Folks Of Interest Junkyard etiquette

I was all geeked up to find an older pickup online at the junkyard for some engine parts wiring etc. When I got to it it looked like they went through the engine bay and interior with a sawzall and wire cutters and had scattered broken body parts everywhere. I get that's it's just a beat up old car that's getting crushed in a couple months but it would be nice if you left it didn't destroy the car to get one thing.
Ok rant over

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Coulda been the truck I had hauled off

I parted out a late model truck this winter, used a 4" grinder tile blade to cut the windshield in half lengthwise and sawall'd out the entire dash panel and right door pillar. Sawall'd out sections of the firewall - trans tunnel for the pedal and brake booster mounts and manual transfer case shifter to allow them to be welded into a different vehicle. It was filled with a pile of shit of random parts from that vehicle and other steel.

Before I haul one off. I get anything I can possibly use from it.

 

There’s no rules in “pull your part “ type yards. Probably why “normal” yards don’t let you pull your part as they want to sell everything possible before the hulk gets crushed.
Plus normal yards I’m
Pretty sure pay the salvage price of the vehicle, so they have more invested into them. Pull a parts places don’t pay much. My buddy had two cars hauled off to them, both in decent running condition, but owed back registration and couldn’t afford to pay it. He put 150 bucks in his pocket for a 92 Chevy PU and a 89 Jetta.
That said, I feel your pain

 

There’s no rules in “pull your part “ type yards. You must remember that with this type of business, that the counter people don't go out into the yard and the yard personnel are full speed ahead, direction unknown. They have a nice web site with pictures but often times it is really outdated. The counter people or the yard workers will not check on vehicles that are or are not in the yard, you just have to drive to the yard and check yourself. By the end of the day, for their lack of inventory control equals the "low prices" that they offer.

 

I'm always properly attired and I never pee under the vehicles.

 

I will, have you seen the insides of the never pumped Green Boxes???

 

I pee whenever I need to....as long as no one sees me.

 

There is one rule in “pick and pay” yards I learned the hard way. Never leave your tools unattended. I had to run back to the car for another tool and upon returning was missing a set of sockets.

 

If you have to pee at least go over to the foreign section.

 

Well when you consider that the three tools most people take in are: crescent wrench, wire cutters and pliers. That is the result. I agree though that plain old destruction when it could save something for another person is disappointing.

 

I never see anything very old at our Pick N Pull yards. Usually it's not more than 25 years old. On rare occasion I see an 80's car. So what I do to get parts off never bothers me much with these late model cars. I've taken rear axles out and cut the drivelines leaving the last few inches just to have the end of the driveling also. They don't care, and they don't charge me extra for the yoke. And when I have the driveline built I give it to the driveline shop to save me money on the new driveline.
For me it would depend on the year of the donor as to how gentle I am removing parts.

 

hey, it is a junk yard, oops, recycling center - all going to be hauled away - no one pulling parts has to worry about "Mom" wanting them to clean up area when done - I agree that have found cars trashed that I needed parts from - but, they will be bringing another to pick from - usually by the time I find something really old listed on a online inventory list much is already picked - been a long time since I have been to one - online shopping is my first go to now

 

I needed a small suspension part for a '65 Impala. There was a cherry '65 Impala tw0-door hardtop in the yard that was bought new by a woman and kept it all her life. This car should have been on a used car lot. The yard guy is going to fork lift it in the air to torch out the part I needed. He destroyed the front fender and damaged the door and part of the quarter panel in so doing. Charged me $5 for the part.

 

The pick and pay I go to is quite large, clean and well organized. Yard is covered in gravel, no weeds, cars are separated by make and all placed up on wheels (one laying flat other stood up inside one on ground) with rows big enough for their large forklift to drive through. They seem to be more of a recycling center and selling parts is just gravy. Talked to a guy there and he said cars are reviewed once a week if judged picked clean they go to crusher or after 30 days automatically go to crusher. They get 20 plus cars a day so have to move at least that many out. They don’t seem to care what happens to cars there they are all going to the crusher anyway. I’m usually respectful and don’t damage anymore then necessary to get what I need but have seen real hack jobs.

 

I walked out in the back of a popular go to PNW yard for old car folk a few years back and someone had gone through smashing tail light lenses to snag the bulbs and stick them in their pockets. OT 70's, 80's and 90's cars but they were too lazy to hunt out bulbs they could remove right without damaging a light in the process in a yard with a thousand plus cars in it.
In the same yard I don't know how many parts I was hunting were destroyed because someone decided to break it to get at a part behind it rather than properly take the thing apart. I was driving down the road beside it one day when I saw a part fly over their 10 foot fence and land beside the road, I picked it up and took it around to the office and told them that someone might be a bit shocked when they walk out in a few minutes and see it sitting there.

