The Cal-look Lounge

All of us have been on one side, or possibly both, of the local VW speedshop counter. (no internet shoppers need apply here...). Everybody I know that has worked the counter @ a VW parts place always have a good couple of stories. I know my illustrious career @ BH supplied me with some laughs for a good 10 years, and even before working there, just hangin around the place usually sent you home with a good "you wouldn't beLIEVE what happened @ Buggy House today..." story.
Mix in a bunch of characters that worked with me and.... endless run of knee slappers.

Let's hear some of your horror stories from the parts counter.... this oughta be good.

Good one Mark. Someday you'll have to meet Sheep. It will explain everything.

Ask him to define "illegitimate" for you. Ask him about Dirty Bill. Ask him about the gasket burgers. Ask him directions to Buggy House.


 ;D

I couldn't pass this one up. I used to work at a parts store on Main St. in downtown Santa Ana. For those of you who are not familiar, Downtown Santa Ana is one of the poorer areas around and largely Hispanic.

I'm working on a Saturday with Greg aka "Gigfish" the store assistant manager. I'm helping a customer on the phone and Gigfish is helping a obviously Hispanic and very drunk walk-in customer. He walks into the back to pull some parts. I get off the phone and the customer walks over to my end of the counter. The customer shows me a wide 5 Bus rear brake drum with a large hole in the center of it. In a slurred and heavily accented voice he says;

"Is there any trick to getting these things off?"
"No" I replied, "There just torqued down very tightly, more than 300 ft. pounds so you really need to crank on them. I usually get a breaker bar on it and jump on the end of it."
"Well I couldn't get the nut off so I cut it off with my torch."  :o :o :o

I had to excuse myself so I wouldn't laugh in this guys face!

My first thought was... "OK so now how are you gonna get what's left of the brake drum off the axle with no way to mount a wheel or lock down a brake??  ::) ;D

My late wife used to work at a Bap Geon (Beck Arnely ?) parts store on S. Main st. in Santa Ana. Her best story...An obviously gay guy would come in every other week to buy a tube of Bosch grease.  ;) ;)

Same store Phil. It was a BAP store. 1906 S Main. Last time I was by there, the BAP sign was still on top of the building. It was painted over but you could still see the relief of the logo on it.

                                                      It must have been Carlos.

Mark, should we talk about the giant binoculars?

Oh no...now we're into stories about retail counter work....ok here goes.....

I was the store manager for Auto-Haus in Orange (forget what years, so many ago, but sometime between 1974 and whenever....) (and by the way, I have Ed Craig to Thank for that job, seriously all kidding aside, I appreciated it)...anyway, ) at the same time I'm into photography. So you know how all Auto Haus stores used that orange pegboard with the holes in it.....i set up a camera with motordrive and a remote control aiming thru the holes (or one hole to be exact) put a telephoto lense on it and aimed it towards the floor mats that were on the bottom shelf on the aisle leading up to the front counter. During the summer we had a lot of chicks that would stop in on the way down to the beach. So a lot of the time they would come in wearing their little string bikinis (this is the 70's now) and flip flops to buy floor mats for their "Vee-Dubs" as they would call them. So I would lead them over to the floor mats and let them look the mats on the "bottom shelf"! As they would bend over to look thru the types, I would press the button on my remote and the motor drive would start taking pics! they never knew and we would crack up! We  put together a album of all the best "shots" and would pass it around to our friends. was going to paste them on the wall of the employee bathroom, but didn't want Lynn or Ron to see them. But Lordy we had fun, taking them and looking at em!

Auto Haus- La Habra
I had a dummy motor set up on and engine stand in the middle of the store where I would display various products.....including a set of 48 Ida webers. It struck me funny that just about everyone would look down the throats of the carbs, so I put little notes inside like "lose something, pal?" or "don't look now but someone is laughing at you" or "you will have to put in a quarter before the movie will start", etc. That was good for a few laughs and then people would ask me questions about the dummy motor like "how much horsepower was it" or" how fast will it go"................it was obviously a mocked up motor!!!!
I decided to see how far I could go with this thing so I started setting it up with dual and then triple oil sumps. I had dual Holley Bug sprays on it and then once, I had 1 Bug Spray and 1 48 Ida. i even put the heads up side down on it and no matter what I did, people would still ask "how much horsepower and how fast".


Marc

Let me guess... the car wash across the street?

You guessed it, it was the jet wash across the street. All the girls from Cal State Long Beach used to wash their cars there. Serious entertainment. One of my favorite things to happen at Auto Haus was the guy in dress slacks and Members Only jacket that came in with the carb that "didn't work." He handed it to Mark, and Mark promptly held it up to look inside and flipped the throttle open. He shot a big stream of gas straight up the guy, from shoes to collar on the Polo shirt.

