Has Anyone Ever Had A Friend Or Relative Store A Car Or Car Parts On Your Property For So Long That Storage Amnesia Blurs The Line Of Ownership? ..
Our first house had an old Sunbeam Alpine in the side yard, Bees nest on the inside and the trunk wouldn't open. I had a GTO and a Sting Ray Coupe at the time and a lot more important things to do. A teenager stopped one day, asked about it and a few days later it disappeared. He told me that they found the keys in the trunk after braving the bees, don't know if it ever made it on the road!
Depends if you want it gone. Show them lein paperwork with storage fees and a ***le application. It will either get moved - or will be yours to move or keep.
At one of the places my grandparents rented, there was an old country store building beside it. It hadn't been used as a store since sometime in the 50's, it was full of junk. Through the dusty windows you could see some of it, old furniture, piles of clothes, boxes of books, and some car parts, mainly wire wheels, although there were other car looking parts I couldn't identify at that time. Out behind the building were wheels with bald rotted tires on them, fenders, old seat frames, hoods, and a couple or three bodies on frames, one two seater with no top, and two sedans IIRC. I had no idea what they were, but they were cool! My Grandpa worked for the property owner cutting wood. He never learned to drive, never owned a vehicle I just happened to be there one afternoon when the property owner, I think Reedus was his name, brought Grandpa home after a day of work. I asked Mr Reedus who all that stuff belonged to, he laughed and said he didn't know, he guessed it was his now. I don't remember how he got the property, I think he inherited it, but he said that stuff had been there since he was a boy, so that would have been the early 50's, and he didn't remember who or why it was there. I was about 14 and was just getting interested in old cars , so I asked him if I could have one of them, he laughed and said if I could drag it off I could have all of them, but he didn't have any keys to the building so he didn't know what was in there. I was elated, but my old man quickly deflated me, told me he didn't want that junk at his house. Grandpa moved a year or two later to the new project house in town. I went back to the old place a few years later after I got married, everything was gone. Seems the old house caught fire, the overgrown yard caught the store building, and everything burned. Somebody had bulldozed the place, and all the metal was gone. Looking back, I realized the cars were probably Model A's from the wire wheels that were on them. Maybe someone got them before the fire, but I doubt it.
When I went over the road, long haul trucking, I took some things that I valued, packaged them up and secured them, in behind a wall. Years later, when I went to the keyboard, to get the keys for two of my cars, they were missing. Took me ten more years to go to that stash. Amazed to see those keys. By the way the goods that I had figured were in the trunk weren't
That seems to be part of being a "car guy'' if you have sizeable property off the beaten path. Recently I've decided that 10 years is long enough to store something for someone who doesn't stay in contact. Over the summer I've sent a few down the road, & started parting a few more.
A friend had stored an OT 68 GTO in a building on his acreage for years. His wife got on him to have his friend come and get the car and "get it out of there!". His friend never appeared. My neighbor, his brother in law and my friend were going to s**** it and I offered about what s**** price would be and they wouldn't have to do a thing. Sold. The car had no doors and not one piece of straight sheet metal and no interior. It did have the A/C, complete drive train, endura bumper etc. I dis***embled and cleaned the parts, took a pickup load of parts to Greenfield Iowa to the swap meet. That car was a moneymaker...one of the very few I have had.
I have this as well, and end up with "duplicates". More often I have "location amnesia" and know I have what I'm needing, but can't find it in my shop.
One of the worst things you can do is reorganize your storage. I seem to be able to remember where things were, but not where I moved them to.
All you need to do is buy another one and install it, as sure as I’m sitting here you will find it the next day…
I had a guy leave a car and a bunch of parts on my property about 50 years ago. I sold it all to a s****per about 30 years ago. Guy never came back.
Years? How about hours? I've sold several items to people at swap meets who asked me to leave them on my spot until they were ready to leave, and never returned for them.
Yup. That's how recently I ended up owning two of the same transmission shift linkages, for the same car. This getting older lark is for the birds.
I Have A Limit To Storing Cars/Parts For Others And Have Actually Paid For A Wrecker To Deliver A 1953 Chevy To The Owners Home After He Was Warned....He Still Hates Me And I Sleep Well At Night...(Just Say No)...
if you have been at it long enough you end up having some parts or tools that you bought duplicates for because you couldn't find the original one you knew you had and then finding the original one not long after. Before the weather gets bad I need to empty out my one car garage to the walls to find stuff that I know is in there and put some semblence of order to it and put all the 10MM sockets and all the 9/16 wrenches back in their proper drawers. I buy every 9/16 wrench worth hoot at yard sales but doubt I could go out and grab one right now except the one in the tool bag in the truck.
