Time capsules, treasure chests, and garbage cans

They're all pretty much indistinguishable to me.  As you may have picked up on, I'm not very well-practiced when it comes to keeping a workspace organized.  Really, the same can be said for my living space, since I don't usually delineate between the two.  Generally, I end up doing a purge every few months to clear out things that I don't need around anymore.  More often than not, these are event-driven, meaning that they're a reaction to some unexpected circumstance that's usually seen as being some flavor of crisis.

When these situations come up, I start by gathering up all the stuff that I've been tired of seeing, then throwing it out.  A lot of times I don't put as much importance in whether I actually should be throwing it out as I do in if I want to throw it out.  Like when I throw all my dishes away every couple years instead of washing them.

Once I've cleared some space, I collect everything I've been working on since the last event, which is followed by shoving it into a box or pile of some sort.  Since I'm rarely working on a single task at any given period, these boxes and piles can make for interesting snapshots of what was going on when the object wad had been formed.  Today I got to crack open a number of these easter eggs as I searched for the missing heater box parts. 

So let's take a look at what I unearthed:

Here's the hat Gremlin came with.  I'm hoping to be able to make an adapter for the Weber so that I can use it again.

A Nova steering wheel that I used for a bit, since it was a smaller diameter than the original wheel.  The larger wheel was a problem for me when getting in and out of the seat, since the Gremlin didn't come with a tilt column.

The starter that Gremlin had when I bought it.  This was a really interesting find, since I could check the drive gear teeth for signs of damage.

Looks like the teeth are fine.  A hair smooth where the reliefs are to allow the teeth to mesh, but nothing that looks damaged at all.  I take this to mean that the tooth decay that prompted the repair I did recently to be a recent issue.  I may keep this and rebuild it so that I'll have a backup on hand.

Sun visors from a Concord.  I pulled these a few years back with the intention of using them in the Gremlin.  I later found a pair in another Concord.  Those came with naugahyde instead of the thin fabric, so I'll be using those in the Gremlin.  Since Eagle's only visor was completely trashed, I went ahead and installed them.  They're an exact match, and Eagle's been overdue for a treat.

Of all the things I found (and there's a ton of interior stuff I forgot I had that isn't being covered here), I was most excited to find the scrap of plastic sitting on top of the heater core in this picture.

See, one of the main reasons this rebuild was back-burnered a couple years ago was because I couldn't find that damn part.  I searched everywhere I could think of, but came up with nothing until today.  Part of the problem was that I thought it was a metal part instead of plastic.  The other part was that I had no recollection of the big plastic tub-capsule full of parts that I stowed in the car hole, behind the AMX. 

Anyway, as shown in the picture, the heater box is near done.  I would've finished, but I ran out of rivets.  I just found the pack I have here at the house, so I should be able to button that up, install the box, blower motor, and heater core, get the cooling system hoses connected, and start installing wiring.  Woo!