Some of these some of you may have heard before but these memories still make me cry laughing whenever they come up with old friends from the BH days. Most involve my co-worker and best friend, Little Frank, aka “Sheep”.

Two of the stories involve car pooling to Buggy House almost every day, since Frank lived en route to Buggy House, I’d stop by and pick him on my way in. This went on for probably 12-18 months before one day, I hear Frank answer the phone @ the counter: “Buggy House, this is Frank. Yeah we’re open ‘til 6pm. (pause)…..the address is 21030 Mission in Hayward. Yeah we have sunvisors. Yeah hang on, I’ll check….(puts guy on hold, check price in computer for sedan sunvisors, gets back on the line)…Hello? Yeah we have plenty, they’re twenty two bucks a pair. Yeah I’ll put a set aside. …uh huh… uh huh… How do you get here? I don’t know, Jim drives me in every day… hang on…”

On our way in almost every day, Frank would be squirming and bitching about how we has “frickin’ starving.” To ease his pain, we’d either stop @ the taco truck parked out at the end of his freeway onramp, or we’d pull through the drive thru @ the Jack in the Box just down a few blocks from the shop before we got there. One morning Frank asked we stop @ Jack, and during most of the 18 mile drive in, he kept reminding me… “dude I got 8 bucks in change, and I’m getting as many 99 cent cheeseburgers as I can.” We pull in, I do some rough math in my head, and pull to speaker. Mind you, it’s 8:20am…roll window down, and the speaker squawks “Welcome , can we take your order?”, “yeah, I’ll have seven 99 cent cheeseburgers.” Pause of silence from speaker….. “Seven 99 cent cheeseburgers? Seven, right? Anything else?” “Nope”, I reply. We pull forward and Frank scoops about 4 pounds of nickels and pennies from his shorts pockets and uses both hands to hand it to me, which I hand to clerk at window.
Later in the day, Frank had eaten 3 of his 7 cheeseburgers, it’s now maybe 2pm. He would bring the food in, and leave it on our special order receiving shelf. So on this day, I walk by and there are 4 grease-stained white paper-wrapped burgers lined up like pawns on a chessboard. By now they’ve been sitting there 6+ hr. Frank gets a customer that needs to unload a core in the back dock, so he’s away from the counter for a good 15min. While he’s helping some guy unload the longblock core, I get the wise idea to insert a little surprise in his stash of burgers. I walk over to the exhaust inventory and grab a 111251261B exhaust metal gasket. I unwrap one of the burgers and slide the gasket between the bun and wrap it back up. Maybe an hour later, Frank is “frickin’ starving again” and remembers his stash. In between calls and counter customers, he grabs THE burger, unwraps it, totally unaware, and take a big old bite...then scream “what the FUCK!!! Jesus Christ! Ow my fucking TEETH!!!! Holy Shit!” By now I am bent over in half laughing my ass off and Frank peels the bun back and sees the manifold gasket with a dent tooth impression. No harm done.

The speedometer cable story is legendary among those that were there to witness it. One morning this grouchy older guy walks in with a scowl and an attitude. I was lucky enough to get this guy out of the line @ the counter. I greet him, “Help ya?”. His eyes look from floor at me, eyebrows in a V, brow all wrinkled in years of bad luck and missed opportunity. “Need a speedometer cable” he says emotionless. “Ok, what are you working on?”
“Bug.” Great, one of these guys, next words out of his mouth will be “they’re all the same” (which, that “theory” and the willingness of so many of our idiot customer base to work on their own crap, is what kept or service and repair business hopping). Anyway, I dig it out of him…”what year Bug?”
“74”. Great. “Is it a Super Beetle or a Standard Bug?” By now the guy is at his wits’ end. “It’s just a 74 Bug!”
Ok dude you got it. I pull the appropriate cable, bill him, invoice him, and he’s down the road.
Maybe 2 or 3 hors pass, and a green Super Bug pulls up out front. I see the bitchy old guy amble out of the car and to the shop door. Upon entering, he gets one foot in the door, sees me, and yells across the showroom, “hey asshole, you sold me the wrong fucking part! This piece of shit doesn’t fit!!” I sigh, roll my eyes, go grab the correct cable for the Super, all the while that guy is cursing me up and down. Of course the wrong cable he brings me back is kinked, and covered in grease. While I’m wrting the guy’s invoice up, Frank’s got his back to the guy, while going through the WAWD catalog, but snickering at the situation I’m in with World’s Biggest Asshole. Since the guy dug his own hole even deeper with me, I charge him full VW list price on the correct cable, so his exchange of the Standard Bug cable isn’t going to do much for him. “That’ll be twenty seven dollars you owe me, after the exchange.” The guy give me the death glare, “What’d you say, boy?”
“I said you owe me twenty seven bucks”
“That other goddamn cable was 8 bucks. How much is this one?!!”
“Thirty Five”
Now the guy’s white hot mad. He pulls his wallet out and hands me $40 cash, muttering things like “useless sonofabitch, goddam stupid sonafabitch, goddam punk kids… thirty five fucking dollars my ASS” All the while Frank is still snickering away at me getting bitched at by this old guy. I’ve had it by now, and bring the guy his change back. He holds out his hand, but I throw the cash on the floor and tell him “get the fuck out of here, we don’t need your bullshit”. He stoops over, scabbles up his dough, and walks to door. Before leaving he turns around and screams at me “I’m never coming back to this shithole, you ILLEGETIMATE bastard!!” At this point, Frank turns around and looks the guy right in the eyes and says “Hey FUCK you man, He can READ!!!!”
The old man AND I both stared blankly at Frank dumbfounded. Later I said, “dude, look up ‘illegetimate’ in the dictionary sometime”


