The dream is dead, part II

Kinda annoying tossing good parts, but I'm tired of lugging this stuff around. Last month, when I sold my wagon, I offered the buyer to take any of the extra parts I had at no charge whether they were wagon related or not (he had other Mopars already).

He took only a couple of items.

I've tried to sell this stuff off over the past 5 yrs or so with no luck, shoot, I can't even get a reply to a WIW post. So, today, I hauled it all to the scrapper.

My Dakota handled the load like a champ and despite being about 105 lbs over payload capacity, she was far from doing the 'Carolina Squat', never touched the bump stops.

Only 'issue' during the 16 mile drive was the other drivers. Four lane road, two lanes each way, ZERO traffic, and idiots kept hugging my back bumper looking for a payday.

*sigh*

I feel your pain, I have about 8K sq ft of Mopar parts that will soon hit the dumpster, I don't even care about making money on them anymore, and I can't get people to come over and take things. The worst will be the 1,000 pieces of stainless and aluminum trim that could be very useful for someome, but most I have no idea what they fit anymore. I won't scrap most of the A-body trim, but I also don't have the time to go through each piece.

Today; aluminum pcs, are easy to reproduce. Forming/punching it.
Stainless is a different story. Ever try to bend a piece?
Tends to get expensive or poor quality.
Unlike most alum., the stainless can be polished and/or "fixed" to a degree.
If me: scrap the alum.
Sort thru stainless & see what's up..

I don't look at this as the dream is dead,. It's just that sooner or later all of us wake up to reality and realize we have to simplify, simplify, simplify. I am sitting on a ton of 50's stuff (mostly radios) that someone could use but unfortunately no one wants them so........

I picked up some BOSS 302 heads and intake from a big Ford guy in Bartlesville, OK.

He was telling me that he carted all kinds of 428, 429 and other high performance BB Ford stuff to a couple of swap meets to try and sell it.

He ended up scrapping almost an entire enclosed trailer worth of good parts because no one wanted them.

Having been raised by parents who experienced the Depression, I inherited their abhorrence of waste, so I feel your pain.
Worse yet, it's reinforced by countless memories of searching for - and paying up for - parts.
It's taken my years to sell off stuff that seemed popular & sought-after, and finally some of the stuff went to recycling.

Right now, I have a lot of stuff - cherry picker, engine stands, a tower of fastener drawers, etc etc - I can't seem to literally give away.

It's been hard to sell parts & other things, buyers seem non existent. It's especially difficult when shipping large items is involved because of how high the fees are now. I will have to say though, that it's still hit or miss with timing. I listed a few things on several websites for a few months & hardly received any interest. Then about a month ago when I relisted the same things I immediately sold several items for the asking prices.

If it's not really in the way taking up valuable space, try to be patient & hopefully the right person will see the ad.

I will have to say though, that it's still hit or miss with timing.


Tell me about it. I don't know if it had to do with it not being stupid hot yet, but the first two weeks of June I basically had a mad rush on selling things. A majority of it was tools I knew I'd never use again. I'd post an ad in the morning, and it would be sold by the end of the day. There is a VERY definite 'fine line' between asking too much VS too little, gotta hit that 'sweet spot'. Too little, there's something wrong with the item, too much, you're trying to rip people off.

I was surprised if not shocked how quickly my wagon sold especially after hearing the comment 'too bad it's a '73' so many times over the years. I got a little less than I had hoped, but I was grateful it wasn't going to the scrapper. Buyer was a super cool guy all around.

EDIT: Having to pay for storage is a great deterrent from keeping stuff laying around forever.

I hear what you guys are saying. I can't even convince my son to take home my stuff he says he really wants, and he has more space then I have. Maybe he remembers living at home with all that "stuff" around and doesn't want his place to be like that...

I've bought and sold a lot of parts over the years. Most of what is here is pretty much just left over stuff that has been picked over for years. I guess that means that when I am finally tired of tripping over it, its time to scrap it. A few months ago I carted a couple dozen "builder friendly" parts to a rat rod swap meet. I sold just enough parts to cover the entry fee and buy lunch. Those guys are not looking for many trim parts. It was a pretty nice day and I enjoyed it a lot. When I got home, I scrapped everything left on the truck. Those rat rod guys are about the only people I know building much right now. I figure that if they didn't want my junk, it must be junk. If I no longer want it, its time to junk it.

how well i know the "stuff" accumulation !
i spent yesterday taking pictures of odds and ends that were left from the 4 pickup loads of "stuff" my buddy hauled to carlisle for me. of those 4 loads, the remains were easily put in the back of my bus [caravan] in just a few boxes.
i told him to price the items at "you pick it up, you own it !"
i'll never use any of it in my lifetime, so it's time to let it go ! might as well give someone the opportunity to get some use out of it instead of it ending up in a dumpster after i croak.
i will be posting in the WIW section as well, hopefully getting some idea what to toss, and what to practically give away.
if the heat and humidity EVER goes down a notch or ten, i need to box up some cop wheels i have advertised here and send out, but man, just taking out the trash bag to the garbage can wears me out, and i get soaked like i just stepped out of the shower !

