Chop Chop Time.

I have been taking parts off of Rusty before he  goes to the crusher. Unbelievable as it may seem, there are still plenty of useful parts on Rusty. I have been removing dash parts, trim, the rear end, hinges, glass, and misc. items.

In a strange twist of fate, Bob now has a blue ’58 2 door wagon. It has rust in the usual places (floors & rockers), and rust in a very unusual place. Evidently a mouse had crawled up in the headliner and started a nest in the rear section of the side roof. This area is right above the Driver side back seat  rear window area. The nest caused the metal there to rust.

So, Bob came over on a very sunny Saturday with a new cutting tool he was anxious to use and chopped the section of roof out of the Rusty Yellow ’58 wagon.  He also cut out a small section of door post on the drivers side by the rocker that he needed for his wagon.

So, Rusty the wagon is supplying many good parts for 2 other ’58 2 door wagons. He now looks like this:

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Portland Swap Meet

Bob and I had a couple of booths at the 47th Annual Portland Swap Meet.  This is the largest automotive Swap meet for Pre 1980 Cars West of the Mississippi River.  We took an assortment of Parts that we had collected since the last swap meet we had a booth together, which was about 4 years ago.  It is shocking how much stuff a couple of guys can collect in that amount of time! We took out parts to a ’55 Packard we cut up over a year ago.  Misc aluminum wheels that Bob had.  A set of aluminum wheels I had.  Also, Bob took out many truck parts he has. He sold quite a bit. I sold some stuff, but it was easy to see Bob had more of the stuff that people were wanting.

The weather was excellent on opening day, Friday April 1.  The sun was out and it was a comfortable 68 degrees.  This was the first day in Oregon in the past 37 days that we did not have rain.  The crowds were very good that day. Both of us sold stuff.

It was a buyers market.  The economy being as bad as it is, people are very frugal with their money and they came for bargains.  Some would be disappointed, because I saw a lot of people leaving on closing day with just about as much as they came in with.

I didn’t sell anything big. Mostly smaller items, which is fine.  I had hoped to get rid of the Packard 1/4 panels and front clip.  There was alot of interest but nobody with any serious money.  So Bob brought his Saw-Zall and we chopped the front headlight section of the fenders off. Then we cut the tail light sections out of the 1/4 panels.  These sections are popular with Hot Rodders who like to graft these parts onto their ’50s Cheverolets.

It was nice to hang out with Bob and sell parts.  It helps pay for future parts for our own projects, like my wagon and Bob’s other Project cars. But the 3 days of 4:00am wake ups, and getting home after 8 pm  have really made me ache.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting to old for this.

Bob and I didn’t get out to wander around much. We decided we were there to sell, not buy. We were like eachothers Alcholics Anonymous sponsor, always making sure to remind the other to stay strong and ignore the urge to buy.  The only times either of us left our booths was to go to the Bathroom.  During one of those times I failed in a moment of weakness.  I stumbled into a booth with shiny chrome objects  with a man saying “Everything is $1.00! Come and get it!”.  I muscled my way in and started grabbing interesting looking door handles,  ’50s speedometer head, chrome glove box doors, and other interesting stuff.  I paid the man went back to our booth with my head down in shame.

During another bathroom break I found a ’57 Ford 2 door Ranch Wagon. It was a decent looking rig, with a big engine. The sticker shock I received after reading the asking price on the Windshield took all the joy out of looking at it. $17,000 dollars!!  Ooof.

It was a good Swap Meet. I think I’ll be recovered from it in time for the next one!