 
 

Surely you have proofs leftovers somewhere in your archives... as they say on the 'net these days, pics or it didn't happen! Lol ;D

Ok Carb story... we sold rebuilt carbs and the store policy was that we couldn't take a return on a carb if it had been installed. One saturday, I sold this guy a carb for a Corolla. He comes back to return it a few hours later. I smell gas when I open the box and explain the policy to him. He swears that he never installed it. I take the carb out of the box and flip it over onto the counter... all the gas from the float bowl gushes onto the counter. He still swears that he never installed it and that we must have sold it to him with the gas in it.. WTF???  ;D

hahahahaahahaha JIM

the  directions to BH  and the he can read story is timeless!!!!!  ;D

Working a BH, had a guy come down fron Oakland, checked out the store, asked a few questions, came back to the counter and asked for : sharpies, sparkies, and a wind strap. ? duh, did not know what he wanted, then he went to one of the display engines and pointed out the points, plugs, and fan belt. Have never heard them called that, but will never forget them either. Dirty Bill is a book in it self.  Someday we will pool all of the stories from Jim, Sheep,others, and my self, will need many cases of beer and wine to get it all done.

I can remember "somebody" changing descriptions of many, many parts in the computer's inventory database...(Hi Sheep). Our boss had an atomic temper, it was so bad it was actually amusing (well not really at the time, but now looking back 15-20 yr it was funny). Anyway, yu'd enter a part number for a vent wing weather strip... 113845625 or whatever, and instead of the description reading "LH VNT WTHRSTRP '65- SDN", the description would now come up as "RAVIOLI W/ MEAT SAUCE", or some 12V choke, 113129191G instead of "12V CHOKE, 34PICT", it would come up "SIZE 7-1/2 ROLLER SKATE". Once our boss caught on one day, ringing a customer up, you could almost hear the fuse burning before the explosion. I thought we were dead. MAN he was pissed, but at the same time, it was like he couldn't comprehend how, why, who, when.... but somehow he knew we were behind it.

Our co worker, Mark MAyonnaise, back in mid 90's got a pager and thought he was uber cool.... anyway, we got the bright idea to start calling his pager and entering just random phone numbers. It was funny as hell, he'd get a beep then at that second stop what he was doing (usually nothing) and call the number. Of course, the person he called had no clue.
Sometimes an argument woudl follow: "yes you DID page me! Your number is XXX XXXX right???"
We bettered that. We’d call his pager and then key in VW part numbers. So he’d be standing there doing nothing, the pager would go off and he’d read it and you could see him mouthing the numbers….  “1 1 1 5 9 8 0 5 1 A” and then squint and wrinkle his brow in perplexion. THEN, I shit you not, he would walk to the BIN BOX and slide it out and look inside and slide all the way out and look behind it, take all the seal kits out of the box and shake the box…. It was priceless. I don’t know how we didn’t get caught we would laugh so hard.

Keep 'em comin' Jim. It's just like being there! I love these stories.

Little Frank was infamous for his indigestion issues as well.

