I happen to think the 010-engine electrical, 020-valvetrain, 030-engine mechanical, 040-cooling, 050-fuel…numbering system is a good ‘general’ organization technique without getting too deep into the ‘weeds’. 16 basic sections.
Spare Parts Organization
- Thread starter Green Bean
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Green Bean
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- Thread starter
- #22
Began the sorting/throwing away project. A few general rules that I'm applying: 1) If a new replacement part is still available from Toyota, the old part can usually be discarded (examples so far include old turn signal switch; vent door springs; exterior emblems); 2) If the part is unlikely to be used or needed, it gets chunked. Examples (original drain plugs; lug nuts)
I try to keep things in functional groups. Helps a little for sure. But i still have bins of parts I have to sort through if I need something.
I definitely think hanging onto the parts you will honestly never use again is a bigger problem for me. They just take up space but there is that weird need to hang on. Hahaha
sleepycruiser
I will get by….I will survive
Does everyone toss the original nuts/bolts/washers/screws when replacing them?
Asking for a friend that might hold onto all of them.
Asking for a friend that might hold onto all of them.
Green Bean
SILVER Star
- Thread starter
- #26
I have a gallon paint can full of OEM screws, bolts and stuff.
i enjoy nothing more than just putting stuff on a shelf, under a shelf, under the stairs, under the sunroom, above the garage or in the pantry.....and then not being able to find it later when its needed.....that ensures that i always at least four of the thing i need in stock at any point in time, not counting the one i just ordered because i cant find one of the other ones.
example, as soon as i ordered a pinion seal last fall, i found 2 on the shelf, and one in cabinet over the bench.
example, as soon as i ordered a pinion seal last fall, i found 2 on the shelf, and one in cabinet over the bench.
There’s a little Murphy in all of us. I used to tease my dad about this, because I was the one who ‘found’ all his missing stuff when I’d drop by his shop for a visit. I kid you not, after he died, I rounded up not less than 7 Estwing claw hammers
I gave him some slack because he only had one eye. Now I’m 63, repeating the same scenario, but without the one-eye excuse.
I know he’s smiling every time I order a‘replacement’ or find the original one.
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Go get the turn signal switch out of the trash! They're NLA now
Only damaged ones.
I'm not made of money (some folks here are) so I tend to sort good from bad and then stash the good ones for later use.
Years ago, a scrapper friend of mine traded 2, 5 gallon buckets of metric hardware for a running titled motorcycle.
You can run up one heck of a credit card bill with a 100% nuts and bolts restoration, why? Save the old ones and reuse them whenever possible.
For those of you with bolts in buckets, I also used to have two large cardboard boxes with a mixture of metric cruiser bolts and sae willys bolts plus whatever other bolts i had collected from various projects. I bought several of the parts organizers from harbor freight and built a double sided storage cabinet for the organizers. Then I sorted the nuts and bolts by size/pitch and into the organizers they went. The cabinet also doubles as a mobile base for my miter saw.
Green Bean
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- Thread starter
- #32
^^^ I do see now why in most cases whenever you see someone hauling home a "new to them" Land Cruiser it usually includes the entire back stuffed to the brim with spare parts. 
You mean like this?^^^ I do see now why in most cases whenever you see someone hauling home a "new to them" Land Cruiser it usually includes the entire back stuffed to the brim with spare parts.
Green Bean
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- Thread starter
- #34
Okay, what seems like many hundreds of Zip Loc bags later... here is where I stand with the spare part organization effort:
Pretty much everything was sorted. Items deemed worthy of saving were bagged and tagged. The majority of parts fit into 1 quart Zip Loc bags. I put an index card inside the bag describing the contents. Things sort of fell into the following categories: Engine; Drive Train; Interior; Exterior; Electrical and Miscellaneous Over Sized Items. I went with a color code system; assigning each category its own color storage bin and numbered each bag or item and made up a spreadsheet.
Pretty much everything was sorted. Items deemed worthy of saving were bagged and tagged. The majority of parts fit into 1 quart Zip Loc bags. I put an index card inside the bag describing the contents. Things sort of fell into the following categories: Engine; Drive Train; Interior; Exterior; Electrical and Miscellaneous Over Sized Items. I went with a color code system; assigning each category its own color storage bin and numbered each bag or item and made up a spreadsheet.
Ackcruisers
SILVER Star
I just rely on my steel trap memory. Which leads me to ordering new parts that I already have so I have two sometimes three.
