Coolest thing you have ever found at a wrecking yard???

In the late '70s/early '80s, a set of '56 Adventurer gold-anodized DeSoto hubcaps. Got 'em for $5 each, sold 'em for $80.

 

On a LIGHTER note! I once guided a friend to a '51 Hudson Pacemaker. After we towed it home with his '68 Gallaxy, we started "cleaning it out" and found a stash of NUDE pix of the original owner's WIFE, obviously taken in the '50s.

My buddy almost retched, and I won't even repeat his opinion of this damsel. But the LAUGHS we got out of it lal were one of the COOLEST things found in a junked car.

 

Went to a local area junkyard several years ago looking for a mirror for my buddy's van. In the back of the yard was several old boats, looked inside for curiosity sakes, and it still had the gauges. 1969 vintage stewart warners. $10 and they were mine. Also had a cool three spoke steering wheel with fake wood grain wheel an extra $10.
Years ago picked up a 1928 Checy wood rim steering wheel at a garage sale for $1, excellant shape.

 

Mag wheels @ $5. each about five years back.

Fairly common sizes, nothng over 8" - or under 6".

Most were slots, a few were five spokers.


Yeah, we got a few....

 

2 Pontiac 8-Lug wheels, lightly tack-welded together to be used as a stand for the wrecked cars. They came apart clean and easy

 

A fuel injector for my dodge van that died two blocks down the street from a bad injector. I was 1000 miles from home. The injector was lying on the floor of a totally different car I just happened to look at.

 

DreddyBear, ALL I can say is: THERE HAS TO BE A GOD! LOL, but THIS could have been a major "inconvenience"!

Now, WHAT the heck you suppose the ODDS of just FINDING THE part you needed 2 blocks away?!??!???

 

I've posted this before, but here it is. Vintage early 60's Oneil surfboard laying in a shed full of bike parts at the local wrecking yard. I had seen it there about 15 years ago but never thought twice about it. Go figure. It's about 12 feet long. Might have to sell it?

 

About 35 years ago I found this. I had built it 10 years before. The right front was demolished from contact with a telephone pole.

 

A 2-man WWII battle tank, still with its tracks, and a '54 Hudson Hornet.

Don't know WHICH of those is rarer!!! LOL

 

I want this car, but have 9 now. Still at the yard

 

1956 Packard. We wondered why it was at the Pick-a-Part SD and bought it. Had it on the trailer and a guy came up and asked the plan. He gave us $500 more than it cost us and we delivered it to his house. We had no plan. The other thing, same place, was a 58 retractable. Way rusted and bare. However I snagged the cables and servos and wires from the roof. Made a call and took em to escondido and sold em for 600.

 

Just found an OT '73 LTD with a 400 2v. 3600 original miles.

yard guy drove it back there last week.

 

65 Comet AFX fiberglass hood, with 50 or so coats of paint.
I called Rick Kirk to verify it after paying $50 for it at a wrecker that I still visit around here. I missed the whole car by a couple years, it was crushed after being parted.

 

I found a 401 w/stage 1 package (valve covers, 2X4 AFBs's. etc) in a brown, 65 Buick 4 door after walking past the car for a month. No one else looked under the hood either, but when I asked about it, the yard owner flew by me and pulled it out before I could leave. He was working on an ealy Riv. I also found a $10 bill stuck in the wing window of a 56 Chrysler. Lots of tools, clothes, coins, dead rodents, etc.

 

A freind and I once took a day trip to Camp Verde, Arizona. Along the way, we stopped at a junkyard and my buddy showed me a '36 Ford 3 window coupe that someone had built into a dirt track car, apparently in the '40's or '50's, judging from the lack of any rollbar and skinny wheels. He said it had been there as long as he could remember, and there wasn't a dent on it anywhere. There were some holes torched in the doors for some crude nerfs to poke thru, but other than that and some crude lettering, it was virgin. Another time, in the mid-'70's, Dad and I were poking around in our local junkyard and we found a complete, motor-and-all AA truck chassis. All I needed were the running board brackets for my '30 pickup, so we chisled them off and as well walked towards the car we came in, there were the remains of an old, WWII-era bomber that the CDF had been using to drop fire-retardant. My Dad guessed it to be the same one that had crashed upon takeoff at our local airstrip, killing both pilots aboard. We guessed the scrapyard owner bought it for the metal, and it evidently had sat there the next 10+ years. That was the eeriest thing I ever saw in a wrecking yard or any place else.

 

Back in 1964 I went to a yard to get a 3 speed transmission for my 56 Sunliner, I'm stroling through the wrecks, ( with hands full of wrenches) looking for the car the guy told me about , as I walk around this old truck I'm facing the BIGGEST, MEANEST, FOAMING AT THE MOUTH, JUNKYARD DOG YOU CAN AMAGINE!!!! Thank God he came to the end of his chain, as the wreches came raining down on him before he got me. I had to go back to the shop and have the owner call the mutt off my tools in order to remove the trans from the doner.. What you had to go through back in the day for a $20.00 transmission.

 

in the early eightys` i found a mint `53 corvette exhaust manifold on a `50-ish truck. only problem, there were two or three billybobs under the truck unbolting the exhaust system! i very casually asked them if they wanted that old exhaust manifold [still bolted to the engine]. they said "no, all we want is the dual exhaust". ten minutes and twelve dollars later i was on the way to my vehicle to make a quick exit.

 

Long time ago but in 1960 I found and bought a nice 36 Ford coupe with no engine or trans for $50, put an Olds in it then sold it

 

Found a '59 Edsel in the yard today. Some joker had removed the rear axle, completly disassembled it, and then only took the passenger axle shaft. So here's my $25 early 9"!

 

a 1959 Lyndwood dragster chassis, guys at the yard thought it was a large go cart took it home for $200

 

Maybe not cool to some of you,but I found a 33 Willys Sedan Delivery less eng. in a wrecking yard in Dallas...went home with me for 75.00......

 

A '33 anything for $75 sounds pretty good/

 

Quite from above.......once found a milk crate full of mint records from the 70's and early 80's (Ted Nugent, U.F.O., Y&T, Scorpions, C.S.N&Y, Tokyo Blade, Rail, Thin Lizzy and a shit load of others)

Oh God I saw UFO live the shame

 

3' long ratchet extension
Misc. tools
Porn
Camping... my buddies granddad owned a salvage yard and we would "camp" in the yard when we were 13/14. Typically spend the night playing with fire and digging through the cars. We would sleep in an old econoline van that had side doors on both sides and the back. So it had 6 doors in addition to the drivers and passenger doors. It was a sweet van in a kidnapper van kind of way.

 

In 1991 i bought an 8 inch ford rear for $20.00, seen this mobil gas sign by the fence "just take it" the guy says. I TOOK IT.

 

Found a bowling ball in the trunk of a 65 Mustang, fit perfectly! used it in 2 leagues still have it!

 

I found a 1957 complete Oldsmobile J-2 set-up in a trunk of a 63 Ford Falcan.
It looked like it was off the Titanic, but she cleaned up pretty good.

 

I think the coolest thing is generally what you can use now or just recently found. For example, I have been keeping my eyes open and searching Craigslist, etc for an early pair of Olds small block heads for a 403 build. This week I was walking thru a Pick N Pull and noticed a small block Olds in, of all things, a 67 Buick Skylark. Turned out to be the best of the small block heads #5's that are 69 350. Scored for under a $100.

There are all kinds of cool things I have bought and later sold but one of the best would have been the Grand National rearend I had in my Cutlass 442. $60 for an $800 rear.

 

Sweet. That is the coolest score yet in my book.