One day he was helping this nice middle aged woman special order a Hartz canvas top for her Ghia 'vert. As she was looking at different color samples in the catalog, I noticed Frank started hopping from foot to foot and getting real squirmy. His face looked really worried and he kept squirming. The lady didn't seem to notice. "Oh no... uh oh.... oh boy..." said Frank, "uh I'll be right back..." and he hot footed it to the store restroom, just leaving the lady stadning there. As he shut the door, he winces in pain and yelps "oh man, that WASN'T a fart!"
About 20 minutes later he comes limping out of the restroom and first thing out of his mouth: "Dude, do we have any ice?"

 ;D

Surely he'd need a 141-951-231 Monkey Sex Diaper then? ;)

Rick, what about the Corona and the Crown or the 911 with hubcaps? I'll share some later but I need to make sure Greiner isn't lurking.

Glenn

Never worked the counter of an auto parts store, but this reminds me of another VA story worth spamming the thread.
Around 15 years ago, I worked as an RN for Carl Hayden VA hospital in Phoenix, on a surgical floor.  It was the first of the month, and seemed unusually quiet all around.  Back then, some of these guys lived in the hospital for months.  The phone rings, and I answer, with "Deedee Marie" on the other end.  She tells me that Mr. Jones needs another bag of IV fluid. Perplexed,  I look and see Mr Jones room is empty.   "Deedee, where is Jonesy?"  He was one of the guys who had taken up residence on the floor, and had been there longer than I had worked there.  She tells me, "Where he always is on the first of the month, Cheetahs III."  As you all can imagine, Cheetahs III is a nudie bar across the street from the hospital.  So, at 11:30 AM on a weekday, there were about a dozen Vets all sitting around drinking and getting lap dances from the girls, with extension cords all over the floor so the IV pumps would stay charged up.  I rousted Jonesy, and wheeled him back to his room in time for lunch.  He was pissed off for a week.  "Payday is half price lap dances and dollar well, wine and draft" he told me.  These guys would blow their whole disability check in one day of debauchery.  I was offered a free lunch to leave him there, cause Jonesy was a good tipper.

Ok the 911 with the hubcaps... that's a good one...

Had customer come in with an early 911 and he needed tune up parts. The car could either have a Bosch or Marelli Dist in it and of course the customer didn't know so I strolled out to take a look. Now the Santa Ana BAP store didn't have a parking lot so this guy was parked along the curb on Main St. Back in the day JC Witney sold these very cheezy & cheap looking wheel covers that were made to look like Porsche Alloy's. So I stroll up to this rather beat 911 that is sporting a set of these hubcaps. I stick my head in the engine compartment and determine that it has a Bosch distributor. I start to walk back into the store and I glance over at the rear wheel. Now these wheel covers have the same round triangle cut outs that the real alloys have on them.... I stop, rub my eyes and peer a little closer... through the cut out I can clearly see that there is a real Porsche Alloy under the wheel cover?? Front wheel was the same.  :o ???

Glenn, you'll have to remind me about the Corona/Crown thing.

Didn't you have a customer come in looking for a part for a To#¤ta Crown / Corona. I believe that these were two different models way back when. From what I remember you asked if it was a Crown or a Corona and he just nodded yes. (I believe Corona means Crown in spanish?)

hahahaha that's awesome, if I ever get a set of alloys, I want to do that. ;D

Right... That's about all I remember... Crown was the "Big" To#¤ta and the Corona was the next model down. Since Corona means Crown in Spanish, it got confusing for our Spanish speaking customers.

Then there was an NGK catalog that listed the To#¤ta Cerica instead of Celica... I guess they spelled it phonetically.

ok another Toybota story.

A mechanic calls me on the phone... ok this is a MECHANIC... someone who  should have a basic knowledge of cars etc.

He wants some parts for a Corolla. Since Corollas of that vintage had 2 motors... a 1200cc and a 1600cc I ask him;

"What size is the motor?"

"I dunno... let me check"

He comes back a minute later and says... serious as a heart attack

"ok the motor is 18 by 24 inches"   :o ;D

(several years ago)

Phone rings... I answer..."Dave's Motorwerke!"
Caller: You sell used parts?
Me: I have some, what do you need?
Caller: A used Sapphire radio
Me: Six or twelve volt?
Caller: I really don't care, I just want a stock looking radio to fill the hole in my dash
Me: OK, I have one complete with knobs and dash plate you can have for $40.00
Caller: I'll be right down!
Me: OK, but remember, the price is $40.00 and bring CASH.

So here's the deal... this guy calls while I'm trying to build an engine... no big deal, customer comes first, I got it. I stop what I'm doing to go dig this radio out of the "outback" Anybody familiar with my shop knew the outback was an old paint spray booth behind the shop that I stored my used treasures in... it was also a colossal mess... crap everywhere. Some time later, I find the Sapphire... pretty nice looking AM radio actually, complete just as I stated... heck, it probably even works.

