scrap steel $ has me nervous.

dude you better PM "looser" if you haven't already.

 

Dropped of the original radiator from my '57 Fairlane at the scrap place during lunch. Got $22, then went a couple of blocks down the street to O'Reilly and got some front brake shoes and a hi-po thermostat.

Not a big day by any stretch, but at least this weekends little projects are paid for with something that I was just going to toss out anyway.

 

Ford Granada? John, when did you stop by my house? I must have been somewhere else in the trailer park

 

Where do you suppose a lot of the original dies for pre war sheet metal went?

 

With the high scrap prices lot of old tin is being drug out of the woods I don’t know what to think if this rig but it’s kind of cool.

 

I know a couple guys in Parkersburg, WV bought a '40 Ford Tudor off a truck heading for the crusher, it now sits on a Monte Carlo frame.

 

I was in Jackson Mississippi last Thursday and got passed by a semi haulin a crushed '69 Camaro, and from what I could tell, a '57 chrysler 300.
This shit ain't right, period! Fuck China, and fuck this stupid war!
Did everyone forget, there is oil UNDER Iraq, we should be sucken' em dry, with every drop going into the reserves, dropping the enormous amount we buy from our "buddies" at OPEC EVERY FREAKIN' DAY, dropping demand, and therefore the price (yeah, Right!) just my 14 cents......................

 

just yesterday, i saw a '57 chevy 2 door post that landed upside down on a scrap pile. complete body, it could have made a cool stock car if i had known it was going.

 

The reserves were sold off 10 years ago to help the prices we have today. my .02

 

Yes, that is cool. Bad to the bone.

 

You and I both!

 

As much as a I hate seeing cars crushed, we've been destroying these "pieces of history" for years now. Stock car racing, radical kustoms and just plain stupidity or no skill modifications, as well as crushing and neglect.

Many of the owners of these scrap yards and others have also let the stuff rot beyond repair. The last of the yards near me could have been a gold mine. They bought car lot cars, mostly running in the early '60s, put them in a bog and set them sit in the Canadian climate for 30 years. Well, now you have cars up to their frames in mud with no floors, rotted up to the side trim. Some look like sinking ships with the entire front end buried in the dirt. Any car you would tow would likely break in half. The number of 2drs, 2dr hardtops and convertibles in there make me ill.

What it means for guys like me and you is parts will become increasingly difficult to find. Prices have spiked already. Just price out '52-54 Kaiser overriders, '54 Pontiac or Desoto grilles, '49-50 Mercury parts, etc. Since they're not pulling these off restored cars, the fewer parts cars, the more it will cost.

Just my 0.02. That's why I'm hoarding what I can store in my limited space.

 

Last time I hauled a load of scrap was 2 weeks ago. I saw a 1972 Buick Skylark on top of the pile. I would have given more than scrap price for the subframe. It is tempting to sit up the road and watch what goes to be sold for scrap.
Jef

 

What should make people more nervous with scrap this high are the high number of assholes who look at a car with a little rust and say it's junk and should be scrapped. I was over on an eBay board had the treat of arguing with an asshole like this about an American Bantam sedan delivery someone had posted a link to because the seller was running a goofy auction. The thing was up, rolling, complete, and not falling apart and this guy was saying it should be scrapped. A Bantam? Christ, even if the frame's shot the body could find a new home as a dragster in about 30 seconds.

Sometimes I just want to find guys like that and kick them in the nuts with rocket powered boots.

 

More scrap talk. Check this link out.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=7795717&ch=4226713&src=news

 

A friend had a 71 Toronado. It passed the sniffer, ran and drove, but was a gas hog with rust. He put it on Craigslist for $500.00. No calls. Brought it to my place, took off the HEI, Alternator, new carb and battery, and we loaded it on my trailer. After the scrapper took it off my trailer, we pulled the tires and wheels (tires 30 days old) and he $410.00 for what was left, 4400 lbs worth.

 

I'm in FLorida right now and went to look at my neighbors "new" Hudson Stock car down here. While I was there, there was a 1947 Spartanette aluminum travel trailer headed to the scrap yard. It was a super nice body. Scrap was $400 on it because of all the aluminum. Insane. I looooove those things. I'm trying to figure out a way to save it but the other problem besides scrap is that gas prices are so high that even if the trailer was free, I think it would cost $1300 or more to get it back to Indiana. I have passed on lots of cool stuff because I could not afford to get it home even if it was free.

 

Copper down spouts were taken from a church here last night.

