It's affecting almost every industry, everywhere, and has been for the last 2 years. The guys saying you just have to improvise and make it yourself....that's kinda hard to do if say you need a seal for a flathead water pump, and there are no new pumps or seals available (or pick any one of a thousand pieces your car uses that can't be made). In the performance world, bearings, pistons, camshafts etc....are all hit and miss now. You can't "improvise" a camshaft or piston for a specific combo. I'll admit that my Dad and I were hoarders. Bought stuff at swap meets for years for next to nothing. Used to come home with a car or truck load of stuff for a hundred or two hundred bucks. Stuff that nobody wanted because flatheads were "dead", or "nobody needs that stuff anymore", or just because everyone concentrated on the "popular" cars and all the others were non-desireables. I was more into the '60s performance stuff, while he was into the earlier stuff. Now I'm just beginning to let loose of everything. People can bitch about people like that, but much of this stuff wouldn't exist today if it weren't for the "hoarders" of days gone by.
I visit often. He calls with with paint questions regularly I’ve helped him line up sheet metal a time or two. He’s storing an old motorhome for me I plan on robbing the chassis for a future build. It works out he’s got a nice 50 ford coupe. Chopped and tons of parts. I almost got him to price it. I’d have to sell my merc junk but this would make a nice cruiser No rust to fix
Poured 1000s of yard in the cold. Since you are inside it is a piece of cake. We pour year round up here. I run a trucking operation tied into a cement manufacturer. Largest in North and South America. We make the powder the redi mixes use. Yes, there is tight inventory nationwide but you need to find a redi mix supplier AND contractor that has access to product. Reputable companies will be able to get you your product to do the pour.
I understand what you are saying however we can’t realistically believe that every piece for every car ever built should continue to be available. There’s always a way.
only shortage I have experienced lately is cash. I am told that cash is in high demand and that there is a national shortage. LOL For the last 6 months or so my drive has been full of late model stuff ('80s era and older) and I have not had a problem sourcing anything. I have been informed at an 87 Ford is an antique () at a parts house but I just quit doing business with them. I got an idea that a lot of the places that provided pieces for HAMB friendly cars especially the difficult pieces like original replacement resto parts went under during the rougher years of the virus. Lots of those places were not "big" businesses.
And I understand what you're saying. I'm not talking about sheet metal, or rods, or cables, handles, or anything like that, but it's just not possible with some items. 99.999% of people can't make a bearing or a piston. You certainly could change your entire route and go with something readily available, IF it's available. Perhaps even a different engine or whatever, but then you wouldn't be building it the way you wanted to. Just as a thought experiment, what would the flathead guys do if suddenly all the flathead pistons disappeared overnight? How many NOS or vintage sets do you think exist out there, especially in anything .030 oversize or larger? How long would it be before you simply couldn't build one? You can suggest custom billet pistons, but the few remaining companies that do that sort of stuff are already stressed trying to meet demands of more popular engines. I'd be willing to bet the flathead community is pretty low on their priority list. And if you say "stick a Chevy in it", well, I'm just gonna write you off
What is weird is that we did not close nor change over those years here in Sodak. When I traveled a bit or looked at folks in other parts of the Country or World it blew me away. Loved having the breweries uncrowded and Lavin and I ate out at least twice a week after work with friends
It takes a while, but supply eventually catches up with demand, for most things. If you look at how many aftermarket parts are now available for cars, the number is absolutely astounding. It really should not be surprising that a small percentage of them are out of stock, when there are worldwide labor shortages due to various factors. Yeah, it's tough building some cars now. I haven't really had any problems, because I've adjusted my building plans around current availability. But if you started a project before the shit hit the fan, or you started after and didn't do your homework, it's difficult or impossible to get stuff you need to finish it.
I agree completely. 40-50 years ago, you had to search swapmeets for years and years to find the stuff you needed. And even then you were lucky if you found everything. Even 20 years ago, there were lots of oddball parts, tons of sheetmetal for oddball cars, that you couldn't even find. As the super desirables became much harder to find....or afford, people moved on to what used to be considered non-desirables. Companies found a new source of revenue, and those people suddenly had parts that were never available before. We really are spoiled today.
I'm not super concerned with shortages of new parts, what really scares me is the loss of so many good salvage yards. My area of Wisconsin has lost (or is in the process of emptying) 6 yards that I know of. I try to scoop up anything I might need or anything I can save to sell, but there's only so much I can do. I've also been buying some estates/collections from guys who got too old to use it all, which is great that they saved it and that I can get the individual parts to people who need them. But for every one I can get, others get tossed in the trash can or scrap bin never to be recovered. Also, it's an incredible amount of work and expense to buy these collections, figure out what each piece is, and sell it off piece by piece. Seems to be a lot of demand for the stuff but less supply of parts and sellers willing to do the work of listing and shipping. There are some parts that will never be reproduced, and when the supply of used stuff is gone, it's gone forever.
