been trying to gather parts for the A coupe. My plans call for a 60's "drag coupe" style with SBC and manual transmission. Searching things like Ansen, Moon, etc. on ebay. What other aftermarket names should I search for trying to find parts (like middle to early 60's, not later 60's) Any other ideas on what should go on this car? Wheels, engine parts, etc. etc.? What do I need for this "era" Thanks-
I'll never give them up... actually i know roothawgs ebay name and under the search feature, search by bidder, [roothawgs name]... and all the sixtys shit pops up that hes been eyeing on egay. yeah you just wish you thought of it first...
i try to think of the guy that finds a 32 roadster in his dead uncles barn and doesn't know what it is... and his buddy says "sell it on e-bay, i hear old cars bring in bucks" and then think of how he would describe it. old ford car, convertable, ect. it hasn't worked yet, but you never know. -jeff
I use search words like "finned alumumin", "cab only" "body only" "Model A" and sort by price, the top of the list is restored cars, the bottom is door handles and, spark plugs. "Flathead" "Goat porn" "electronic bladder control"
Spell shit wrong i.e. "Caddilac" "Edlebrock" "Studabaker" Lotsa kewl stuff out there by guys who were more interested in Shop, than English! BTW how's my old shoebox coming along?
still gathering parts, found a different front clip and have the headlights frenched, bought a kit to put a small chevy in it, and need to check on a few other possible parts cars. debating about making a new panel for over the rear window or just slathering in inches of putty, oh found a dash too. been real busy with work and new house, etc... any progress on the T or the triumph?
Got some time on your hands? Go to ebay. Pick a category that you think the parts you are looking for will show up in. Go to that category and click on "newly listed", then when the page comes up click on "Buy it now". Look at the first 2 0r 3 pages of listings that show up and see if there are any bargains, especially what looks to be auctions where some friend of someone is listing their "old car parts" and they don't have a clue what they are worth and put a ridiculously low "Buy It Now" price on them. If you don't find anything you can keep refreshing the page to get listings that just came on in the last few minutes or try it on another category. Find something? Check the feedback to see if they look legitimate and then JUMP on it with the Buy It Now price. These opportunities don't show up too often, but there are a number of buyers doing what I described as I have repeatedly seen them grab bargains. Hesistate too long on a choice part and someone else will probably grab it.
Look for stuff with a Sat/Sun finish time. Often very few bidders are around at the last minute. Same with stuff listed at weird hours. Ive set up a program to jump on items when Im out or sleeping.
When you see something worth bidding on, check the guy's other listings. You might pick up more items and get the guy to put them in 1 box to save shipping. I bought 6 magazines once in six different auctions from the same guy and paid $2.50 for shipping all 6 instead of $2.50 each. Then the guy sold me 10 other mags cheap so he wouldn't have to list them. Works even better for the bigger stuff.
Definately look for misspelled words. Perfect examples are Desoda, De Sota, Desota or De Sota instead of DeSoto. Watched 2 DeSoto grilles go for peanuts because of bad spelling. 2 manly peepuls cain't speeel gud on ther.
Instead of searching misspelled words, I religously use wildcards. Use the minimum amount of letters possible to find what you want. Instead of Chevrolet and Chevy I just search "chev*". That way it catches Chevy, Chevrolet, and all the misspelled versions of Chevrolet. Cadillac? I just search for "Cadi*". That search landed me a very nice pair of '57 hubcaps for $20 plus shipping. Almost everyone can spell the first few letters of any name with a few exceptions. If I want Studebaker parts, I do a search under Stude* AND Studa* to find them. Try the phonetic misspellings. You've been searching for Halibrand? Guess how many entries have the word halibrandS - plural! That wildcard will grab it. Want to search for something like quickchange but it's spelled as both a single word and two words? Use this search: quick* (quickchange,change) It will find anything with the work quickchange OR anything that starts with "quick" and also has the word change. Works well for hotrod too. Exclusive combos of descriptive words work well. I used to do description searches on the words "wheel* magne* -magnet*" to find items with magnesium wheels, but eliminate any references to magnets. I used to collect Disneyland "E" Tickets. You should have seen some of the convoluted searches I used to complete THAT collection!
