Remember old time wrecking yards?
isellhondas
Member Posts: 20,342
in General
In another thread here, a poster has talked about old time wrecking yards.
This reminded me of a different time...
Back in the mid-late sixties when I first started driving, if it weren't for those "junkyards" as we called them, I would have been walking and not driving!
I remember walking in..." Do you have a radiator for a '55 Chevy?"
" Yep...got a couple that look pretty good...did ya bring any tools?"
Then the owner would point out a couple of Chevys in his huge lot that he thought might still have decent radiators (or whatever) in them.
He would then caution us to stay out of the area where the dog was tied up (generally a 100 lb. German Shepard) and warn us not to throw any stuff over the fence to come get after hours, etc.
An hour later, we would show him the radiator and any other trinkets we might have found.
" Well....how does 10.00 sound"? " I'll throw in that tailight lens too"
=================================================
Now, it's 30 plus years later....sigh.
That old junkyard is long gone...real estate values etc.
Today we have Auto Dismantler Yards!
Everything is neat, clean and expensive! No longer can we wander around, pulling our own parts. Heaven Forbid, we might get hurt and sue them!
Now, they can't dump oil and anti freeze into the ground (a good thing, I guess..) everything must be recycled!
It was amazing what 10 or 20 dollars would buy!
This reminded me of a different time...
Back in the mid-late sixties when I first started driving, if it weren't for those "junkyards" as we called them, I would have been walking and not driving!
I remember walking in..." Do you have a radiator for a '55 Chevy?"
" Yep...got a couple that look pretty good...did ya bring any tools?"
Then the owner would point out a couple of Chevys in his huge lot that he thought might still have decent radiators (or whatever) in them.
He would then caution us to stay out of the area where the dog was tied up (generally a 100 lb. German Shepard) and warn us not to throw any stuff over the fence to come get after hours, etc.
An hour later, we would show him the radiator and any other trinkets we might have found.
" Well....how does 10.00 sound"? " I'll throw in that tailight lens too"
=================================================
Now, it's 30 plus years later....sigh.
That old junkyard is long gone...real estate values etc.
Today we have Auto Dismantler Yards!
Everything is neat, clean and expensive! No longer can we wander around, pulling our own parts. Heaven Forbid, we might get hurt and sue them!
Now, they can't dump oil and anti freeze into the ground (a good thing, I guess..) everything must be recycled!
It was amazing what 10 or 20 dollars would buy!
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An hours worth of FILTHY labor liberated an unbroken axle from a donor car.
Price - 5.00!
I wonder how broke 17 year olds can keep their cars running today?
They have seperate yards for different makes.
Japanese, GM, Chrysler, European.
They are squeaky clean inside and out. They wold never let a customer into the back to remove parts.
Instead, most everything is inside their huge front showrooms. Everything is cleaned and labled.
If you need an engine for your 1990 Toyota Pickup, they will probably have three or four to pick from. All sitting in a row, with the number of miles that the wrecked truck had when the engine was pulled, compression readings and prices. Of course, the lower the miles, the higher the prices.
And, the prices are NOT cheap!!
These guys are pretty savvy now. If they know a new disc brake rotor is, say, 50.00, they will charge 35 or 40 dollars. they know if they are too close to new pricing people will just buy new.
egkelley,
I think body shops still do use used parts, especially when the wreck isn't covered by insurance. It must have been something to see when you guys lost that front clip in the street!!
The owner came along with a bull whip and got the dog off my tail. My buddy who was along laughed so hard he literally peed in his pants!
carnut...yeah, I know Corvallis..you should have paid that guy ten bucks top place the brick on the gas of that Ford. I'm sure he would been happy!
Some '40's and '50's Packards, '25 Jordan Playboy
Roadster, '35 Nash Eight Sedan and the rest was pretty much later '70's and '80's stuff. When prices for scrap steel were low, they sold parts and when scrap was up in price they cut the cars up and sent them to a huge scrap wholesaler just down the road. The better cars still running fairly well, they sold.