At least you guys have swapmeets - those are pretty much non existent over here, and the few you find have mostly parts for German/European cars.
We've got two every year, and they're not very big. It'd be like a '58 Chevy rear bumper, a collection of '60s-'70s Ford taillights, a single MGB wire wheel, three Morris Minor swivel pins, 38 ammeters of various origins, divers odds and ends, and six pickup truck loads of NOS points sets for a 1978 Datsun.
Ephemeralize everything. Reduce every part to dimensions, profiles, and material specifications, and park that stuff digitally in a safe place. I'd love to see that happen in a corner of the HAMB. All the information embodied in a Model T, a Model A, a flathead V8, a SBC, etc. should be banked somewhere, readable by anyone who cares. Then, when the technology becomes available to make the parts without the capital investment requirement implicit in the original (and which arguably increasingly informed the embodied design approach over the years) the information is right there. A lot of that information is out there already. Wescott's frame drawings are an old stand-by. But a surprising amount of stuff isn't. I was looking for the dimensions, including the locations of the holes, of the metal bush at the top of a Model A steering column mast, the bit which locates the actual column shaft and the spark and throttle rods. It's a simple part, and you'd think that the three or four lines of text needed to describe it exactly would be somewhere on the internet. If they are I wasn't able to find them.
I lucky that I have what I need for the most part, to finish what I have. Also lucky that the odds and ends I need are still available new or NOS/NORS. I have all needed outer sheet metal, some “fixing” I’ll have to pay someone with more skills than I have, but I don’t have to locate the stuff. I don’t envy you folks that need access to reproduction parts. I know it was mentioned about find it, or make it. Many don’t have the skills or tools to make parts they need. I mean I can make some parts that will work, but if I needed a window regulator, door lock mechanism, things like that, I’d have to go into “adapt something “ mode.
Man, listen to all this whiney bullshit! Y'all got it easy! Try doing a Packard. No, seriously. NOS, good used from a usual suspect list, very few new parts at all. Somehow I managed to resurrect 13 of those fuckers over the years and more are showing up every year. Oh wait, I did say usual suspect list. Show of hands, how many of you are such lone wolf stubborn fucks you won't even discuss what you're doing beyond an anonymous forum board? That you DEMAND net availability only? Anyone? C'mon don't be shy. I know 1 or 2 like that, and don't go outta my way for them. Hershey was awesome this year in spite of the rain. Make sense? Flathead pistons was brought up as a "what if" scenario. As in what if you had to plan on putting 100K miles on your hobby car and won't be able to fix it? How many of ol Henry's millions of flatheads are now sheet metal for an import? Not as many as you think. He made MILLIONS OF THE FUCKERS. Not in our lifetime will they become 100% obsolete. Perspective is a bitch when a dickhead like me pipes up as says WTF, because seriously, WTF. Shop our classifieds and make it worthwhile again. Go to swaps, quit making it all about you and you alone, be ready to wheel n deal or if it's that hard to get pay up. In most of this pursuit the scrounge and scrape and overcoming the hurdles is one of the best parts. Remember, the juice is worth the squeeze. Get to squeezin. If I picked a scab then so be it, but Happy New Year.
I might be one of them nut cases that refuses to buy new Chinese parts for my builds. I’m lucky to have been in the trade of making parts and machines to make parts we seek. So I make or modify just about everything that can’t be found. I love to look at old historical hotrod race cars and everything is handcrafted. It’s amazing how much stuff was made by hand or a existing part modified to fit the application. The old cars give you great ideas and how they solved the issues. I just machined a part for a guy this morning that wasn’t available. My buddy has me machine stuff for him all the time. He was so amazed how easy some stuff is with the right machinery that he went out and got a Bridgeport mill. I helped him figure it out how to use it but now he’s learning and can make stuff . We had old machines at our shop that was proprietary and had odd sizes bearing shafts and even crazy thread sizes. We would modify the machines to fit common ready available parts. It’s kinda like what we do on the old hot rods fitting juice brakes and big motors . With resources like the HAMB and other internet sites finding original stuff is easier now .
Man...it's like some of you don't understand how to search for parts like a seal or bearing at a seal and bearing supply house. Just because you can't order the part you need from <insert preferred early ford parts house here> does not mean it doesn't exist or can't be bought. Really freaking funny to be honest...and maybe a bit pathetic. I'm not even well equipped tooling wise.... How the hell do you think early cars were built....do you think Henry Ford was thinking to himself? "Well...I can't order that seal or bearing from a catalog....guess I can't make this car...." Think outside the catalog boys. Your credit card will not save you. You're gonna have to work for it.