You heading to Tucson anytime soon?

You still have a Dodge Dakota. The dream isn't dead, just shifting into another dimension.

You (did) have a few pieces id like to have..... That b body, fury nos fender the biggest of those
Mine doesn't need one at present/ but as long as I still have the car it would be a good thing to have "just in case" for my 78
(Though my luck dictates that whichever one I have on hand I'd need one for the other side haha.
There's a couple of "smalls" that I'd like to find for it too... But not "have to".
I haven't seen much else for those cars, in what Ive seen of your stash... though I'm sure I haven't seen it all

I do need to get to Scottsdale but NOBODY is going out that way at the present!

Rusted out seat frames and worn brake drums are things that nobody wants. I don't see any NOS 1/4 panes that are not being reproduced in there. Have to differentiate junk from desirable.

I had saved the seat frame because a couple of springs were broke in the wagon's seat.

A lot of the stuff was 'crash parts' if you will. I originally planned on driving the wagon quite a bit, hence the saving of drums, spindles and suspension parts.

As I mentioned earlier, over the years I heard "if only it wasn't a '73" a LOT. If the suspension bits had been '72-older, they probably would have sold.

Meh, I was aware of all this going in.

I feel your pain John. I have some stuff too. Selling can be a real PITA so some I'd give away. One problem is distance. So much of this stuff now would cost so much to ship. If we were all only in a tight little circle and could pick up in person, how different it would be. Also, some of my stuff is M body stuff so not much interest. Seems it has to be for an E body or early B bodies to get much interest. It is heart breaking to get rid of this stuff because you know somewhere out there someone could use it. Finding them and getting it to them is a problem.

Should be the "Creed" for many old time hoarders out there.

If you're going to get out of storage fees after doing that, I'm going to call it a win.

Too bad the wagon buyer didn't want more, maybe someday he will need something and will remember turning it down when it was offered.

One of these days, somebody ought to have a swap meet next door to a County dump, to make the trip home easier.

I feel your pain , I'm in a similar boat and got a wake up call in Dec of 21 when the city sewer backed up into my basement and I had to move 21 years of accumulation out and back in to get it cleaned up I'm still trying to figure out what to do with stuff , most is going to end up in the scrapyard yard, I can't leave this mess for my family to deal with ... they have no idea what some stuff is actually worth and the wife keeps telling me to get a dumpster ...

I had a perfect set of '69-'70 Cadillac coupe/vert doors (huge! heavy!) with glass and window motors, and maybe even more rare, a perfect set of skirts. I tried for several years to literally give them away, even approached folks with '69-'70 CdVs at car shows. No takers. It was nauseating to shove those perfect, 50-year-old doors out of my truck and into the scrap heap and Frisbee the skirts into the pile. Oh well, I tried.

I'd certainly be glad to take 70 71 Dodge C body stuff off of people's hands. For God sakes don't trash it.
Throw an ad here for free stuff, don't toss it.

"the wife keeps telling me to get a dumpster ..."



HAHAHAHAHAH !!!!!!!!!!!! how WELL i can relate !

I have the opportunity to part out a very clean 1973 Coronet that's in a junkyard. I was going to strip it for everything good, but after reading this post I don't think it's worth it because I don't want to sit on a bunch of parts nobody wants. Of course there are many in the FB 4-door Mopar group who want parts off of it, but when it comes to selling anything they want the parts for practically free. I think I'm just about taking what I need form my two 1972 Coronets and leaving the rest.

I've come to the conclusion that if I need a Mopar part, it's like gold.
And if I have a Mopar part, it's worthless...even if it was gold when I bought it.

That's the best thing to do , just take what you think you'd need . I have a bunch of 68-69 dart parts I'll never sell , just going to keep a few extras and the rest is going to the scrappy .

One thing I recently realized I needed to do; replace any used but operational parts with the NOS stuff I have stored. Then either sell or give away the used stuff. NOS stuff I was saving "just in case".