 

I heard a quote of $10 per hundred pounds of heavy steel today. Thieves are stripping empty house for copper too.

 

up to $285 a ton in Riverside, CA for sheetment and $225 a ton for Cast Iron....

 

what are you guys complaining about glass car abound......just kidding....on the other hand get used to it.....we havent touched the edge yet....

 

you are getting ripped on the cast iron.. Its well over double that price.

 

Hey guys
Theres a local OLD yard here.....good news is hes not cushing the good stuff...but heres the numbers....225. a ton for crushed cars...6,000 units in the yard most will crush out at 500.0 each..yea thats over 2,000,000.00 in scap....can you blame these people???

 

I scrapped my girls car a few weeks ago(91 olds '88 that I smashed up) They paid 260 a ton, plus I got something like 80 for the aluminum rims, I got way more than I could have sold it for. When my dad and I were leaving there was a truck behind us that had an old IH truck? on a trailer. Not positive on the make, but it was it was late 40's vintage for sure and we stood there as they drove in, astonished that someone was scrapping it, not that it was valuble necessarily, but the condition that it was in definatly something someone on here could have done something with. Its sad.

 

Some of the local counties around here have started WELDING manhole covers to the housings ! Damn thieves have been stealing them and selling them at the scrap yards. Fuckers stole 33 of them last weekend.

 

I've heard of that, but I wonder what scrapyards are accepting manhole covers without asking questions. Seems like the scrapyards would have to be held accountable for taking something so obvious.

Sure they can't doublecheck everything that comes in the yard but there's no reason anyone off the street should be bringing in manhole covers as scrap iron.

I know last time I was at our scrap yard some kid tried driving his Grand Am over the scales and then unloading a bunch of cut up railroad tracks out of the trunk. The yard owners put a stop to it fast, told him he had to have permission to bring the shit in. Scary to think some kids are cutting up railroad track to take in as scrap.

 

Chances are, there's a line near him the railroad is replacing the rails on . I doubt he cut the rails out himself. BNSF is replacing track near me and there is a 12 foot high pile of track pieces no more than 4 feet or so in length just sitting there....waiting for the scrap car to come. I keep thinking about making an anvil out of one, but every time I go by, there's no one there to ask about snagging a chunk.

 

What really gets me is the people that call my shop looking for a $200-500 car. Why in the world would I sell a running, driving car for $200 when I can get $400-500-600-700 or more for it over the scale and not have to worry about someone pissing and moaning about every little thing wrong with it?!? ANY running/driving car in relatively good mechanical and physical condition is worth over a grand in today's market. Just about any vintage parts car is worth $400-500 without question. The days of $50 cars are long gone. Now that is not to say they aren't still out there, but they are VERY few and far between. Our local wholesale auction has a $550 starting bid on anything, running or not. The Scrap iron dealer has a minimum bid on anything that goes through. This means that if any WI dealer wants to deal in budget cars, the least they will have into a car out the door is about $600-650 not even including their time and hauling costs. So then you have to detail and repair the car. In order to make even a small profit, your looking at almost $2000 is the lowest price on any wholesale car at any dealership around here. And that is considering you don't get a piece of junk that has a tranny out or something major. I looked back at my logbook a few days ago. 5 years ago, I would pay $75-150 for good low dollar cars. They do $800-to a grand wholesale now.
So the bottom line is that you can't find inexpensive cars anymore. If you do, your lucky. Anyone on a low income can't afford to drive anymore....what isn't mentioned is that insurance is the first thing that isn't getting paid. How many people dumb their insurance because they can't barely afford gas?

I put a '87 Honda Accord up for sale this past week. $1350. Phone litterally ran off the hook for two days. Had a '96 Civic for $2500 the week before, same thing. I almost had a fist fight over the Civic

 

Some awful bit of news...A business friend down in Atlanta has a bus business and someone broke into his place and stole 20 or 30 catalytic converters from the parts room as well as other metals here and there and took a sawblade to one guard dog and a pipe to the other!!! I hate these people that make a living like a parasite!!!!! I hope, if they aren't caught, that they'll at least burn in hell!

 

I agree totally. There was a time when I could buy junk rusty Studebaker larks all over for $100 to $300, now it seems all vintage cars under the $1,000 condition level have disapeared as scrap. I have 8 or 9 picked over lark carcuses out in the fence row on the farm, they are looking awfuly attractive looking now that each would bring around $350 for scrap. Sad thing is there is not $350 worth of usable collector's parts on any one car. I probally will hold on to them, as I could never gather a parts car again given current scrap prices.