So I'm performing my regular startup and warmup routine on the 86s and when I get to the "Tanuki", she won't turn over. My first assumption is her battery is dead, so I go to pull the hood latch and "SNAP!", the hood lock release just broke. Grrrrrr!
"Okay, don't worry." I tell myself. "Remember the 'RE86' doesn't use its hood latch." That's right! Let's grab that one. Hmmm, ohhhhhkaaaaay...
"Doh!"
"Okay, don't panic. The GTS you're working on doesn't need its lever at the moment so grab that one."
"No!"
Alright...okay...it's just a piece of plastic...you can always just keep some pliers in the glove box...(noooooooo) Hey! Do I still have that spare lower instrument panel assembly!?
Nooooo...it's blue. Dadgummit.
Can I still buy one? Let's see. I don't know...meh.
Well, I need to look for that headlight switch anyway so I'll worry about it another time.
...30 minutes later.
What's this..."doth mine eyes deceive me!?"
Better check its "teeth" before I get all excited.
Woohoo!
"I'm so excited...yay." Okay, let's get her installed and make the 'Tanuki' whole...okay, closer to "whole" again. (I'm so excited, I'm so excited!)
(Oh so nice...ewwww, them ashy hands though.) And there we have it!
If you ever feel like you have WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much AE86 parts and feel like just chunking it all, selling it off, giving it away...give it a second thought. Maybe instead, organize and catalog what you have. It would've saved me time and aggravation as well as save me money when I was about to spend it. I've started the process of doing just that. Keep the faith fellow AE86 brethren!