory list and my memory of where things are. At the moment I'm the only one who has to do the looking but if it ever gets to the point that there's a helper I'll have to up my game a bit. So far my wife has resisted being the head shipper, I can't image why! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skvitt Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 Any plans on coming to Ancaster Fairgrounds for Rod Masters flea market on March 31st? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 5 minutes ago, Skvitt said: Any plans on coming to Ancaster Fairgrounds for Rod Masters flea market on March 31st? Just depends on the weather and family obligations being Easter Sunday. So long as the daytime high has some sun and in the double digits I'll likely be there. This was yesterday at the Woodstock show. Bit of a thin crowd but the three buildings were full as far as vendors go. The weather, though not horrible, was a distinct change from the past few days with the temps dropping to just below freezing with some light blowing snow. The picture is before the doors opened so the only people are the other vendors. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 (edited) Any of you that have have done swap meets or the like know this scene of the day after - you're tired after a full day on your feet and you basically dump everything in the door and come back the next morning to face the aftermath: One of the benefits that I find after each sale is that I end up tidying up another area and the sale items get a bit more organized and contained. This is one corner of the former boiler room in the downstairs. (We had the boiler removed when we first bought the building - it hadn't been in use for years and the hot water heating was long disconnected) Being where it is and with little air movement the floor always felt damp. I've put a fan in there now and today was the day to start to clean it up. It's mostly been used by my boys as their space for models and a game called Warhammer that all three would play together. Of course I am also guilty of having piled a bunch of parts in there one day when I needed room somewhere else. I picked up a few pieces of Dri-Core flooring to start the process and have the Model T parts all in one corner and up off the concrete. I can tell you that a damp floor and cardboard boxes are not a great mix. Thanks to the help from a couple of members in the Technical section I returned to the 26 Star's water pump. Taking a better look at things and with their advice I decided the best course of action was to remove the pump and do the packing on the bench. Both of the bottom rad hoses appeared to be cracking which added my decision - I have no idea how old they are and thought that if the water system is going to be emptied anyway this is as good of time as any to replace them and do a little preventative maintenance. I'll replace those worm clamps with wire hose clamps while I'm at it. Once I got to work at it you can see how dry and brittle those hoses are. It hadn't occurred to me that the hose on the shaft from the distributor to the pump was actually a connector of both shafts, but after posting my question on the Tech section and receiving a couple of answers it completely made sense. I can't remember if it was at the sale yesterday or one of the many drop in that I had at the shop on Saturday, but someone asked if I found it beneficial being on this forum - I couldn't answer fast enough, absolutely YES! Getting things apart today became about a 15 minute process with no fuss, nothing broken, nothing thrown and no bad words uttered. The good news is that once things came apart the rad fluid came out a good green colour with nothing else mixed in. This is the distributor side with things apart The pump removed and on the bench Edited March 11 by 3macboys (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 Now with both hoses off and the nut out of the way, you can see that this will be much easier to get the packing installed, instead of reaching across the fender with it still on the bench. With all that rust dropped everywhere I've dropped the pump into the bucket of EvapoRust to clean it up overnight. My thought is why take the chance of some of that contaminating things so an overnight soak seems to be the best course of action. The few fasteners that I had to take off, I've dropped into one of these dollar store bins. Keeps things organized and way better than leaving them on the bench or the running boards. It seems like I have hundreds of them (not really but there are plenty) that came out of my wife's classroom when she retired. I'm actually surprised at least one of the local stores hasn't had to close after she retired as I think she kept them in business! Once I start the process of reassembly I'll search the Wall O'Gaskets that were left by the previous owner of the shop and see if I can match something up. Failing that I'll have to make a new one. Something I've never done before, but no time like the present to learn! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3macboys Posted March 11 Author Share Posted March 11 (edited) One last note on the day and you read it here first - well maybe, unless you see the new thread first - Saturday March 30th from 10 am to 1 pm I'll host an open house at the shop. The address is 135 Blandford St, Innerkip, Ontario. I'll put the coffee on and please stop by. I can't make any great promises but it will give you a chance to see the place first hand. I will post this in another thread and challenge others to do the same for their area. For those not familiar with Innerkip, it's a small community and the only places that will be open are a gas station/variety store and Tim Horton's. If you are looking for a bit more adventure there is a farmers market in Woodstock at the Woodstock Fairgrounds and One of Kind Antique Market which claims to be the largest antique mall in Canada. For those with a sweet tooth, you can't go wrong stopping in at Two Guys and a Whisk downtown on Dundas St in Woodstock which opens at 10 am. I know that it's the Saturday of Easter Weekend but my wife is gone out of town to a show in Toronto for the day so I know that I have no obligations! I know I've mentioned it before but pretty much everyday is an open house if you can't make it on the 30th - if you see my truck parked out front, there's pretty good odds that I'm there and the front door is open. Come on in and give a holler if I'm in the back! Edited March 11 by 3macboys (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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