First job I ever had in a shop in the early 70's I followed behind a kid who had worked in a local Waco Tx wrecking yard pulling parts for several years and the shop owner got to know him and offered him a job. His first job was pulling an engine out of a car so it could be rebuilt. 15 minutes after JT told him what he wanted him to do he comes back out and says "I've got it out" Every wire and cable cut, the exhaust cut in two and a few other things destroyed. He got fires on the spot and sent back to the wrecking yard. My first job was putting the rebuilt engine back in and repairing all the damage he did. Even an early 60's car has a lot of wires connected to the engine.

 

been to quite a few Pick N Pull's local ( off top cars Euro) I try to grab what ever I can for my older two off topics.. Before the Pick-N-Pull Hooligans get their..

 

Time is money and a sawzall is your friend. That said, wanton destruction of windshields and the like is wrong on all levels.

 

First job out of high school in 1959 was working in a yard in L.A. that was a tow and scrap setup. Tow them in, flip them, cut the frames out. No parts sales. Saw some beautiful cars torched including a '32 Cadillac V-12.

 

Unless the yard specializes in classics, that carcass is going to be crushed within 2 months. Chances are, there is not going to be another guy who wants the part you spent 4 hours carefully removing to get to the part you want. So save yourself the time/pain and get your pieces by whatever means available: sawzall, grinder, snips, chisel, or if you’re really lucky maybe the place allows a hot wrench.

 

Actually the one reason I stop.....no waiting to pee.........

 

I wait until I see someone working under a car...and then I pee on their tools

 

As Rodney Dangerfield said, " Class is stepping out of the shower to take a pee.."

 

Whenever a go to pull a part I get thoroughly pissed off seeing what dumb pricks leave behind. I always do my best not to bugger things up for the next person. Performing my auto-ectomy like a surgeon..."First do no harm". I go to It's just the principle of it all.

 

Henny(sp) Youngman used to say that about what kind of guy George Burns was

 

Whenever I go to the pick a part place, I'm always a tool or two short of what I need.

 

I think the "proper" behavior would depend on the yard. One of the yards I frequent is multi-decades old, mostly wooded now, and the cars have been picked over for decades. Lots of parts piled in old school buses, parts piled everywhere, you get the picture. There a sawzall is your friend. Cutting a rusty hulk to get to a decent bumper bracket is OK to me.

 

We frequented a few wrecking yards around the San Jose area (CA.) in '55-'70...Well, all of 'em. We were always careful, as in those days cars sat there for months, sometimes years...
There was one under new management, out by the Fairgrounds...1961.

My bud Don Serventi and I went looking for '49-'55 Olds & Pontiac rear ends, (hot then) We walked in, saw all kinds of cars neatly raised and sitting on one steel wheel welded upright on one sitting flat. 4 to a car, 2 front, 2 back.
I was alarmed...the wheels on the bottom were Buicks, (some Cads/Oldses) but Buicks mostly.
The uprights were '49-'50 Mercs, and lots of '40-'48 Ford passenger 16".
We had been buying there for some time for our reversed wheel business...
Tex's still had lots, but Navarro's was $$$+.

 

I frequented a local yard so often that one day the owner being short handed
asked me to lend a hand for a while that afternoon. At closing time he gaveme
the brake drums I was seeking and 20$. This was in 1967. That was a Friday.
Saturday morning I was there before opening time. When the owners, three
rough, tough German fellows arrived they asked me why I was there so early.
I replied, "Dont like to be late for work." Walked in and started pulling parts.
Remained involved with them for many years in one way or another. Loved that place. The things I saw come through there would be amazing in todays
auto culture.

 

Place I used to frequent years ago would rent wheel barrows which was great, saved you having to lug a tool box around and the parts you picked, what got me steamed was the dicks who could not wait till you were done with a carcass before jumping in, nor the grace to ask whether the parts were something you wanted.

 

When I lived in Orlando there was one next to a Rinker Materials redi-mix plant.
When the plant was set up, they needed a place to dump all their test batches.
The entire parts yard was paved in concrete, several feet thick in places where there was a hole or low spot. The cars were all up on scrap wheels for easy picking.
Glory land!