Hello, Amnesia was the case if anything back in 1998. Going back to 1960 is more like it. When we were finished with the dual set of chromed scavenger pipes at the drags, (allowed at first, but declared illegal due to not being in the stock factory parts catalog…) we tried using them on the 58 Impala for the street. The sound was unusual and we certainly had to learn to do the correct RPM’s when we were near the local police or constant presence of the CHP cruisers in So Cal. No one wanted to run them on the street, so we tried selling them, to no avail. They did not give any advantage to performance at the drags, although the sound sure seemed like it did. They were just nice chrome accessories and that was it. They left the scene as fast as they arrived. So, we stored them in the backyard garage rafters, since floor or wall storage was out of the question. They were quite heavy and with the new layer of wax, should be fine in the dry rafters above the sometimes, moist garage concrete floor. Well, that was around 1961. So, when my wife and I were in the last go around of getting the house ready for the new owners in 1998, we took one last look around the whole yard, backyard garage and the two car garage. The garage had several 2x4 beam additions from our cross beam support on the chain hoist. They would stay, as they gave support to the surrounding beams. But, when we walked to the backyard garage, there in the attic rafters was a nice shiny chrome set of dual scavengers sitting from one cross rafter beam to the other. We contemplated whether to take them down or just leave them up there. We had no use for two long dual pipe scavengers as our sporty car was short and the scavengers were Impala size long. Plus, they would have crushed the top of the roof on our car with the weight. Ha! So, for the long time (38 + years) amnesia type memory from 1959-60 to 1998, those chrome pipes were out of business and hiding from our memories. The new owners would have been surprised looking up into the exposed cross beams and seeing two sets of chrome, dual pipe scavengers. The owners did not seem to be hot rod or custom car folks. We have no idea what became of them in these years since 1998. Jnaki Some added chrome pipes to the rear of the mufflers, angled them down and called them scavengers. For those that did, what did they scavenge, that normal exhaust pipes did not do on a stock factory set up with mufflers? The sound was definitely louder inside of the car and later were deemed illegal due to the exhaust g***es coming into the inside of the car. Then the ruling for all cars became to route any pipes over the rear and out the back. Yes, people used short routed chrome tips before the rear wheel wells and also short chrome tips after the tires. But those were also deemed illegal from the CHP in So Cal, as well as other places across the USA. So, whatever camp one was in back then, "scavengers" were those that helped funnel exhaust out of the motor and directed out to the back of the car/truck. NOTE: Most did not use custom headers (that were not popular back then), unless you were in a strictly compe***ion modified dragstrip cl***. Factory stock cl***es were not allowed to modify the motor with individual headers of any kind. Exhaust cut outs were allowed, but had to be capped up upon the elimination rounds...) The drawing shows the addition of a set of dual pipe chrome scavenger pipes, custom made to fit the originally installed down tube exhaust cut out pipes. They worked for a while and looked unusual underneath the 58 Impala, but, the sound was off and did not sound like a high performance motor. Plus, driving around with them on the streets , they were the first thing that hit anything on the street surface, as they were low to the ground. Down tube exhaust outlets Eventually, they were banned from the dragstrip as several racers used them. They were deemed not factory stock and the protest held due to the cost, plus not being on factory parts shelves. But, we lost some of the nuts and bolts and that caused some “motor revolution” raising to keep the motor somewhat quiet while stopping for a light or cruising by a black and white car. So, I offered my solution. The down tube end caps would have a slit cut into one of the nut/bolt holes. The nut was now permanently attached to the cap with a wingnut. When the wingnuts were loosened, the cap easily slid out and over to open the exhaust opening. The wing nut was easier to tighten and keep in place. Even a small rock could tighten the wing… So, it was a miracle, but my brother put me in charge of the modification and it worked well as planned. Before we started using blue Loc-***e, several of the wing nuts came loose and fell off, creating a jiggling metal on metal sound. The cap was loose and one remaining wing nut was keeping the whole thing from falling completely off.
First year’s outdoor storage is free, second year is a buck a day. Need to reconvene after that. It builds goodwill with reasonable people.
worse when guy with amnesia p***es away - friend loved to buy but, wife did not agree (what's new) - with help of other friends his wife located 23 cars & trucks - may have been more, will never know
Yeah... mine has gone from amnesia to storage dementia. I have forgotten stuff and bought duplicates, found the original "original" parts and their duplicates, and now have like three or four of that same part on the "shelf" (read "pile") that I've forgotten about three and four times over. Also, back when I rode regularly, we used to do this thing called "Friday Night Garage" where we'd get together at my place, wrench on our bikes, drink, and get a little rowdy. So, I have a pile of used Harley Davidson parts from friends and acquaintances from back in the early to mid 2000's whose names I've forgotten. I mean, thank god they're just small to medium sized parts and not whole *** cars and bikes. But I still have a problem.
I've had a few over the years. Two that are really memorable. First one was a XJ6 Jag that I'd swapped a 350 into for my brother-in-law. He drove it until the interior and the paint went to hell, then asked if he could park it at my place for "a little while". It sat behind my shop for about ten years until I told him it was time he did something with it. A couple weeks later he just handed me the ***le. I tried to sell it as is, nobody wanted it, so I ended up fixing it up and driving it. Still driving it fifteen years later. The other one was an off topic sports car that I did a restoration on when i had my shop. The owner was moving out of state and said he'd get in touch once he had a new address and phone (pre cell phone days). I'd done other cars for him so I wasn't concerned. Finished the work and waited. Didn't hear anything for three years so I finally went through the states procedure to get a ***le and sold the car to recover my money. Two days after I sold it he showed up to get it. That was an uncomfortable conversation, but he actually was pretty cool about it.
I've got one that's very close to 'on topic' because it's about a part-time mechanic and race car owner/driver). My friend and coworker enjoyed having backyard BBQ parties every couple of months that would last into the late evening. Everybody would show up with beer coolers but as the coolers became empty so did the brainpans. I remember at one point my buddy told me he had a stack of 18 left-behind coolers and counting
I can relate. I buy something I need then find 4 or 5 more I forgot about. Have a stash of 40 pts and every once in a while I find something no longer produced that I didn't recall I had. Yesterday found a full set of 40 coupe garnish in an old box. Two sets of wiper towers redone as well and maybe 12-15 each 40 DLX and STD dash knobs. Also a mint 40 column with orig keys etc in the attic--shipping box says 2003-at 79 I kinda forget stuff--sometimes I explain to my wife-she knows 40's and she will discover it for me.
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