Hot Rods Does anyone else forget that they already bought a part?

I guess I crossed over and am now one of "those guys".
It was not intentional but over the years I accumulated stuff.
While is was sick recently I spent a few weeks going through the parts pile and rebuilt 10 Muncies. All the bad and left over parts are now gone and all is good. it only took 40 years to get to them.

 

Yep, just did that today....Looked for it around the shop before I went to the parts store, bought a new one (and a spare),came home and found the one I had looked for in the same box I had looked in previously.

 

Happens all the time here, went looking for a brake pedal return spring for my 51 and knew I had some somewhere but ordered it from Carpenter online and after it came I was looking for something else and found several NOS ones in a box

 

that always puts a smile on the face...like hitting the lottery

 

I have done that several times, if I dont put the part on as soon as I get it I'll more then likely end up with a couple more. Another thing I have learned to do is keep all tools, flash lights, grease guns, keys and anything else I dont want to spend hours looking for, in the same place. If I move something to another spot thinking it would be a better place to keep it, I wont be able to find it again, that is until after I buy another one.

 

Does it count if you just want that part? If not then I'm guilty too...

 

Never

 

Nope. I'm truly an idiot and buy multiples on purpose.......just in case.

 

All the time. But what I really hate is when I know I have a part but have no clue where it is. So I'll look for it for a week or so before I give up and buy another. Usually about the time I install the replacement I find the one I lost roflmao

 

Maybe., put it on as soon as you get home and put a black marking pen "New" or just "N" so you'll know.

 

Not only with the parts I buy but also with the ones I make.

 

Happens from time to time with my speedster project and my daily drivers.

 

Bought a NOS never opened Sun tach off eBay a few years back. When I got ready to put it in, it was nowhere to be found. Looked for a couple of weeks and gave up, found a nearly new one on eBay and bought it. The day it came in, wife brought the mail in to and asked,what’s this? Told her my tach to replace the NOS one I couldn’t find. She walked over to a couch end table, opened the drawer, and pulled out my NOS tach, still in the box it got here in, asking well, what’s this? Here I was turning the house upside down, but never looked there because I don’t generally keep parts in the living room, bedroom, maybe, but not the living room.

She said she put it there to keep the kids from messing with it. Duh, at that time, the only kid there was 18 years old.

 

Doesn't happen often, but when I do, I do it right !
IE, a bunch of money the last time .

Mike

 

Sometimes I just buy a part to find the one I can’t find

 

I do this more often then I like to admit. I'll be in the parts store getting something for todays work and see a part I know I'll be needing later. Get it home and put it away in one of my shop cabinets. Time to use it and spend to much time looking for the part, so I go to the parts store and get another one.

 

A couple of months ago I bought a front end so I could use the disc brake hubs to do a conversion. I cleaned them up, painted them and put them on. Then a couple of weeks later, I found TWO sets, already done and cleaned up!
I sold one, but the other set, I will hide them again, so that I can go through that once more!

 

The easiest way to find a lost part/tool or anything else is to buy a new one.....

LynnW

 

Guilty, The other day I went to order a tool I needed to use off Amazon and clicked on the part I wanted and up pops a little flag that says " you bought this in 2022". Sure enough check my 2022 orders and I had bought one. A trip out to the garage to dig in a cabinet that isn't a tool cabinet but holds a lot of tools and there it was right where I had put it. I have bought too many parts only to find one I had bought a year before for the same project.
I finally started buying heavy duty file cabinets at Habitat or on GSA auctions and dedicating one to hold all parts that fit in it for a certain project. That has helped a bunch as when I buy a part for that project it goes in it's cabinet.

 

Coulda swore I had a valve spring compressor, looked all over for it and couldn’t find it, so I ordered one, and promptly found the first one after the second one arrived. Now I’ve got two.

 

I don't know. I forgot.

 

Happy to see I have plenty of company!

 

What drives me nuts is knowing I have it and not being able to find it. Eventually, I give up, buy a new one and later find the one I knew I had.

 

My issue with parts, is I do the “see it, like it, buy it” thing. Then time passes and I come across a package. Open it up and wonder “when and why did I buy this”?

Now tools are a different deal. In the past 3 years I’ve bought another timing light, compression gauge set, fuel pressure tester, metric deep and shallow socket sets, etc.

Now I have this great idea for some things, I’ll put them in a safe place, use when needed.
It’s when I look for them, don’t find them, off to the store.
Then, I rinse and repeat. I think of a great place to put the new tools as I’m done with them, and son of a gun if the old tool I had is right there. Total “doh” moment.
I figure at this rate when I retire in 5/6 years I can open up a “once used tool discount store”

I should be fully double stocked by then.

Life is grand!

 

You're still a youngster. Am building a '40 Plymouth for a guy and am constantly ordering widgets from Amazon, ebaY, Summit, etc. Get several deliveries per week and never have a clue what might be in the package until I open it.
But the most fun part of Partzheimers, I am constantly opening drawers and cabinets in my shop and discovering tools I bought but forgot I have. Kinda like DIY birthday party!!

 

Oh boy! I started stashing parts I was buying on Ebay and then forgot I already have them only after I would buy them again at the swap meet. What's even worse is when you see guys buying back stuff they sold at the swap meet the year before. I guess it's like that with all hobbies. My daughter collects comic books and when she decided to sell off some the guy who she purchased them from 2 years before came and bought them back.

 

Several years ago, I knew someone who loved Y blocks. He swore up and down that someone got into his garage and stole ONE Weiand valve cover. I asked him who the hell would go to the trouble to steal half a pair of valve covers, but he insisted that it happened. Fast forward to the following spring, and I actually found a vendor at Carlisle who was selling one, and bought it for him. A few months after that, he picked up a cardboard box that was in the bed of an old Ranchero in his garage, and guess what was under it? I said, "Well, must be the thief felt so bad about it that he brought it back!".

 

Never happens to me






Never happens to me

 

That’s why we have the for sale section here

 

I always put stuff in a place I won’t forget about Yeh right. What’s worse is ordering and getting one part when you need two, and months later turning the garage upside down looking for the non ordered part lol
Dan