Your best junkyard/ swap meet/ barn find

Look under F150 club cab 4x4 you will be surprised what you see on the case staring you in the face . N

 

Last find for me was OT Harley . At the gun club exercising some equipment . Had on a Harley T . An older guy on the range comes over and asks me “ do you have a Harley ? “ Yes , was my answer . He proceeds to tell me “ I have one I want you to have . Bring your trailer and a check . It’s go to be so cheap you will have to take it . “
I did as he requested . When I arrived I could barely see it in the shed . I saw it was a kicker and said I’ll take it 24,000 Mile 84 Shovel . Shovels stopped mid year 84 EVOs started . Have been researching to determine how near it is to last one to roll of the line .

 

About 5 years ago I found these in a local junkyard, laying on the ground outside. My best guess is they were in the trunk of a car that had gotten drug out recently (the yard was in the process of crushing out) and the car was so rotted these just fell out, and nobody else noticed.

I do a lot of junkyarding and I've found and bought a lot of cool stuff in my time but this was my favorite find.

 

Superior 4 hole metalflake blue steering wheel for $5 at a flea market.

Gary

 

Actually bought it online, tho I have no real use for it. I reckon its a thing of great beauty, so buying it anytime is 100% acceptable

 

can't say where.

 

I happened to be at the right place (a local car show) at the right time and asked the right person and picked up this Muncie M20 for $300, I guess it's been four years ago. A guy had it shoved under his work bench collecting dust.

Larry

 

I was at a friend's house talking to him one day when I noticed a set of BBC headers sitting on his wood pile. I asked him what he's going to do with them and he replied I'm going to give them to you. I tried not to seem too overly excited as I hauled them to my car.

Larry

 

Backyard find in 1976 was a '67 Nova, spicy 283 with solid lifters, 4 speed, posi. Some rust where it had a ding in a rear quarter, needed a clutch. $125. As some of you have said about your finds, you later sold them at a profit but sure wish you had hung on to them. I sold this one a couple years later for $600, needed cash more than I needed a second car.

Does your wife or significant other occasionally drag you to garage sales? Mine does, and a couple years ago she talked me into going to a few that she just had to go check out. While she looked at all the stuff lined up in the driveway at one of them I peeked into the garage and saw a couple carburetors tucked away on a high shelf. I asked if they might be for sale, and the daughter of the deceased owners said pretty much everything was for sale, they just hadn't had time to get everything moved off the shelves and out onto the tables. A closer look revealed a set of intake manifolds on the shelf behind the correct matching number carbs. I'm not going to even say what I paid for them because y'all will start calling me a damned thief. Missing some linkage and the crossover tube, but......

Feast yer eyes on this:

 

Farm auction old wagon on a car frame that the wood was bad cost $20 the frame and axles were 1932 Ford

 

Don't know if it qualifies as best, but it was one of the most coincidental finds I've had. Late '90s at the Spring Charlotte Auto Fair. My friend Doug and I were on the hunt for a left side '63 Pontiac Catalina taillight lens. Another friend in California had called me asking if I could try to find a replacement for the lens he had broken backing into a pole. One of the vendors had Pontiac advertising for that year, so I checked to make sure what I was looking for. Walking through the infield vendors, I spotted a pair of NOS lenses for $75, and the guy wouldn't split them up. A little while later, walking through a pile of boxes full of miscellaneous stuff, Doug reached down into a box and came up with the correct lens. $5 to the vender and another $5 to ship it, and my California friend had a taillight.

 

My greatest find is well documented here on the Hamb. An early '20s Mercury Body Speedster found overgrown in a backyard. As far as finds go, I expect I'll never top this one.





And here it is, today (the blue one in front):


You can read more about it on my build thread: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/a-speedster-comes-out-of-the-weeds%E2%80%94build-thread.1003005/

 

This Deuce was recently removed from a garage when it sat for over 70 years.

 

That '58 Bel Air hardtop is clean and rare.

 

Stumbled on this EELCO aluminum dash panel when building my Mysterion reproduction. I knew I needed vintage SW gauges for the car but had no idea what dash Ed used. I assumed he fabricated one from sheet metal. Then on an ebaY search for gauges, this auction popped up. THAT WAS IT!!!!!!! I had never seen this panel in my then 69 years so I snapped it up. Haven't seen one since. Absolute miracle I found it.

This is one of the few photos showing Ed's dash.

Here is the ebaY auction I won! Didn't use the gauges it came with of course but exactly what I needed.