Somehow, on the return trip, he managed to run over something that put a small hole in his oil pan. He had budgeted barely enough money for food and gas, so this was a big time disaster!
He managed to limp into an old time junkyard that had closed for the night.
After sleeping in the Chevy, he discovered that this junkyard did, indeed, have a donor car among the collection.
Only one problem...the car was siting on it's brake drums on the ground!
Since the car was about to be crushed, having already surrendered most of it's usable parts, the kindly owner told him he could have the oil pan for free!
Good thing my buddy was (and still is) skinny!
Using an Army entrenching tool he carried in the trunk, he had to DIG a large trench under the donor car so he could crawl under the thing!
He managed to get the pan off after about four hours of the nastiest, filthiest work you could imagine. Luckilly, his old pan gasket had remained in one piece.
After this was over, he stripped naked, used an outdoor shower and threw his clothes away before changing.
Ah...the "hungry years!"
Anyway, the radio has been acting up recently. The AM quit working etc.
Since it's a third car that we don't drive much, I figured the easiest and cheapest way to solve the problem would be to find a good used unit at a wrecking yard and replace it myself.
I guess this topic spurred these thoughts on!
I had already checked with the local stereo shop who wanted 300.00 to replace it with an Alpine cassette unit and install an Alpine CD changer I already have.
Well..Since our other cars already have upgraded CD systems, I figured that a stock cassette unit would make more sense. After all, I still have lots of cassette tapes, motivational stuff, books, etc.
So, off to the "junkyard" I went...
As I mentioned earlier, there is a large chain of yards not far from me. I went to "ACME" domestic.
I walked into an immaculate showroom. There were rows of car seats, tagged with (high) prices.
On the wall was a sign...MINIMUM LABOR CHARGE
50.00!! Wow...what if I had needed a tailight lens...?
The friendly counterman was happy to help. He asked me what I had. A stock AM-FM cassette unit with the equilizer...no big deal.
Ah...but it WAS a big deal! I was informed that I had the upgraded unit...AND...they had one in stock!!
And they wanted a measly 200.00 for it!!!
I honestly think I'm in the wrong business!!
No..I didn't buy it! I'll either beat on my dash to make my AM work or I'm off to the stereo shop!
I think I'm getting old....
Grunt....Nope! Can't quite lift it!
Back in 1978, my grandfather took me down there with him to look for parts for a slightly mangled 1953 DeSoto Firedome he had just bought from his brother-in-law. I remember us finding a DeSoto...I didn't know the year (I was only 8), but knew it was a DeSoto by the toothy grille, and it was also the same color as ours...kind of a pale turqouise/sea green. Well, we finally did find a 1953, and I recall us getting a hood, driver's side fender, grille, and bumper for something like $125.00
I went down there for a nostalgia trip in 1992, and, believe it or not, the '53 was still there! I found the other DeSoto, too, and this time I could identify it...a 1955 Fireflite Coronado...triple-tone turquoise, black roof, white spear.
Leon's started crushing cars in 1994, when money started getting tight and Nations Bank was threatening to forclose (or so he said). The last time I was down there (1997), a lot of cars had been cleared out, but mainly newer 60's, 70's, and 80's stuff...common cars he had plenty of.
I remember he said that the '53 DeSoto was still running when they got it in the early 60's. It was just an old car that nobody wanted anymore, so it got junked. In fact, at one point, when they expanded their junkyard, they actually started it up and drove it to its current spot. Actually, they had a lot of cars like that...just old, outdated cars that nobody wanted so they were retired. Of course, I wouldn't put too much money on that '53's old 276 Hemi firing up tomorrow ;-)
-Andre
I watched this happen in around 1969. The old Powerglide had given up.
I would have bought it, if I hadn't just bought my 1982 Cutlass Supreme a couple months before. I had bought it because it seemed like a good deal, and I wanted to take the Dart off the road for a while and fix it up and repaint it. In retrospect, I would have rather had that Newport than the Cutlass, but it's over and done with now.
About 3 years later, I DID buy a '79 Newport 318 that needed a new tranny and was pretty good otherwise, but it just wasn't in the same league as that '65!
