History Gremlins,not the car...

I'm eluding to those parts you misplace or lose in your shop and often we say the gremlins got them.

It is truly amazing that I bought a couple of new 1940 interior door handles for the Deuce sedan a couple of weeks ago and I know I made it to the shop with them but I have turned the shop upside down on for the life of me I can't finds them.

I know from past experience if I just give up and buy 2 more handles I will locate the previously lost ones the very next time I enter the shop... Damn gremlins! HRP

 

I to suffer the whims of the Gremlins. That is why some things never seem to get to completed!
ARGH, Gremlins!
KK

 

I had the same trouble many times. So now I have a note book that I write in what I bought, the price and WHERE I PUT IT. Haven't lost a thing since. Bob

 

It's amazing what we do absent mindedly! I once came home from work car keys in hand, threw something away in the kitchen trash, then spent the next 3 days looking for my keys. While at work I'm retracing my steps in my mind, I got into the house using those keys and then I remembered throwing something in the trash. That's right! Found them in the garbage can in one of those kitchen trash bags. At least the garbage man hadn't come yet that week!

 

They call me Bob....until you lose the book.....
misplaced a steering arm for at least two months...bought a new one....found the old one the next day....
tools...that is why I have a least two maybe three of almost every tool...it seems I always misplace the single ones, like my 40 year old tin snips...

 

Gremlins inhabit my garage. They come quite often and hide or take things only to return them after I have purchased a replacement-the older I get, the more often they show up. Like Ricks Garage above I have duplicate tools but still can't find the one I need when I need them but they somehow show up later.

 

I had a car sandblasted so it was totally stripped. I was working in the open trunk (trunk lid was still off) when I lost a small bolt that went to the trunk hinges. No problem, I thought, since the bolt had to be in the trunk. I looked for a long time for that damn bolt. I used magnets and air nozzle to look into the crevices. Never did find the bolt although I looked for it every time I opened the trunk. Recently I lost a 7/16 socket. Again, I looked everywhere... turned the shop upside down but no luck finding the lost socket (although I did find some other things that I had misplaced). So I bought a new socket and then a day later when I stopped abruptly the socket rolled out from under the passenger seat.

 

Ah yes, I've had a set of license plates for the first car I built, for thirty years now, carried them with me through thick and thin. Put them somewhere in my shop, have torn my shop literally apart, cannot find them, I did not give them away. Over the period of two months, I've looked many times, they walked off.

 

Having the wagon apart for 9 long years you can imagine how many parts that got misplaced,the car has been on the road for almost 3 years and I recently found the headliner tins that I searched high and low for but ended up buy replacements from Bob Owens,they were behind the sandblasting cabinet. HRP

 

I had a gear-shift knob my father gave me 40 years ago...round, blue with white swirls (out of his old hot rod)....I put it in a box for 'safe-keeping', and still have not found it!....I remember thinkin' ..."I'll put it in here, and that way I'll know where it's at''....only, I forgot where & which box I put it. I've looked high and low for that gear-shift knob....it's definitely still here, but....it's a mystery that still haunts me ....Murphy's Law assumes I'll find it one day...sure would be nice!

 

LOL I find parts that I don't even remember loosing or even owning all the time. I am sure no one has broken in and left them thee so they must have been stolen by the gremlins and then I found where they hid them.

When we were kids there was a series of book that me and the wife both read called "The Borrowers" they took all kinds of stuff and lived below the floor boards of old houses. The Borrowers get blamed for all kinds of stuff around here.

 

this is all I have to say about that

 

I LOST THE NOTE BOOK!!! Yesterday, I was at a friends looking at several 263 Buick engines, searching for a decent "hop up" candidate. Note book in hand, I took down engine numbers. Now only two out of three show up in my note book. Another note book??? GREMLINS!!!

 

Was just thinking about this very subject yesterday working in the garage. I swear I cannot keep a pair of needle nose plyers available in my shop. Damn place eats them. I usually end up grabbing some other tool that will do the job while thinking those three sets will turn up someday. I bet this has been going on for three years now.

 

I have watched things hit the floor, bounce twice to out of sight and never find, no cracks in the floor either!

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/why-its-good-to-lose-something.784842/
i still have not found them.
or my virginity........ and not to a gremlin.....although she was short........no not a gremlin.

 

Every time I make a conscious attempt to put something in a "safe" place, it's gone. Sometimes the item will re-appear, but only after an exhaustive search.

 

Don't even get me started! I will say this: I have several plastic tubs full of nuts, bolts and washers etc. that I have purchased. I am fairly sure they exists from me buying the hardware I needed, loosing it, buying it again and then finding the first round later. HOWEVER I will point out that even though there is every conceivable bolt size, thread, length etc. in there. There is very rarely the one I need at any given point!

 

"Of all the things in life I've lost; I miss my mind the most".

 

Gremlins? Maybe. But sometimes I think my parts and tools somehow travel to a different universe or time and then return to the present time after I have a fit of rage!

 

Gremlins are a necessity, if they didn't exist we'd have to invent them. If not for them we'd have to take responsibility for all the crap disappearing.

 

Shop gremlins,yes they're real. My shop like many ,may have a bit too much stuff,but I tell ya on one of the few times I actully kind of tryed to clean up,I found a dryed up dead gremlin body under what had been a landslide of old parts,must of got him good. Now for you young guys or nonbelevers that don't know about gremlins,they are invisble tell they die,but there buddys completely hide the dead normely.

 

I sold a Model A Coupe a while back and misplaced the underseat floor pan. Tore through the entire upper attic of the garage one corner to the other called the shop where I had the car worked on nope...couldn't find it and yes it is frustrating. It is somewhere...sold car without it.
One bit of advice...if your bringing a pile o parts to a shop to get worked on DO inventory or photo inventory your stuff. Why? Lots of the shops have all kinds of duplication of parts and things can get lost or mixed up. I am not blaming just saying. I am very careful not to blame as I am practicing for old age myself so ya gotta be sure.
If you can't find something ask others that may have been in the vicinity of your workspace as they may have put it somewhere saving you hours of snooping, cussing and scratching valuable hair off your head.
On an ending note I have so many things packed away I have found things that I can't even remember buying or acquiring...yipes.

 

Pictures Dana...
The gremlin in my garage looks like me ​

​

 

Thats one of the reasons they went to roller bearings from ball bearings...you stand a chance with rollers.

 

Had the original owners manual for my '64. Had; it was getting a little ratty but didn't mean to throw it away. At least I am pretty sure that's what happened. Looked all over for it.

Bought a reproduction for $15, should be here today or tomorrow. If the original is here, it will turn up soon though.

 

Have a one shop tour...at your garage. Offer a door

prize to the guy that finds a set of 40 door handles.

 

If you look for something else you will find the door handles and probably something that you haven't even realized you've lost, or even owned.

 

EXACTLY!! After typing my post above. I went back into the garage this evening to do some body filler. Haven't touched the stuff for 3-4 yrs. I began snooping around a portable tool dolly looking for an applicator. And WTF. There in that tray was one of my needle nose pliers.