I've just been gathering a few things for the "T". Got a Merc Y-block with a 4-speed on the line for it. I'm trading the other cowl and seatback to SaltFlatMatt for a new frame. (She's gonna be LOW!) Now I just need to find hubs and wheels that will be able to match up to that drop ax.
lately i've seen alot of neat stuff go cheap just by looking at what is closing that hour under a LARGE subject. type in WWII, refine to militaria and there are like 7000 things. lots of neat stuff for cheap and it encompasses alot, kinda like digging through a box o' miscelleneous junk. another tip, well, i guess is to take chances if it seems to be a good hunch. based on good feedback and an unambiguous description, i've bought several things with no picture, although i RARELY do it. i got a set of 58 caddy SDV front dagmar bumpers, in really nice driving condition (gonna incorporate them into the rear roll pan i'll make for the 50 pontiac) for 50 bucks, and i got a set of M1936 suspenders for my WWII paratrooper uniform for about half as much as they usually go for.
Find some hot items you might be interested in that have a lot of bidders chasing them...something like a 6 carb manifold or some rare flathead heads, or some halibrand wheels or quickchange. Make a note of the bidders ebay ID's who keep showing up bidding on those items. Go to search at the top tool bar on the ebay page, then click on "search by bidder". Slot those ebay ID's you have saved into that box and see what else those bidders are bidding on (make sure that "even if not high bidder" is checked). Some guys have a whole lot of things they are bidding on and some (like me who pretty much never bids until the last minute of an auction) have next to nothing or none. If you see something that interests you click on that auction and then click on "view sellers othe auctions". If this works for you, keep a list of those other bidders and add to it as you find other bidders who are bidding on things you like...but, I would not share these ebay IDs on the HAMB, as some of them are probably HAMBers (and why they are bidding at any time other than the last few minutes of an auction is beyond me, as all that does is help drive up the price).
Here's an easy one that a lot of people screw up: Search by year in both 2-digit and 4-digit format (i.e. 1956 and 56). A lot of sellers only have one or the other but not both in their auction. The best way to search by year(s) is by using parenthesis. Say you're looking for a part that fits a 49-54 Chevy. Search this way: (49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954) Chev* The search feature will pull up every listing that uses ANY of the items in parenthesis when coupled with the wildcard Chev* (which covers Chev, Chevrolet, Chevy, etc).
Spend ALOT of time creating and saving your searches. Plenty of guys will spend 30 seconds to narrow the search, and then spend an hour browsing. That's backward IMO. Use the minus feature just as liberally as the keywords. Most of all, check your searches faithfully. Ebay is as much about your timing as actually finding what you want. The one you can't afford this week will pop up again at half the price later on. Don't be afraid to ask sellers with similar items what else they have.
great advice, Shifty! here's my "secret" search bookmark for parts for my 59 chevy pickups (58,59,1958,1959) chev* (truck,pickup,pu,31,32) -manual -new doesn't get them all, but it finds a lot of stuff. And this search is in the ebay motors "parts and accessories" category only, so I don't get a billion hits on hot wheels toys.
MOST important thing is to run the search in eBay AND eBayMOTORS! Two differennt search setups, just look at the differance in the result numbers.
ebay misspell search link http://www.misspellsearch.com/ when you do a search in the misspell, save that search in your "favorite searches" you will find a button to push on every ebay search page.. then you get an email every day with all the new items in your search as a matter of fact, you can do that with any search, it used to give you every new item within your search parameters, but now they only give you like 20 or so. here's a good group of search terms. be sure to search title and descriptions: hot rod rat rod kustom kemp lead sled gasser dragster drags rail FED race chopped top flathead V8 nailhead flat head nail head 4 banger 235 261 six 6 331 392 hemi vintage sprint nostalgia magneseum SCTA NHRA bonneville muroc dry lakes salt flat flats track T lakester modified stovebolt straight six inline hilborn altered vintage roadster jalopy blower blown injected tail dragger chopper bobber george barris ed roth gene winfield von franco von dutch kustom kulture stromberg strombergs 97 slicks fenton halibrand hildebrandt edmunds offenhauser edelbrock mickey thompson M/T cal custom moon eelco 2x2 3x2 4x2 6x2
I search 32 or 1932 ford all the time. Anyone that has anything good usally uses it in their title. Flathead too. Try 32 coupe or sedan or roadster also because somepoeple forget to add the ford. I got sick of the rat rod search...too much junk! I love the wildcard trick. I always search poeple's feedback (always when they have a rare item listed or just won a auction) and see what they have bought and sold. Good for learning how some items get listed and seeing parts that you never knew existed. Also SCTA, halibrand, and bonneville are good ones...don't forget to check search title and discription when using these. Alot of poeple put a bunch of keywords at the end of their listing.
Awesome. I didn't know about the wildcard or the parenthesis search. Wonder how much cool stuff I've missed out on over the last several years.
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