-Andre
-Andrew L
The last time I was at a yard it was a pick-your-part with careful rows of mostly late-model cars. It looked so neat and tidy I think they vacuumed it.
"Hello. My name is Jason. I'll be your salvage counselor for today"
And thanks for the kind comments!
I also wonder how much of this is due to injury lawsuits. A junkyard can be a fairly dangerous place even if you're careful. Everything from trip-and-fall to having a car fall on you.
I think that the liability aspect killed the self-serve junkyards. Sad...some people just look for reasons to sue someone.
Sadly, there are folks out there who go through life looking for someone to sue so they can quit their job and retire.
Lots of "fun things" are no more because of this...sad.
Bled like a stuck pig, ended up getting a few stitches out of the deal. Felt plenty stupid! The thought to even try suing them never even crossed my mind, then or today. It disgusts me that some people probably WOULD sue over something like that, and win!
We used to find Chrysler station wagons that had 440 four barrels with hardly any milage all the time. Drop them in a Challenger or Cuda, change the oil and go Trans Am / Z28 / and Corvette hunting. (Yeah, good old redneck southern boys)
My friend and I tried a nostalgic trip to the yards a few years ago. Most wouldn't let us in and the ones that did had nothing of interest at all. Another part of my youth that is slipping away.......
Not too awful long ago I went looking for additional horns to put on my car (it only came with one puny horn from factory).
After alot of searching and sightseeing, I found a recent model LHS. The old boy took them off for me and I paid $5.00 for both of them. "Five dolla" (smile)
wil
We had a somewhat eccentric Chrysler dealer in town here who never auctioned any of his used cars. If he couldn't sell them, they went to his 'junkyard' just outside of town. He was in business from the 40's thru the 70's. In this yard you could find rows of '57 & '58 Desotos, Chyrslers and more Imperials than anywhere else! Although parts were usually missing from most cars the guy would never sell you anything off of them. Only way you could get anything you needed was barter!
My first car was a 64 Chrysler 300. He had several in the yard. I needed a wheel opening moulding badly - was the only thing that kept my car from being near perfect. After 3 years of trying to find one elsewhere and begging him to sell me one he finally agreed to a 'deal'. I had found a '64 300K in another yard and stripped it of all I could get. I rescued the hard to find little 300K badges but couldn't use on mine. He owned 2 'K's in his old car collection (his old car collection was another neat story!) and was willing give me the moulding for the 'K' badges. That made me VERY happy!
Papa Berger as he was known amongst the local Mopar heads passed away and his family sold off everything. All those great cars in his yard got towed away to nearby 'modern' yard and were immediately crushed. What a shame. Those cars could have helped so many restorations.
Sounds like the good ol' days!
-Andrew L
I'm kinda looking forward to just walking around and exploring, too. This place is pretty cool, and they'll still let ya do that.
Well, I walked around some, and then when I came back, said I'd take a pair of cop car rims. Well, the guy came back with the conventional 15x7 rims that Chrysler's been using forever. In fact, these had "1962" written on them in pink marker. Main reason I wanted the cop car rims is that they're offset a bit more, which gives the car a wider stance on its tires. Also, the cop wheels are slotted, which makes them a bit lighter (prob'ly not much, though!) And I guess the slots help with cooling the brakes a bit.
I did finally run into a familiar face there, a guy who's been working there for as long as I've been going there (about 13 years now). He said that he knew the wheels I was talking about, but they were out of em. I guess the cops finally wrecked all the Diplomats and Gran Fury's they're going to wreck, so there goes the parts supply! This guy knows my taste in cars too, so he pointed me in the direction of a '68 Dart GTS they'd just gotten in, and had stashed, that they want to sell whole. Runs good, but has the typical rust issues of the era.
Well, I guess it wasn't a TOTAL waste...
Well, it's been thirteen years (!) since this topic was active and it seems that most of the old wrecking yards have vanished. environmental concerns, neighborhood beautification efforts,
probably liability issues seem to have spelled doom for these places at least in my neck of the woods.
So, where are these wrecked and junked cars going now?