Rare Parts In Strange Places
 

I was wondering if anyone would like to share any stories of finding rare parts in the last place you would think of finding them.

I recently found a pair of 1967 Impala SS427 hood inserts that were being used as taillight covers on a custom Firebird. Each SS427 Impala got one of these hood inserts, that means they either bought them new from GM or liked the look so much that they hunted down 2 of them.

It got me thinking of other parts found in unusual spots like rare car radios being used as shop radios, vintage factory car tachometers in boats or tune up testers, etc.

Anyone have any interesting finds in unusual places?



Jason

I spent years looking for a vintage Knapp Houston emblem for my Knapp sold 69 Z28. One popped in in Phoenix Az. eBay for 7.00. Needless to say I grabbed it in a heartbeat.

There is a local swap meet at the Drive In Theater here in Guthrie, America on most Saturday mornings from 9 til noon. It is not auto related; in fact I have never seen any car parts. Lots of old tools. Mostly junk. We have picked up some unusual items. I bought an old marble and bronze clock that came from a bank in Prague, OK, and an old mechanical well pump, along with a vintage mechanical well pump.

I am strolling down the lane and there in a milk crate and there is an Opel GT jack WITH the original lug wrench. Really good shape, hardly any rust (no pits). Ask the guy what he wants for it. Says $10. I give him $20. I needed it for my newly purchased GT. Pretty hard to find in good shape.

Some time back I was buying Hurst shifters on ebay and restoring a few. So a nice one with only one so so picture came up and looking very closely at the only side shot I could just make out one leg of a big block mounting bracket on the back side peeking out and still mounted to the shifter, and no mention of it in the description. BINGO ! made out on that deal. I sold the BB bracket for 400 bux +


Mike

I go to Studebaker swap meets. Studebaker owners and vendors are older than dirt, just like me. Most of them have no idea that some of the Delco parts used on Studes were also used on GM's, and some of the Autolite/Prestolite parts were same as used on Mopars. Best non Studebaker parts found there was a 53 to 61 Corvette jack for a mere $10.00, and a real wood Corvette steering wheel in near NOS condition for $75.00. The Avanti / Corvette connection is another plus they don't understand.

Going through a flathead ford parts at a swap meet at the Atlanta dragway - and run across these. pair of left and right 2 Bar knockoffs.
The man stated he had drug them to the states from Australia and had them since at least the mid 1980's. I gladly paid him the $20 he was asking for the pair.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...824eff1edf.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...d70745b80c.jpg

My dad bought a beautiful black walnut farm table in the 1980's. It was nailed to the side of a barn covering a hole. He had the hole in the barn repaired and bought the table from the lady. She had originally stated she couldn't sell it because it was covering up a hole. -

----At one time while living in Ft.Liquerdale I was doing repossesion work and went to an address that a guy had given as his. Knocked on the door and there was no such guy living there. As I turned to leave I glanced at some flowers planted in an old aluminum wheel. Asked the homeowner if I could take look as they reminded me of something. The plants were dead so he said go ahead. I turned the 1st one over and it was a 1967 Corvette optional bolt on wheel and the second wheel matched it. He told me the other two were in the backyard. Bought 'em for $50.00 bucks. He was happy as a clam and obviously so was I......Bill S

Fall Carlisle, don't remember the year. Passing by a vendor with used '40s-'50s Cadillac parts, nothing of interest to me. He had a cardboard box out front marked "Everything $1", I couldn't resist looking. Inside was an NOS in the box '67 SS427 front grille emblem and a nice '61 SS trunk emblem.

Bill W

I bought a rough '69 Camaro project about 15 years ago that came with a few milk crates of stuff. At the very bottom of one crate, among other alternator cores and random junk, was a perfect '67-68 Z/28 fan clutch. That was a very good day....

When i first got my 69Z28 back in the 90s i needed a 837 alternator a friend of mine told me about a guy he met at a swap meet that had Camaro parts i called him and he sold me 2 837 alternator s and 2 480 distributor s for $30 ea and front and back seats no rips for $50 all the deep grove pullies for$ 30

When I got my 68 Z28 6 years I ago,I did an NCRS shipping report. Selling dealer was Ed Randell Chevytown in Portland OR.
I went on eBay the same day to look if anything came up. A licence plate frame was listed and I bought it. Never seen anything else since.

Back in the late 70's/early 80's, before they were repopped, I was on the hunt for a set of Pontiac Rally I center caps.

I had looked all over and just about given up when I saw a VW bug drive by - with Rally I's on the back.

The guy must have had some kind of wheel adapters in order to install the wheels. I chased him down and had the worst time conveying to him what I wanted. He kept saying "if I sell those, how will I get to work?".

He thought I was trying to get wheels and all. Ended up buying two caps for $20. I think I still have them.

K

Just noticed that cap is not correct: it should have either the black base, or the black pinstripe in the dome, but not both...

