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A recent thread regarding a brake job that should have taken a day but was still not done because parts were not available locally got me to thinking; not everyone knows how to deal with working on older cars. I thought I'd pass along some things I've learned keeping a fleet of older vehicles running. I encourage others to add to this thread. I think it will benefit some of the younger folks.
When trying to find parts locally you have to know what you are looking for. There was a time when the local parts house employed people who knew how to cross reference parts. That is no longer the case. If your car isn't in their computer they are completely lost. Nevermind that almost all auto parts stores have stacks and stacks of cross reference books tucked away somewhere. It might not do them any good anyway; many cannot read well enough to find anything in those books.
Never state the year of the car. If the car was built a decade or two or three before the guy or girl was born it seems out of the realm of possibility that any part in their vast inventory could possibly be used on something THAT old.
Never say "Volvo" at Pep Boys, O'Reilly's, Auto Zone, et al. Instead say Bendix, Dana, TRW, Bosch, etc. Volvo is foreign in more ways than just built somewhere else. And, if you say 1966 & Volvo in the same sentence their brains go into some sort of endless loop. You'll have to give them time to reboot before you give them any more information.
Always have part numbers. This is entirely necessary when dealing with the parts department at the local Volvo dealer. It will help when dealing with NAPA to have NAPA numbers if you can source them. Hollander numbers only help at the wrecking yard.
If you know a part is used on another, newer car use that make, model, and year to feed the computer boy. For instance, the U-joints on the Amazon are common as dirt. They are size A, Beck-Arnley PN 102-0387. One application is the '79-'82 Chevrolet (Izusu) LUV pickup. It was also used by Volvo on most 240's and on the 760 for '85-'87.
I'll post more as it occurs to me. Meanwhile, add your knowledge, experience, work-arounds, substitutions, or whatever you think will help some of these guys just getting into maintaining older cars.
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Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- (I've taken to using Mr. because my name tends to mislead folks on the WWW. I am a 51 year old fat man ;-) -- KD5QBL
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