 

$35 for a y block tri power intake

 

Might get Mark pissed at me for this .... But I got an original paint 1970 Chevelle 375 hp SS 396 out of a boneyard in 1982 for $600. Actually it was My Dad's Money. It was my High School graduation present. I think he was amazed I actually got a diploma

 

In the early ‘70’s I scored a Model A axle that was dropped by Mor-Drop and came with ‘42-‘48 square back spindles, but the steering arms were not bent to clear the axle yet. It definitely was worth the $20 asking price but I offered $15 and the guy took it! Nice and straight, zero rust and about three coats of paint on it.
Nowadays it’s hard to find a decent swap around the Chicago area.

 

Wife wanted to check out a yard sale one day. I went even tho I wanted to work on the 48 olds,she promised a burger and a beer at a local place after so I went along.
As I walked up there on the table was three small old GM boxes ... 2 left and 1 right side glass tail light lenses for a 1948 Oldsmobile 66 series !
Nothing else car related anywhere. Lady didn't know thing about them or where she got them. She wanted .50 a piece I gave her $5.00 each . And paid for the stuff the wife wanted,then bought the wife a nice surf and turf dinner.
I had been looking for those lenses for a long time. Strange things do happen.
RTP

 

Here's another great find I got for my Mysterion. Not a nice Mor-Drop I'm sure but was able to clean it up for my purposes.

 

Got a 396 intake for $5 at the scrapyard.
They gave me an air cleaner for a 375 hp 396.
Base and top.
And free finned aluminum sbf valve covers

 

How about an original 32 grille shell with trims and cap for $150? Not twenty years ago, but just last Sunday. Also got a repro Brookville shell for $75 and a new Tanks gas tank for $75 from the same seller.

 

Wow! An exceptional deal in this day and age. ^

 

Hello,

It wasn’t my best junkyard find, although when our little station wagon got rear ended by some crazy guy on the I-5 freeway one year, all of the local repair shops could not find a rear door that got smashed. No local OC junkyards at the time had anything. So, I called the old junkyards near our old Westside of Long Beach house and the first one had the exact rear door, but in a different color.

So, I visited my mom and went to pick up the rear door. The local OC shop did an excellent job finishing the project. It is to be noted that since then, the OC junkyards began to disappear as fast as kids leave school on a spring break Friday exit.

Jnaki

But, back in 1960, we were responsible for a nice 1940 willys coupe sitting just inside of the gates of the closest junkyard in Wilmington, near Lion’s Dragstrip. Atts Ono and I took apart our remaining Willys Coupe and towed it on a flat bed to the local junkyard.

There just a few steps from a busy street, inside of the gates, in plain view of 1000s of passing cars, was a pristine 1940 Willys Coupe sitting on a couple of milk crates for all to see.

The owner of the yard did not want us to drivc the flatbed trailer back into the yard, so he said it will go fast and to put it just inside of the gates.

It was a sad day, but it had to be done. With the location in public view, what happened to the pristine Willys Coupe without any motor, running gear and the inside had two wire frame seats in plain view? We were contributing to the next hot rod/drag race person’s project.

So, it this the end result? A “best junkyard find?” A pristine red primer complete 1940 Willys Coupe sitting in the dirt along a wire fence, without any tires or rear end. But, the body was together and not one scratch or dent in the whole empty carcass.

The favorite “gas coupe” photo color is this one that looks almost like a carbon copy of our 1940 Willys Coupe build. The owner lived in Wilmington at the time of our drag racing days. He must have driven by the junkyard as it is on the way to Lion's Dragstrip. It was in plain sight, and not hidden, so everyone could see the red primer among the other usual colors of rust, blacks, whites, reds, etc.
The surprising display at the original Lion's Dragstrip grand opening. The interior of our Willys Coupe was all burned out, so everything was slightly different. But, the old bucket seats look to be similar in style.

The shivers kept coming as included in the display, was the exact home made, black tow bar that fit the two bumper brackets in front. The tow bar was sitting underneath the front end. As if they put on some front tires and a new Chevy rear axle and rolled it into the display area.

When I was invited to be a part of the original Lion’s Dragstrip museum development group, they allowed me to wander around the empty building, during set up days. My films were being placed in a DVD player running all day and into the night on a giant TV monitor.


So, in the next room, I found this red primer Willys Coupe sitting in the showroom floor with a 671 SBC motor with a Joe Hunt Vertex Magneto, on a stand against the wall. Who could have imagined such a coincidence? Was it a coincidence or a best junkyard find? in So Cal of all places... YRMV

red primer as shown in a rare film...