K

The other story that comes to mind occurred after Dad passed away and I was cleaning up a bit in the garage.

I knew he had this '63 Super Duty "bathtub" intake, and I knew I would never use it, so I decided to sell.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...y/23d1c1c7.jpg

When I picked the intake up it was sitting on a piece of plywood. What I didn't know until just then was that there was a '61-'62 dual quad Super Duty intake underneath that.

And then a second '61-62 intake under that.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...y/000_3043.jpg

K

Dad used to have so much stuff in the back garage that there was just a little trail from the door over to the workbench.

He had so many Pontiac Tripowers that he used to use them for door stops.

We lived in that house starting in 1969 and I never saw the top of that workbench until he passed away in 2005. He always had it covered with a protective piece of cardboard and then all the stuff he was working on piled on top of that.

I cleaned it off and removed the cardboard - and was amazed to find a highly polished piece of beaverboard, with 1.5" brushed angle aluminum all around the periphery, with mitered corners and stainless flathead screws countersunk until they were flush.

It was absolutely beautiful. And I had no idea.


K

In about 2005 , seen a ad for a estate auction in a small town about 30 miles away, in one of the flats I seen a 66 knee knocker 7g tach. Bought the flat for 10.00, still have the tach.
At that aucton was a 22 calibur pen gun (size of a ink pen), forget what it sold for, wish I would have bought it. Oh Well!!!!

----Couple of things, Keith. 1st. that garage must have been like your own swap meet with no one out bidding you!

----2nd. Tell us about the 63 Lemans. An older buddy back in 1963 had a new 326 stick convertible and I thought it was so slick, but that one in triple white is really cool, especially with the Rally 1's. It was quick to my 15 year old brain, and I've laughed to myself a couple of times noting that I had no idea what was going to happen in the Pontiac nation a year later!.....Bill S

Finding rare parts at a swap meet is not a strange place. I used to attend Spring Carlisle Regularly 1994-2005. On one of those trips, scanning the North Field I cam across a GM,console mounted Casette player, very rare for a early 1970’s GM. I bought it for $100.00.
About 10 minutes later, we came across another vendor who had one and in promoting how rare they were, said “ when have you EVER seen one”. I said ,about 10 minutes ago,as I pulled it out of my back pack. Never seen one since.

Went to an estate auction where there was a bunch of car stuff. Going through one box marked "Corvair parts" at the very bottom was a complete roll of NOS white string trunk weatherstrip in excellent condition. The rest of the box contained used parts not worth anything. I carefully tucked the WS back in the bottom and put the box under the table where I found it. When it came up for bid I was the one and only bidder at $10.

Went to a local car show with a small swap meet, I bought an nos ac 212cw air filter for $3.

They went nuts on EBay and the Ncrs board, sold for $375

'

Lots of personal experiences like these over the years too also subject always brings the Green Acres Hotcake Head Gasket episode to mind, sure enough on YouTube as this link...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ae4NDjHr4Y
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Bought an early '70s Trans Am with a 400 small block chevy. It had deep groove 1969 big-block pulleys and a '69 camaro power steering pump on it.

LOL.

Dad surprised me a couple times.

When he got his '63 Tempest coupe it was just out of the blue (to me, at least). He had the car shipped from Oregon and it went immediately into the primary spot in the front garage.

Mom was pissed. Here is this "old car" sitting in her spot, with awful bronze paint and a couple flat tires and a milk crate for a seat.

Dad was walking around whistling to himself, oblivious. He got a straight, rust free car with all the glass intact. Perfect for a Super Duty clone.

The convertible was similar, in that I don't remember any build up or discussion about it. He got it from a guy that worked at the Gilmore Museum in Hickory Corners MI, so we drove over there to pick it up. They showed us around the grounds and treated us like we were royalty while we were there.

The car is a 326v8 auto. Originally with a maroon top Dad switched it to white when he had the car painted and freshened up. Built in Pontiac it was tagged to a "Mr Conner" (no idea who that might be).

K

My Father bought a rusted out 87 monte ss for who knows what and it sat at his place for a couple years. One day I ask about it and he says if u want that pile of sh@t u can have it. I drag it home and decided to look into the motor and turned out it was a 69 DZ 302 with all the original (except valve covers) accessories.

I had a craigslist ad up for some 2nd gen camaro parts for sale (including some extra bumpers that came with my car, but they were rough), noting at the bottom I was looking for a nice pair of '74-77 bumpers for my car.

Well a month or two goes by, I sell some parts, and randomly get a call asking if I was still looking for bumpers. He said he had an NOS pair of bumpers with NOS rubber strips (note the rubber pieces alone are $200 each for repops!) sitting in the rafters of his barn, original GM boxes and all!! He said "give me 100 bucks and your old bumpers and we have a deal" - his car wasn't going to be done anytime soon and mine looked "good enough".

