Motion Pictures What was the cheapest cool thing you’ve ever gotten?

At the Turkey run this year for the wife for her to store her thread for her commercial sewing machines ! It was free !!!!

 

My old Yellowstone. $300

 

Yeah, I should have said 600 ft lbs

 

I got a pair of unpolished 4" Halibrand sprints with Pirelli tires for $20 years ago.

 

y For $100 I picked up this resin cast NASCAR Ford flow Bench prototype intake.


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I got a five gallon bucket of milling bits for nothing. I can't imagine what it was worth, but I have gotten a lot of use out of them.
Bob

 

Sold a guy a 340 shortblock. As he left I said "plus the core."
Always ask for a core. Few weeks later he bangs on my front door
early Sunday morning. Says something like "my buddy wanted
the broken 318, so how about this instead?" pointing to a complete
Mopar long ram setup minus the carbs, but with linkage, correct air cleaners, perfect chrome etc. I was smart enough to wait a decent amount of microseconds before saying, well, OK this time.

Always ask for a core.

 

It was the summer of 1961, I was 10 years old and spotted a 1932 Ford grille hanging on a nail in a neighbors garage. Pete was a few years older than me and I asked him what he wanted for it, he asked what I had to trade? We rode out bikes to my house and he saw the floor mats my Dad had washed from the brand new '61 Ford Four door hardtop, draped over saw horses. He wanted the mats so we both took one and peddled over to his house. I walked the bike home, with the '32 grill in my other hand. That night at dinner Dad asked how my day was, I told him I swapped the floor mats for the '32 grille without asking him. He said he always wanted a '32 3Window, and he had replaced the floor mats with four new individual mats that didn't wrinkle over the driveshaft tunnel. A year later I got a '30 Roadster body for cleaning out a garage. This has been a 57 year old build, maybe the grandkids will finish it. Bob

 

Years ago at Indy Goodguys swap I spotted some old slicks with big slots painted black.
They were a pair of 16 x 10 two piece ET 111
Bought for FIFTY BUCKS. >Doesn't happen often but it does happen. He priced them.

 

2000 goodguys Charlotte scored a yblock tri power intake for $35

 

Got 3 T bucket steel O/G bodies, 2 C cabs and one bucket from an empty lot near a junk yard in the 60's for free.

 

A friend of mine, Rich "Striptnut" on here gave me a Muncie M21. Saw it on his garage floor and asked him about it. He said, "if you can use it, it's yours". Couldn't load it up fast enough.

Another friend of mine, Abe gave me an engine... a Chevy 250 6.

Both of those went into a project '67 c10 pickup I had at that time. I was pretty psyched about it.

Good bros...

 

I scored old chrome 40 Ford backing plates for $50. The chrome was starting to flake where the spindles mounted, but solid otherwise. Sold them to a buddy building a 32 roadster with an old chrome front end for $100. Should have kept them

Bought a complete 32 Ford front end... spindles, heavy axle, unsplit wishbones, tierod, for $50. Cost me $150 in gas to get there and back, but I still came out ahead. Using the axle and wishbones on my 29 Phaeton.

 

About 12 years ago went to a Real estate sale (guy was a hot rodder RIP )

His parts collection was being auctioned in the back yard, During preview I noticed a air cleaner That had a 302 sticker on it all wrapped in a garbage bag in a box with some other trinkets that wasn't worth much.
During a auction you can tell what people have or like in parts by what the bid on..

Me and this one other guy was bidding mostly on the chev parts.. Then came the lot with the air cleaner in the box. No one started the bidding so I started it at $5. I was thinking this is going to go HIGH dollar. Well as be it no one else bid, I got it for $5. as the auction continued going I asked the other Guy how come he didn't bid on the air cleaner being a chevy man? He said the Ford air cleaner.. I said its not a Ford ! His eyes got real big and jaw hit the ground and said nooooooo way, I said yup... 69 Z28 302 complete air cleaner assembly Put it on FleeBay got $1250.00 BUY IT NOW for it with a hour of listing...

Thinking I may have got hosed selling it...……..

 

You must have been in "the yard"

 

Standard bore complete 428 Super Cobra Jet for $300. Sold the short block for $1500, the intake for $275 and the heads for $400 after a quick degreasing.

