Technical What unusual ways have you transported car parts?

I bought some Harley gas tanks at a yard sale, then tied them together and wore them around my neck as I rode my 46 Harley home.

 

Us old Penna. guys know how to get the job done, glad you liked it, that old ranger did the trick and the costs of hauling it were reasonable.

 

12 hr road trip to pick up a 39 bed and fenders for my '41.

Got a few stares.

 

Moss covered Bronco 9" stuffed in a little beer can Suzuki.

 

I once carried home a complete front sheet metal assembly for a 39 buick in the back of a chevy 1/2 ton
short bed. It came from way upstate New York, far enough north that 1/2 hour into the return trip I
went thru a Border Patrol checkpoint. Guess they figured it was not anything interesting, I got waived thru.

 

Ford C4 transmission on the fender mounted luggage rack of my 1971 Harley Davidson Sportster .

 

Worked at an airport checking through baggage and got a real heavy suitcase and asked the bloke what he had in there that was so heavy- I said jokingly "you got an engine block in there?" - and he opend it up and yep, he had a datsun 4 cyl bare block.

 

The frame in the pickup bed above reminded me of another story; course it's a little off topic. When I first got my rear engine Super Comp Dragster, it only had a 3 point cage. The current regs were 5 point, so I had to have it up-dated at Art Morrison's shop in Fife, Wa; I live in Everett, Wa. The frame was stripped down, no body panels, and no engine/trans, I had snow tires on steel wheels bolted to the rear axle, but the trailer was still being worked on. Called the Washington State Patrol to see if what I had planned was "legal", and it was! So, I lifted the dragster into the pickup, rear end first, raised the gate, and tied the dragster down. Here's my pickup headed down I-5, with about 12 feet of dragster hanging out the rear, with some "attention/safety flags" tied to the front axle/tires. Got lots of looks on that one too, and a few thumbs up. Sometimes you gotta do, what you gotta do. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

In the 70's I broke down on my Knuck in Michigan in the winter . Bought an old dodge for $200 and took the trunk lid off and got a axe and cut a slot through the roof to the wind shield ,pulled out back seat and cut front seat in half . Rolled the bike in and with most the floors rusted out , off I went to Texas . Wasn't any warmer than the bike . Boy I'm glad those days are over . Blue

 

It was 1967, so no pics. I was on layoff from assembly line at auto plant in Atlanta, drawing unemployment and "sub pay", and had rented a small shack of a shop outside of town, doing some "Cash on the QT" auto repair work to supplement my sorta limited income while going to local tech school taking machine shop courses.
About 10 miles out of town a dirt track was built and a friend and I decided to build a car and did so, really did it the low buck way. Already had a '55 Chev. 2 door body when we found a '56 4 door with the suspension parts still on it that we needed, but we had to haul it all off to get it. No motor, front sheet metal or bumper, doors, or rear axle. Just a body shell, frame, and front suspension less hubs.
Borrowed another friend's converted Air Force bomb truck, the ones you see in old Korean War era movies, converted to a wrecker. Backed up to that '56, lifted front of frame and set it down on channel iron rear bumper of that pld Ford 3/4 T wrecker and chained it so it couldn't slide off, and pulled the winch cable out over the top of the car, knocked a hole in trunk floor and wrapped the cable around the rear crossmember plus a piece of 4X4 wood and the beat up rear bumper. When we pulled that cable back in, it lifted the rear of the '56 off the ground, after caving in the roof, you just had to be real easy with the accelerator or it lifted up the old truck's front wheels off the ground, LOL!!
Only about 2-3 miles back to the shop in a direct route, but about twice that on the back roads we took! Really had to have a light foot on the gas pedal in order to steer!
Over the years, more stories about hauling stuff, but mostly machine tools, so OT.

 

I once bought a hardtop for a '57 -'60 Corvette. The problem was that the top was 500 miles away and the seller was not willing to build a crate to ship it. He did mention that he had a friend who ran a plant that made cheese. I was not sure how that would help the situation. However, a few evenings later, I got a call to meet a refrigerated truck at a nearby rest area on the interstate. I met the truck, off-loaded the top from the cheese truck, and bolted on my car.

 

Had a Ford Festiva for a while, was building a lot of engines at the time. My machinist would bust out laughing every time I pulled up with a Festiva lined in plastic with a stripped SBC in the back.

It was actually a good car, got 38 mpg no matter what, 5 spd so I could move decent in traffic. I wrecked it and my painter buddy threw a bunch of green pearl in the blue paint as a joke. What the hell.

 

In 1960, I had a cherry '36 Ford 5 window, big 296" Merc, '39 tranny, blew the '36 rear end.
First wife Janet's friend Katie was over visiting, I was hanging wallpaper. The old guy at the wreckers across from Skylark drive in called, if I wanted the banjo, ring, carrier and pinion I'd better get down there.
Janet and Katie reluctantly agreed to go get it. On the city bus!
That bus driver was cross, but the two of them could have convinced Hitler to stay out of Russia!
It was in pieces in a loose cardboard box, and stunk like raw caster oil.
Their jaws were rigid when they got it home...