The story doesn't end there either. I drove an hour or two to the middle of nowhere Kansas and wait for the guy to show up at a local truck stop. All the sudden I see this Lincoln Town Car roll up with the trunk wide open and the Camaro bumpers hanging way out the back held in with bungee cords. I was shocked. Luckily he had towels wrapped around them so they were fine, it just looked quite odd. We traded bumpers and he was happy as could be to end up with an extra 100 bucks.

I've still got those bumpers on my car today. Every once and awhile I get asked how I got them so nice and polished up (the anodizing on these bumpers likes to cloud up over time if left outside) and I tell them that story.

I wasn't going to tell this story, but speaking of "bumpers in the rafter of a barn..."

The rear bumper on my '04 Silverado 2500HD is a little tweaked; not too bad but bad enough I notice and I compare with everybody else's rear bumper that I see.

I looked for a replacement and sort of accidentally bought a new (China) bumper off ebay. It didn't fit right and rusted before I even backed it out of the garage, so I threw it away and put my original tweaked bumper back on (after I had drug it around on the concrete because I thought I was going to throw it away).

My brother-in-law Denny got my Dad's truck after Dad passed. I stopped by Denny and Jenny's the other day and Dad's old truck was sitting there. As I walked past I noticed and remembered that Dad had removed the rear bumper and installed a fiberglass rear roll pan in its place.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1620225904

I asked Denny "hey - do you still have the rear bumper off Dad's truck?"

He said "yes- it's hanging there in the barn, over the boat".

Score! So now I have a new take-off original GM, straight, rust free bumper (of known provenance) for the back of my truck.

K

When I lived in Hawaii, I ran out of gas when test driving a old Blazer we just did an engine swap in. I was a mile or two from the house and did not have a phone with me so I decided to walk back. On the walk, I saw a 62 Nova wagon that had 70s plates on it. It had rolled over down an embankment decades before I came across it and was just left there. It had been completely overtaken by jungle but had a complete heater delete and radio delete. The heater delete paid for 3 of my college courses.

Jason

In the early 80's I was in the midst of restoring a 70 Dodge Challenger R/T, factory Hemi car that I bought from the original owner. One of the few things that was MIA when I bought the car was the original radiator, p/n 2998956 which came on only Hemi cars or 440's with HD cooling. This was obviously in the days before internet searches, so it was a bit tougher to locate stuff. Finally found a guy in Grand Rapids MI who said he had one. Drove up there from the Chicago suburbs and sure enough he had it. I asked where he got it. He had it left from parting out a Panther Pink 70 Cuda 440-6 convertible because it was kinda rusty. Even then I thought 'wow, that seems like a pretty rare car to part out'.

......,,,

Charley,

Were those horn buttons used as wheel center caps? I love the use of the original clips to fasten them but if seems like they may fly off under speed?

Jason

That's actually a pretty cool idea...

Until somebody pops them off and walks away with them.

I buy lots of rare parts at swap meets or estate sales, however, this one sticks out the most. I was driving to someone's house to pick up a 1967 Camaro deluxe back seat setup. Along the way, someone was having a yard sale and I couldn't believe what I saw sitting on the table beside the road. I even took a photo because no one was going to believe it. I bet everyone heard my brakes lock up. 1967 Corvette 435hp tri power setup with poorly restored carburetors that look like someone did them in the 80's. Asked him what else he had and also got some NOS 1980's 3rd gen Camaro Z28 parts.

----1967 style. Can't quite tell by looking at the pic weather its 400 or 435 manifold. At least tell us weather you bought the stuff or not!......Bill S

I love circle car swap meets. Used to go to the old Santé Fe race track swap up near Chicago. The one at the Lasalle IL combination drive-in theatre/circle track was also killer. Always bought a space just to get in early at both. Even used to subscribe to an East Coast oval track newspaper that covered the whole US just for their end of year swap listings. Also subscribed to a couple of others that covered Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Oval track racers were the only guys still parting out old cars when most everyone else was trying to put them back together.

Scored a nOS set of fisher t top bags on Craigs List. $30. Date code was 78 too on the inside. Never seen another new set.
And the nOS GM package tray in the cardboard in camel. I shit my pants.

A guy I worked with told me I needed to go by an estate sale after work. I didn't want to, but I did anyway. It was mostly just a bunch of common household stuff, but at the bottom of a cardboard box was a Quadra Jet with a Ford tag on it. I knew right away that it was a '71 429 Cobra Jet carburetor. I got it for $10.

I have an NOS package tray in camel right now for 2nd gen.

When I was young (like 14) my family and I were coming back from a soccer game when my dad really had to use the bathroom. We pull over on the side of the road and my dad hops out and runs into the woods to take a leak. He comes back a few minutes later carrying a steering column. I could see it was a tilt right away and upon further inspection, it was a 63 64 Impala automatic tilt. Literally just laying in the woods. It wasn't super nice obviously but it was rebuildable. I asked my dad if there was any other parts in the woods and he said he looked, there was nothing else. Seriously, what's the odds?

That is certainly a strange place!

Jason