Projects Put parts away years ago and now can not find them

I feel your pain and frustration. I recently took a reconditioned alternator over to a friend to see if it would suit his OT Corvette and it didn't so I brought it home and listed a few days later on e-Pay where it sold. In the interim I tidied up all my car bits and pieces consolidating into boxes. I damned couldn't then find to ship to purchaser who had paid right away so I had to apologise profusely that I had misplaced it when I tidied up. I then refunded him and did a stock take of inventory and still couldn't find it!! Damned if I know where I put it for safe keeping. Lost sale

 

Congrats! Now if you can just find that white paint and masking tape.

 

All the crud is off and now time to get the chrome polish out.

 

I would leave em red and see how I liked that for a while.

 

last shop move....I was building a 58 Chevy...one year only and must have misplaced the radiator support - maybe left it outside where the scrappers got it ?...anyway fun finding a replacement....now after about 15 yrs I've moved my shop again and can't find this big old hairy puller some guy had made - it was great for pulling brake drums....and I need it desperately for a wide five project that's arrived....think them dang scrappers got it....hopefully a buddy of yours will remind you that those caps you gave him are on his car...

 

The red is in good shape so I will leave them alone for now.

 

Beer always helps................ glad ya found them

 

Exactly

 

They were not in as good as shape as I thought they were so in the future a repop set of 56 caps might happen,they will do for now and glad I did not have to buy another set for them to show up.

 

...

 

C.R.A.F.T disease,can't remember a f-ing thing!

 

He probably stole it and just said you gave it to him.

 

Why has it taken you years to lose the parts? I can be using a 1/2" wrench, lay it down and it disappears forever when I reach over to pick it up again 30 seconds later.

 

Have you ever seen the 'Underpants Gnomes' episode of South Park? That episode gives a rational explanation for this phenomenon.

 

At least the OP found his hub caps...I posted a short while ago that I lost a whole 51 Ford dash and I still haven't found it...I'm jealous!

 

Has anybody seen my Ford brake backing plates? Cleaned, painted, put away in a "safe place" in my 22'x24' garage. Been looking for two years and still not found.

Eyeglasses on your head? Once I arrived at my friend's house and he took me aside to share a secret "my dad can't find his glasses, don't laugh and don't tell him". Well his dad was running around ranting and raving that he couldn't find his god-damn F-ing glasses, but all the while they were perched on his head. Oh, to be young again....

 

I had them chromed and used them on the back of my Mysterion clone. Sorry.

 

I have my share of those moments too and when I put something up there are times I have to move them but my brain will only remember the original location.

 

Yes I have seen it.

 

'Bottle Caps' are what the "German Target Restorers" call the late '70s thru mid '80s BMW vented aluminum wheels. Never heard that term used for 'dog dish', 'baldie', or 'ash cans' ('50 Mercs)
'Poverty caps' was a new one on me a few years back, too...

I had a set of four '46 Ford caps on my '46 Tudor in 1958. (reversed '48 Merc wheels in rear, Buick outers, stock 15" '48 Mercs in front)
Black wheels, big-n-little whitewalls, caps' logos and hash marks hand painted with black. Looked striking.
So striking, in fact... I held onto the caps when I switched wheels to the roadster. Wrapped the caps in newspaper and put 'em in a box, on a shelf in Grandma's house, her cellar.
Fifty years later, I'm rummaging thru Grandma's cellar, no box of caps.
Did find some Stromberg 97s I hid, though.
Mentioned it to my sister a couple of years later.
She went downstairs at HER house, and produced the box. With the caps all there, still wrapped in newspaper...
Neat, kind of open and shut.
But the misplacing of things? Glasses? Yeah, found 'em where I laid 'em down after searching for 2 days.
But I set the broken end of my O/T E-Brake cable with its crimped nut down as I was doing the job...that started 3 weeks of searching. (I had another crimp nut to use, but I tore thru garbage, the garage, the back shop, even the dog house. (My Chihuahua, Cisco likes to stash stuff in his house...)
Still haven't found that end! Don't need it, but...
It'll be in the last place I look, thanks, Motorman...

 

how about the missus,would she have chucked it out ?PROBABLY

 

LUCKY BREAK

 

For sure, why keep looking once you find them ? But you never know what else you might find, maybe something you weren't looking for.

 

Of all the things I have lost over the years, it is my mind that I miss the most.

 

I need to take everything out of the garage and figure out what I really need and get rid of the rest of it but most of it is parts for vehicles I have and a few that are good parts in case I get another of the same which will probably never happen but you know that if I do actually get rid of it the part will be needed next week.

 

If your wife is anything like mine, she probably thought you didn't need your parts anymore and threw them out.

Gary

 

I've done that before. Usually ends up just moving everything out and putting 99% of it back in. Kinda like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic.

 

At 58, I find myself asking the big questions in life... like "Why am I here?" Nothing philosophical, I'm just standing in the middle of the garage asking myself, "Why the **** am I here???" A few years back a friend of mine kept losing his best bottles of booze due to the teenage son syndrome. He started storing his bottles under the bathroom sink in an empty Kotex box. Never lost another bottle. Might be a good place to stash your parts...

 

At work, several years ago, we got a new manager who didn't like the clutter in the shop and had us throw out anything that hadn't been used in a year. I tried to tell him it wasn't a good idea but he was adamant. Within a month we had a broken hydraulic cylinder shaft on a material handler and had scrapped the spare. The district manager asked why we didn't have a spare. $7,000 and 2 weeks later we had the new part and a new manager.

 

We're consolidating at work and many useful things are being thrown out by those who have no idea what the items are for. They don't ask, we had a 5S team go through the place a couple of months back. Now we need some things that were tossed, which is okay since nobody at work is accountable for anything.