About this time the caller comes in the door.

Caller: I'm here for the radio!
Me: Here it is (as I hand it to him)

Now... this is where he was supposed to hand me the $40.00 CASH, thank me and leave.

No way.

This guy inspects the radio like it's precious metal or something... looking it over... top to bottom... side to side... front to back... by now I'm getting pissed.

Caller: So how much?
Me: I told you $40.00 CASH.
Caller: ummmm...  hmmmm... well.... how about $30.00?






I calmly took the radio from his hands, SET IT ON THE GROUND AND BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER!! Right in front of him.

Only then did I say "sure, I'll take $30.00"

The guy did not say another word and backed out of the shop the same way he came in, not taking his eyes off me... I guess I was a little burned out on the whole shop scene by then...

It was funny though ;D

~DR.
 

My hero.

This isn't so much a 'Parts' story as a story about what we used to do when nobody was buying any parts...

It was probably about 1975/76 and I was working in a really cool Auto Parts Store a few minutes walk from my local town centre.

The shop was well located and we used to get loads of 'walk in' customers all the time. But this particular week was dead.......

My Boss decided that rather than have us sit around drinking cola and eating chips, he though that a spot of redecorating would be just the thing to get us actuality earning our wages..

The boss disappears into the store room and reappears a few minutes later with a Big Tub of Paint and some Brushes?? We're told to move the display cabinets and paint the walls in the shop front and around the sales counter area.

Although 'not very keen' on the idea of this task, we shift the units and once the Boss is convinced were on task, he goes out for the day (as usual).

After about an hour of painting we get bored and I decide that it would be Pretty Funny to paint some Graffiti on the wall...

So I paint ' F@@K YOU ' across the wall behind the counter and we both have a jolly good laugh about it, because it's obviously very, very funny right.. Even bodering on Hilarious yeah??

After we finish up painting out the text we put back the shop as it was, units back in place etc etc. The Jobs looking good so I pop off to get some more Cola and chips  to toast a job well done.

However on my return my buddy isn't looking to happy and directs my attention to the newly painted wall behind the counter..

The words 'F@@K YOU' are clearly visible through the top coat we've slung over the top and glancing at the clock I realise we have about an hour until closing and the return of the boss!!

Problem is that there is no paint left in the tub and the nearest paint shop is a good 15 minutes walk away..

I arrive at the paint shop 10 minutes later and purchase (with my own money) some decent quality paint and we set to the task of covering up my previous handiwork.

We finish with about 15 minute to spare before the boss shows up and get everything back as it should just in time..

There is a moral to this story somewhere, but who cares about that right??

The shop is still there to this day and although it's no longer a Parts Store (Funeral Parlour Offices) I still have a little smile if i happen to walk past the window. ;)

   

Perfect. I love you man. :D

I love it Dave. You woulda fit right in @ BH with us.

Thanks guys... 25+ years in the VW business gives you some stories ;) I'm not nearly as wild anymore... honest ;D

 

Being Stupid 101

back to Auto Haus in Orange......because we sold more vw parts than anything else, we were used to VW guys  or girls coming in asking for the usual....but one day this guy drives up in pretty stock looking sedan with Porsche chrome wheels and hubcaps.Now everybody knew back then how much those hubcaps cost (I think they were like $95 apiece or something riduculous). So he's walking around the store and he asks about headers for his car. So I run down prices and types and the usual. So I comment on his hubcaps, and ask if he locks his car in a garage each night to prevent his hubcaps from getting stolen (cause there was a lot of car thieves running around Orange County in those days !) anyway...he syas, and I'm serious, this is a direct quote, "naw, I don't even worry about them." "I spot welded the hubcaps onto the wheels so that nobody can get them off!!!" I was cracking up! I almost dropped to the ground behind the counter and rolled around! I go "Dude, how are you going to change tires if you get a flat tire?" (now he's all red and embarrased, and says, "oh, I didn't think of that!" DDDDDDDAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNN! He just turned away, walked out to his car, "tried" to do a burn out and left. We all laughed about that for days!

;D ;D :D :D ;D :D

we had a guy that thought you adjusted valves with the engine RUNNING! he even brought us the little paper bag mask he made to wear while adjusting. No joke.

Oh that's a good one!  ;D

I think you should make one up and wear it to bug in  :D :D

Probably a former Chevrolet guy.  That's how Corvairs are done, believe it or not.  They sell valve covers with the middle cut out to make the job "slightly" less messy.