Couple this with the just now election and you can say done over stick a fork in it, we’re history and I mean us old guys and our hobby. Get out while you can. Now I feel how the people at the last turn of the century that were tied up in the horse business felt like when the automobile came on the scene.
Nope. Buy up all you can, to keep it out of the dumpster and scrap heap. Then trade freely with other car enthusiasts "under the table" style, dare I say we may have to take our projects to "black market" status to keep it alive. As it is now it's bad, when I can go to a junkyard and get a used part with who knows how many miles it has or how long it has been baking in the sun or how waterlogged it may have been at times while sitting in that junkyard and put it onto my daily driver and still have that used part last longer and work better than a (so called) "equivalent" or "compatible" new part. I don't buy everything there at a junkyard, far from it. But parts that 10 years ago weren't worth buying there, are now worth pulling off twice and installing once (pull yours off, pull the one at the yard and put that one on your daily) and people wonder why I have so much"stuff" around here? I tend to stay with similar vehicles, ones that parts from my old ones will transfer to the replacement. And buy the best parts I can, drive my junk into the ground rather than trading yearly like some/ then save the good parts for the next one.
And I scout ebay for old "new" parts that fit my junk, parts with plenty of dust on the labels, parts more likely to have been made here before NAFTA and the huge sellout to places like China. Stuff that if it fits my junk, I'll buy 3 or 4 of something while the gettin'is good, even though I only need 1 today. OEM stuff and aftermarket.
I needed a 4 pin ecu for my 85 D150 when I did the lean burn ectomy on it. I found some OE, and some from old school brands like E-tron, Sorensen, Niehoff, and Blue Streak back when they were good. I got 4 aftermarket Mopar ECUs in a couple of days. One for the 85, one for when I get around to the lean burn ectomy on my 78 Fury, one for when the 40 year old original one left my son in a parking lot on his 80 D150, and 1 for a spare. If it's still here and I ever get the volare done I'll need one there too. None will go to waste, got them cheaper than the Chinese version at the local parts store, (that the parts sales idiot had no idea what the part does) and I'll be able to sleep at night knowing that these parts won't let me down any time soon.
