A friend of mine passed away a few months ago. We weren’t close, but his friends were my friends and he was a hard-core car guy. He was only in his mid-‘50s when he died of a heart attack which made the event that much more shocking. He was a single guy so you could guess what that meant. His house, home garage, and the shop where he worked was full of project cars, engines, and parts.

I’ve mentioned before my friend Tim Moore’s quote to me that “There’s a very fine line between being a collector and being a hoarder – and you’re right on that edge.” He’s right, of course, and it’s near impossible to find that line is when it’s your own stuff. With everybody else’s stuff, the line is easy to see and easier to condemn. But with your own stuff, it’s always different, right?

In my buddy’s case, his friends were shocked at what they found when they offered to help his family dig through it all. Since it was 90 percent car stuff, his family had to rely on his friends to decide what was worth selling and what should just be tossed. This involved at least eight to ten of his friends and probably more. The collection was massive and took up several locations.

I volunteered to drive two hours to help with the task and with close friends Eric and Doug. We were tasked as the “cognoscenti” to pick out the parts that were valuable from the mundane. Our lost friend had collected somewhere around 15 to perhaps 20 engines, some transmissions, and tons of small parts that we had to dig through.

The guys managing this effort told me I could pick out anything I wanted to buy and at first I avoided temptation. But I eventually succumbed – using my favorite excuse that I can use the parts for technical stories that I will write. Eventually I had piled a few pieces in the trunk of my car – which means they are now taking up space in my shop gathering dust.

At one point, the friends asked my buddy Eric and I to identify a block that had been sitting outside. It was decidedly rusty and clearly ignored, yet we thought that this might have a reason that it had survived. It was clearly a big-block Chevy yet it looked odd. I mentioned to Eric that the bores looked awfully small for a Rat motor and after looking at it for a few minutes suggested it might be one of those old tall deck Chevy truck blocks used in gas-powered big trucks back in the early ‘70s.

Eric got out his smart phone and ran the code that we discovered after sanding down the i.d. pad. Here’s where the internet really is a wonderful tool. It only took Eric about 2 minutes to discover that the block was in fact from the ‘70s so my guess was correct – the other guys were impressed but it was just a completely lucky guess based on 1 percent intuition and 99 percent luck. It turned out this was a 366 block – hardly worth keeping. It was weird that he would keep this oddball.

All this eventually got me to thinking about my own deal and the dozen engines I currently have along with a loft full of Chevelle and engine parts. Perhaps half of them should find a new home. And that’ doesn’t count three more that are currently either on loan or at the machine shop. Yikes. But it seems that every time I try to thin the herd, I end up needing that part I just either threw away or sold. It seems that’s always the way it works – or perhaps that’s just my justification for keeping all these engines.

It’s fun to watch that TV show American Pickers because of all the weird stuff the two characters from my home state of Iowa run across. The people who have buildings full of stuff and can’t let go of any of it are the ones that bother me. Those are the kind of people I don’t want to become. Yet, I have a dozen engines in my garage!

That could become my nightmare. The guys from American Pickers stop by my shop and want to buy one of my small-blocks. The smart thing would be to price it reasonably and let them have whatever they want so I don’t look like some crazy engine hoarder. Maybe that’s the show’s schtick. They know that if you don’t want to look like a hoarder (even though everybody on that show could easily qualify as headliners in the American Psychiatric Association’s Guideline for Treatment of Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I’m not making that up.

On page 14 it says “Access the Patient’s Symptoms.” Well that’s easy – if you can’t walk through the garage because there’s too much stuff – you might be a candidate for OCD and a cameo part in American Pickers.

All of this ran through my head driving home from my buddy’s house. He wasn’t married, but I am. I got to thinking what a disservice that would be to my wife – after burying me  – then have to deal with all the stuff in the shop. Maybe that’s why she has trouble sleeping sometimes! As usual, we can trace the blame back to me!

Let me start by cleaning my office. I’ll work on the parts collection next week.