The average auto parts store can be an amazing resource for miscellaneous parts that can be used in ways never imagined when they were originally put into stock. Those oddball brass fittings and assorted pieces of linkage and clips can and do bring in a whole different type of customer.
I’ve always enjoyed working with older vehicles and equipment, and working at this store has certainly given me plenty of opportunity to do so. When I first started here, it wasn’t so much a specialized field as it was a necessity. The area was still pretty much rural and a lot of people were using some very old trucks and equipment. As the old gave way to the new, demand for a lot of this stuff went away, but the gained knowledge and the ability to know how to find things stayed with me.
Compared to the speed with which it now moves, automotive technology was at a snail’s pace as little as 20 years ago. That being the case, it’s not hard to figure out that fuel lines and fittings used on a mid ’70s Ford F700 aren’t all that different from those used on a 1940 Mack; or that a brake booster from a 1600 Series International will also fit that Mack.
What amazes my customers — and sometimes myself — is that not only are a lot of these parts still cataloged, but we still have them available. I have one customer with vehicles ranging from a 1911 Model T to an ’02 Silverado, and in between are a few cars, trucks and motorcycles that round out the collection. I don’t have much luck finding the Model T parts, but from the late ’40s on up to the Silverado, the availability of chassis, engine and brake parts is still amazingly good. It says a lot about the ability of the aftermarket to be able to continue servicing these older vehicles, especially when you consider that the OEMs are abandoning their parts obligations in as little as seven years in some cases.
In addition to the guys looking for antique car and truck parts, we seem to get quite a few customers looking for items that are not automotive at all, but they’ll give us a try anyway. I’ve been asked for everything from control rod joints (similar to a tie rod end but smaller) that the customer wanted to use in a home-built helicopter to tiny ball bearings from a vacuum cleaner.
Sometimes you get lucky and actually find what the customer was hunting for, but even if you don’t, it’s worth the effort. The time you spend looking for that obscure part is usually remembered when they need something you’re sure to have. I had a customer a few months ago who needed a set of ignition points for a two-stroke generator set built for the German army during World War II. I couldn’t help him out, but I did direct him to someone who I thought could.
A few weeks later, he came back and thanked me for helping him the last time: he’d found his points. Now he was trying to hook up some piping from a small propane regulator/valve assembly into a combustion chamber, and he also needed an ignition source. When I asked him what he was building, he said it was a “semi-working model of a German MG42 machine gun: all the noise and fire but no projectile” (great fun). This was most definitely not like looking up a set of pads and rotors for your average Toyota.
