Hello Rustlovers and welcome to the Free Model T! Now that I’m all settled into my new top secret multigarage mountain compound it’s almost time to set up my new lift and start working on weird, terrible and generally well… rusty vehicles. Just as soon as I fix up the house I moved out of.

While fixing up 3 houses and moving hasn’t completely precluded my proclivities for automotive activities things have definitely slowed down. But moving has also forced me to write a post I’ve been pondering for a while now; The Wall of Shame.

For the last 10 plus years I have saved the very best of the very worst parts I’ve pulled from cars but moving necessitated the disposal of the whole lot. Although gone now, I took pictures of some of my very favorites and will now finally share them with the world!

I honestly have no idea which engine this accel spark plug escaped from but i know it wasn’t a race motor and was not mine. I found this exceptionally fascinating because Accel historically makes some high quality products.

This rod bearing came out of a crate SBC 350 that belonged to the man himself: Mean Dean. My father. After he died his 1970 hugger orange GMC 3/4 ton pickup when to my brother Big Ben. No GM doesn’t make oval shaped cam journals, this bearing overlapped itself. When the piston started slapping the head Ben let me help him with the teardown then keep this gem.

This is just a standard no/nc relay that’s a bit melty. What I liked about it is that it was still functional in a car even though it looked like this.

This freezeplug is a monument to poor cooling system maintenance. Just because your coolant is still full and the right color doesn’t mean it hasn’t started eating away your freezeplugs and gaskets from the inside. This specimen was famously changed out of the Nokeyssan.

This brake rotor was only a few days old. Admittedly this one doesn’t quite fit in as completely shameful as he did have his brakes changed but when they wouldn’t release on that side because of a bad brake hose he REALLY should have stopped driving.

A more recent addition to the Wall of Shame is the passenger head gasket from The Midlife Crisis. As pictured, the fire rings are all completely shot and the gasket is badly blown between 2 cylinders.

Catalytic convertor gore. These hunks of hot ceramic honeycomb catalyzed some raw fuel from some hung up injectors on Boomer the boom truck. I miss that truck. My new house as a veritable arboretum and a boom truck would be worth its weight in overhanging tree limbs.

A trio of timing gears. The middle picture is the cam gear from the 472 that came out of the Cummins Cadillac. It’s a real iron gear just worn down a comical amount. Although the teeth have been worn down into razor nubs this car was still doing sweet burnouts despite the cam timing being completely retarded. The chain was so loose that I was able to lift it right off of the gear and remove it by hand.

The other 2 are those genius aluminum timing gears that are supposed to be quieter or something? One is out of a ’90 Jeep Wrangler I picked up for $1000 because the timing chain slipped and the other is out of The Gamble which I picked up for $600… because the timing chain slipped. Stupid aluminum gears.

I just found this crank sprocket in a box after writing this article and decided to add it. It may also be from The Gamble.

The water pump. This pump came off of my friend Brent’s ford ranger 4.0. This poor truck went through a coolant death spiral. Bad coolant led to leaks, led to adding water daily, which in turn led to more leaks. At the time this picture was taken the motor was removed to change the cylinder heads and freeze plugs and this pump was still within it’s 1 year warranty. With no impeller left on it. Amazing.

Well Rustlovers, I hope you liked all these shameful bits and pieces as much as I did.

I would love to see pictures of your carnage. Want to share?

Comment, email me or share on my Instagram !