So todays deals...I bought a pair of 15"x6" wide steel wheels from the fine folks at Wheel Vintiques in April of 2022 and as of right now (Jan 2023) I still don't have them...I call them every couple of weeks and they say the same thing..."cant get the rings in"... I did order another pair of 15"x8" wide wheels in June of 2022 and I got them in December of 2022 from them... So the old ways are coming back again... My 2 cents MikeC
Here's a little sumthin sumpthin for y'all. So 1-800-BAK-ORDER is fresh out for the foreseeable future. Sadly the IQ measure in the industry has dropped, or if not has become the proverbial donkey with blinders walking to a carrot on a stick. I got 2 words for ya. PARTS BOOK. There is a virtual treasure grove of info if you look at it right. Then broaden your scope to what Pontiac part fits that Chevy or vice versa. Lots of em. Ford vs Mercury vs Lincoln. Of course the venerable DPCD stuff too. These OEMs were profit driven and cross contaminated a lot of their schtick. If you know what to ask for that guy who sells Pontiac stuff probably has more "Chevy also" than his less than interested worker knows about. There's Packard stuff on Studebakers and Hudsons. There's Mopar and Ford stuff on AMCs. And this isn't a new practice as there's plenty of Ford flathead stuff in a Zephyr 12 and of course the other way. PARTS BOOKS. The "heroin" of parts books? The Hollander Interchange manual used by wrecking yards. I only go back to 55 with my 2, always looking for an older one but not likely. I truly hope this helps some of you cuz there sure is a lot of info you can get and shit my friends, sometimes even a picture of the part shows up and it helps you sort out how/where/why too as an added benefit. Good luck, broaden your scope, happy hunting.
Pistons are easy if you like forged. JE pistons are all machined from forged blanks and they will machine anything you want. Or just because you brought it up put a chevy in it. Things were all over the board here. I carried a mask (still do my wife cannot handle being very sick and I am a selfish bastard and want to keep her as long as possible). Up here in the sticks nothing really closed down, down in the city the rules changed from one municipality to the next. Literally anyone in the state of Missouri could declare themselves an essential business and most did. I do not think that many car parts at least anything that we would want or need is manufactured here.
Bushings and bearings and little brackets are one thing, but it's pretty hard to adapt a different windshield into a 1950's car, or to make a hood for one from scratch. Missing interior door garnishes and hood hinges and bumper brackets and tons of moldings are never going to be reproduced for many models and once the junkyards are all emptied out, I don't know what the options are going to be. That's why the loss of the good salvage yards is what really concerns me. No amount of measuring and parts book searching is going to find a replacement for certain items that just won't exist anymore.
Some guys see the lack of parts or long lead times as failure...another way to look at it is that it's a sign the hobby is still very strong.
This is the truth, people at work see everything that needs work, I try to point out the work being done. As already said more reproduction parts are available then ever and access to used stuff is easier then ever with the internet.
Yes, things are not as easy to get as they were years ago but I would rather be searching for something old like we play with instead of looking for parts for a new vehicle. they just don't exist yet. Just take a walk thru rockauto and put the year 2022 in and your favorite vehicle. Most items come up not in stock and when they do it is outragious money. I refuse to pay $1700 for a replacement taillight . people think I am nuts for keeping old cars until they have problems getting their new vehicles fix and complain to me. Nothing I can do, I just shrug my shoulders and say that is what you get for having a monthly payment computerized piece of crap but if you buy an older car, I will help you and then they really get mad. They don't realize today's cars are different then the cars we actually play with.
This is very true. For the last couple decades, I've been told that any day now, all of the old car guys are going to die off and old cars and parts are going to be near worthless. But some day never comes. If anything, the demand has only gotten stronger. I don't think any of the shortages that are out there were caused by a lack of demand, only by a low supply that was quickly used up by an increased demand.
The times of having inventory is long gone with JIT ( just in time ) and lean manufacturing. It is a taboo of the times but leaves many of folks waiting for new parts. I’m very sad to see our junk yards disappear and good old tin being crushed and melted into new imported products. It’s the sign of the times but we have to thank our elders for hoarding all that good stuff away for the scrap man and scrap drives during the war. I had to laugh the other month when like 80 1933-34 ford came up for auction. Man that dude must have a heck of a parts section as well. I wasn’t interested in the 33-34 stuff but know of such guys with 32 goodies.. A good swapmeet is still your best option to find parts. I know some of the fellas on here don’t have a opportunity to go to one but reach out to your buddies…
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