Projects We're getting old

I ordered an oil pump to block gasket from O'rilley's for my 56 T-Bird, and they had it at the store by 9am the next day. For about $3.50. How do you beat that?

 

Funny how that works. Pay a person a decent wage and they will consider it a career and develop the skills to be an asset. Treat the position like part time unskilled labor that has to just has to use the keyboard for the same wages as any other customer facing job and guess what you end up with as staff?
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Autozone/salaries

 

first generation Miata's with pop up headlights used thoses headlights in the early to mid 90's.they seem nearly new. but had to laugh at myself there officially old enough to get into NSRA events

 

Good memories of those 6' long rows of parts catalogs behind the counter at the parts store!! You had to be pretty sharp just to know how to navigate those books!!!

 

Nowadays, cars like the new Bronco go out of their way to make their space age head lights look like the old round ones.... Go figure !!

 

Don't mess with a counter person's catalogs!

 

20 years ago, I checked into replacing the sealed beams with a lower draw halogen replacement. Now they make LED swapouts. Many look
https://www.summitracing.com/search...adlight-conversions/oem-headlight-number/6014

 

Old guys sure as hell don't want to hear that we need to "change or step out of the way" from younger guys who get their wisdom from punk music songs and have no clue what getting old is really like.
So... you know.

 

I'd don't pay much attention to the current hits, but I guess most Young Guys don't listen to punk rock. I scrolled through this fairly quickly, and only saw one that would even be a glancing nod to punk. It is wild that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are in there, though.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-2023-1234879541/
Iggy released a new album this year. I have a feeling he does know what getting old is like...

 

Pretty sure I know.


Also pretty sure that 99% of the oldsters here could not identify a punk band from the past, or one from the present (ProTip: if you see them on TV, or hear them on the radio, they're not punk).

 

Why do the SOB's in oncoming traffic have headlights so bright they can melt paint off of cars?

 

Because US regulations are so poor that that nobody is stopping manufacturers from doing this.

 

I would agree seems to be the only requirement for working at a parts store is the ability to turn on a computer. When the computer operator says turn the screen and says "is this what it looks like?" I know he or her has no idea what they are talking about.

 

I was working on a 42 Ford panel truck that had sat for quite a while, I wasn't sure if the dead battery was any good, so while I was at O'Reily's I asked if they carried 6 volt batteries. young man behind the counter looks at me with a WTF look on his face and asks "what kind of car uses 6 volt batteries?" when I told him every American car built before 1955 and Volkswagen's until 1967" he looked at me like I was crazy.

 

Thats capitalism baby.

 

Chicks dig it...

 

I saw Iggy back in about 1970 in Minneapolis at the Depot. He was greased up and covered with glitter.

 

Not sure why anyone would be laboring under the mistaken notion that this could somehow be any other way in the 21st century.

Chain auto parts stores belong to publicly traded corporations.

They do not exist to serve the counter customers. They exist to serve their shareholders.

Our sole role in this operation is to dutifully participate in the systematic transfer of our fractional wealth to the shareholders, via the corporation.

This has been discussed many times, and it's not politics but economics.

Our chosen economic system is Capitalism. It only works one way, and this is it.

 

You sons a bitches might be getting old, but not me.... I acquiring patina!
My daughter on the other hand.... damn.. it scares me to think that just yesterday she was (insert any age between 0 and 38)!

 

use to be you got stoped if your headlights were too bright, now people drive with led light bars and headlights so bright I have to pull to the side of the road cause I cant see, most dont care because when I flash my brights at them they dont flash back if they are on low beam, or maybe they dont know what that means!!!

 

The new Hot Rod magazine came the other day. Just a few pages in is a full page ad for a walk in shower with grab handles. Kind of speaks to the demographic hot rodders are falling into.

B

 

Why wouldn't he, and why would they? You might crazy be for going there expecting a different response than you got.

No vehicle made after I was born used a 6V battery, and I'm not exactly young.

The number of vehicles on the road that still use them is likely less than one one-thousandth of one percent of the US fleet. Why would anyone stock anything for that?

It is now 81-years after your panel truck was made. It is now 68-years after the last US vehicle used a 6V battery, and 56-years after the last VW that used one was made.

It is also probably about 53-years after that counter person's parents were born.

You might as well be looking for an tandem ox yoke, so you can plow the back 40.

 

Next thing you know you will stop at your local parts how and be informed by who ever is behind the counter
" My name is Sheri and I will be your parts server."

 

I have 3 cars with 6 volt systems

 

Wait until you find out the hard way that those blinding lights were the low beams, when they do flash back at you.

 

Or, you can opt to not be a grumpy old man .

 

And?

There are about ~292,300,000 cars and trucks on US roads, with ~40,000,000 of them being in my state alone.

The average age of every single one of those vehicles is almost exactly 12.

There is no real market for 6V batteries. Consider yourself blessed that anyone even bothers to make them.

A 6V battery in my city would need to be ordered, and might even need to come out of a regional warehouse, possibly out-of-state, and my city has a population that is 43% higher than that of the entire state of Wyoming, in just 46.2 square-miles.