 

Back in 1967, I delivered a complete big block Chevy engine in the trunk of my 1967 Camaro, From Hartford, Connecticut to Queens, New York to a friend of Jack Merkel's. It was an interesting ride to say the least, the front end was very light, and steering was precarious.

 

I've had to get pretty creative off and on over the years, not this creative though.
This is a favorite photo on my shop wall. Credit to the original poster, IIRC, I got it off the HAMB.

 

This is where I get glass for my projects. Free, my kind of price!


This is how I get it home.

 

In carry all kinds of stuff in my HHR. Rear ends, motors, body parts, all of my swap meet parts.

 

I didn't do it, but my brother hauled a set of '63 Pontiac pistons and brake drums home on his horse. He rode down into the ravine, tied up the horse, yanked all the parts, stuffed them in gunny sacks, tied 'em to the saddle, and back up the incline. Took most of the afternoon as I remember.

 

I was on a business trip for work. I flew in on a Sunday afternoon and hit a couple of wrecking yards on the way to the hotel. I found a hood lip molding fir a 1967 Impala. But how to get this 4.5ft trim piece home? This was right before 9/11 and I was able to carry it with me on the plane with no question asked and store it in the overhead compartment. Surprising, I did NOT get many strange looks.

 

My friend Charlie Pontiac in Bayside Queens NY , bought a early seventies Full size Pontiac , remove the rear seat , built up a plywood floor and would pickup complete 400s , 455s' heads , cranks , transmissions etc...one time had a dozen pair or so heads he picked up from a defunct rebuilder.....smart that Charlie boy

 

When I was messing with off topic import stuff I lived in a tiny SF apartment with no storage and commuted every day to Palo Alto. I was motor swapping my daily Honda hatchback. I carried the engine in the trunk and the trans on the floor in front of the passenger seat for 3 months while I got all the bits and pieces together for the swap. I jumped the car at some point and popped a bunch of spot welds in the trunk.


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I found the remains of a 54 ford along the riverbank in the city.
There was no way to get a truck to it, so i had to park a mile away. I cut it apart with a sawzall at 6:00 AM, then carried it piece by piece back to where I was parked. Oh and did i mention this was in a busy public park?
I think i made 5 trips back and forth, once I got it out of the trees, I was able to drag it along a nice paved walkway, the only part that sucked was carrying it up the 4 flights of stairs to the parking lot. It took me until 11:30.
Surprisingly, no one tried to stop me, but I got lots of strange looks, and 2 people actually thanked me for saving the environment?







There isnt a single usable part on the entire mess, and I have no idea what im going to do with it. I got bit by 2 ticks, sunburned, and I blew out my back, but I would totally do it again.

I have hauled lots of other stuff unconventionally, and my past OT dailys always ended up with mysterious oil stains on the seats/ gouged, or broken door panels(36 ford rear radius rods apparently wont fit in a jeep Tj without rolling down the passenger window), and a torn headliner from hauling car parts.

This is OT, but a couple years ago I saw a family of 4 hauling a full sized mattress on the roof of their car, their was no straps holding it down...each person had their arm out the window holding the mattress down (including the driver). I sure wish i had a camera with me for that one.

 

Hauled a T400 home in the trunk of a neon. Hauled a box of 40 Ford brakes to the coast in a Chrysler LHS, then picked up a Hydromatic and hauled it up the coast in the trunk.

Carried a 4 speed from mustang II on my old bike, but that was when I was young and dumb and full. . .

 

Lunch box.

 

How did you know what it was ?

 

I was on a business trip years ago and bought a '37 Chevy original radio box (firewall mounted unit) from a shop machine repair guy I was working with. I brought it home with me in a bag on the plane. When I went through Security at the airport, the young security screener gal asked me to open it up. She spotted all the vacuum tubes, had no idea what it was and called over an old Sheriff's deputy on duty. He looked at it and knew immediately what it was. When he told her it really WAS a radio and to let it pass, she looked at both of us like we were nuts!

 

I originally found it like 6 years ago, and I thought it was a 53, but everything was so overgrown and partially buried I had to crawl on the ground to get to it, once I got it home I found out it was a 54 thanks to google images.

 

This lill sucker has been real nice to me!
It has hauled a ford 390 engine + a toploader (engine was in pieces, but still), 2 ford 9" rearends + a bunch of driveshafts and a couple spare pumpkins, A-ford tank+cowl, a disassembled honda cb 125cc, some old beatup 32x17,5-15" slicks, a couple straightaxles for A-ford + a wishbone, and so on...

It's all a matter of squeezing and planning, and ofcourse, sit uncomfortable, very uncomfortable

And carrying my tig welder+gastube and some standard metalfab gear was pretty normal this lill shit! I even had a bracket made to strap the gastube to

Rest in peace, corsa

/sidney


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I haul parts around Hersey in a converted large three wheeled baby stroller.