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Bought 3 moving boxes full of NOS Lucas british car parts at a yard sale for $25. Took me a month to catalog and research what everything fit. Started listing on Ebay and cleared out most of it in about 2 months, all said and done made 3 grand and still have a box of random leftovers and never identified parts in my garage.

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Used to hang out Saturdays at a deep woods old style junk yard run by the sleaziest dude you ever met, who literally BSed his way into ownership of the place with nothing backing him up but horseshit and rainwater. Great guy. One day there was a new C/60 cabover in the back with a screwed 366 motor which I bought for cheap. I can't remember what tipped me off, but it looked like a winner. Anyhow, someone who knew something had rebuilt it properly, reground crank, bearings, cam with all the goodies, done heads, even a new clutch [think it was a double disk...?] Problem was they tore one of the intake side gaskets when they assembled it and the vacuum leak made it run like an open sore, so they scrapped the truck. Think I paid $100. Musta pulled 30 mopar 8 3/4 pickup diffs outa that yard, 3.91s and 4.10s.

 

Bought a Coats 10/10 off CL for $50.00, paid for itself in the first tire change!

 

Cool!
I still have my Chevy 302 air cleaner assembly from when I had a '69 Z/28.... I didn't know they were worth that much.... Guess I'll keep it....

 

Keep in mind this was 12 years ago when the economy was booming... And unfortunately they have repops for them now and drove the price down on the real deal

 

The local high school janitor gave me a '55 Ford Crown Victoria glass top in 2004. For free.

Quick story. I was home from college for the summer and the law firm I was interning with was closing, so I needed to pick up a new gig for a couple months for some extra money. I had gotten word that a job had opened up at the local DPW for a seasonal garbage collector. I applied, got the job, and became a summer garbage man. Excellent. One morning I drove my 57 Ford to work, and the janitor at the local high school who had dropped by the DPW shop saw it and struck up a conversation with me.

guy to me - "Oh, you like old cars? I got an old car."
Me - "oh yeah? what do you have?" (expecting something along the lines of a 78 Volare)
guy - "I have a 55 Crown Victoria. You want it?"
me - "........ uh........... yeahhhhhhhhh"

So I go with the guy after work to go look at the car. It was parked in his back yard in Freehold, NJ, in mud, for probably 25 years. They built a fence around the yard and there was no way to get the car out without taking out part of the fence. The car was absolutely unsaveable. From being parked in the mud for so long, the entire bottom 6" of the car had dissolved into the earth. When I pulled the cover off it I was stunned to see a glass top. I pulled open the door, and sure enough, a legit 64B VIN tag, one of 1999 built that year. It was loaded with options too; V8, automatic, power seat and windows, deluxe radio... a real shame it was as far gone as it was. My buddy and I pulled it out and sold it on eBay to a guy that didn't even want the car, just the clear title and VIN tag, though we made him take it all. I'll have to dig the pictures of that car out.

 

At the last year for Pate at the old location, we got rained out on Thursday,effectively ending the meet.I talked to some guys who brought a friends stuff with instructions to sell at any price. The guy was moving and wasnt taking the stuff to the new location, no matter what. We could see the dark blue sky coming and everyone was leaving. I offered one dollar and they said OK for everything. A bunch of 40 Ford stuff including a chrome front crossmember. I couldnt do that--gave'em $10

 

...the law firm I was interning with was closing...I had gotten word that a job had opened up at the local DPW for a seasonal garbage collector. I applied, got the job...

That's funny right there.

 

The repops don't have the Delco ink stamp underneath the air cleaner lid.... Mine does....

 

Probably all stolen too by the sound of it.


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A Sharp 4 Carb For The Salt Flats...$20.00...

 

392 Hemi that ran. $75
Model T phone booth coupe. $25
Nine ‘55 Chevy 2 door sedans for $300...back in 1977.
1930 Model A roadster complete car $150
1970 ‘cuda parts. Shaker hood, 4-speed with console,rallye dash and complete 6-pack intake with air cleaner,bucket seats etc. $500
1969 Dodge Daytona nose and wing for $300

 

"Probably all stolen too by the sound of it."

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't buy stolen parts and I resent your inferrence. As a matter of fact, if it's any of your business (and it's not), they were owned by a guy that worked as a mechanic for a local GM dealership and had passed away. They set the price and I paid it.

Hope that's OK with you.............

 

You do what you need to do to pay the bills lol. I'm a partner in my office now, but I still remember what it's like to really bust your ass for a living