"Here here, gentleman from Hell Lay" ...sorry i must be watching too much of the John Adams miniseries on HBO...
It's stupid to keep these yards a "secret stash". You're never going to do anything with 99% of the cars in the yard. If there's **** there that you want, get it, pay the owners and tell everyone else about what's left. If all that **** got crushed out because you were keeping it a secret, then you're partly to blame. I buy whole parts cars and part them out all the time, even if I'm not using anything from the car. Either you step up to the bat and save the **** or it's going to be crushed. Those yard owners need to make money and you keeping it a secret and going there once a year to spend $100 isn't helping. You want to help fix the trade defecit? Get some parts and put them up for sale on eBay. Lots of that stuff goes to other countries, brings money into the US. And I have to agree with whoever said selling whole parts cars on eBay isn't as easy as it sounds. People will buy parts all day long, but selling a whole car can be pretty tough, especially if its parts-only and been sitting in a yard for years. A lot of restorers/hot rodders don't have room or can't afford to buy a whole car but they're happy to buy just the pieces they need for whatever they're working on. That's where guys like me come into the picture. When I go to a yard, I come back with more than just pictures and a story.
I just got really noxious... Damn. I wish they wouldn't do such a thing. Throw the damned operators of the jaws in the machine and let them see what it's like.
If only they realized,the enviromental impact,from building so many new"disposable"cars! Hot Rodders,recycling cars and parts,since cars were 1rst built.
Went to an auction over the weekend. Remains of what once had been a K-F dealer. 4 early Kaisers, 3 later Kaisers, two Henry J's, a '40 Chevy towtruck with a 10-inch tree grown up through the corner of the bed, a '40 Ford pickup, a '60-'63 Chevy COE in good shape (I have never seen another one of those). The rest was late model ****ola. Most of them went to a s**** dealer for around $100-$200 a shot. Most were so bad the only parts worth pulling were the clusters, the heart-shaped window on the late Kaisers, and the bumper guards on the late Kaisers. (We had a pretty decent early Frasier a few years ago and could only get $50 for it - not even s**** price then - it wasn't great but tons better than these cars. I don't think anyone gives a damn about them - if the KF people did they would have got them when they got the NOS parts stash). The one Henry J had a good frame, but the top was rotted out. I didn't dare even bid, the guy was buying the late model cars that there were 20 or so of too and paying more than anyone else would for them. Had the land not been sold already, I probably could have got one if I could have picked it up April 2 or 3. But with it costing me at least $100 to get even someone else I knew to haul one and the market in the toilet, I couldn't justify it, not when this guy could bid one up to more than what any parts on it were worth just because he could. There will be better cars in the future. The '40 truck I probably should have bid on, it had a motor and neat Shell decals on the doors. But the hood was shot, the grille was shot, and the frame kickup was so bad I think the thing will break in two if moved. Like 8 inches of it was just about completely missing, and that was the side I could see. Who knows what the estate s****ped before that, you could see where a lot of cars had been. Gone. Supposedly there had been a Henry J stock car there at one time. Would have liked to have at least seen that. I may be able to get a little trailer, I cut a deal with some guys who bid on all the loose s**** metal on the ground. If they can get it out (it's buried up to the hub on one side and the ground was frozen rock solid, even a small tractor with a bucket couldn't pop it loose), they'll drop it at my friend's place for a good price. It's made out of half a '50 or so Chevy pickup and the steel on it is good and solid. I figure if I get that, next time there is a '40 pickup that might break in two, I can just cut it in half and make 2 or 3 trips to bring the cab, bed, nose, and motor home. if they can't get the trailer out I may go back like Friday and see what's left, and bring a sledge and a pick and try and pull the trailer out at least. I think if I throw some tires on it it will roll, if not it has spindle nuts on it so it won't be too bad to rip apart. To top it off, I get most the way there I have to go up a big hill. Well I have no power, I hit the gas more than part throttle and it breaks up, runs rough, just won't go. So I was worried about that all day, seeing expensive repair bills in my head. I finally decided to stop at a parts store coming back, I thought maybe I got some bad gas in the morning, maybe a new fuel filter would help. I buy one, crawl under in the parking lot, take it apart, and on the inlet side here is three pieces of ****ing dried out leaf in the end. Not enough to plug it, but enough to restrict it. Now this is a TBI truck and there is a nylon sock over the inlet and a fuel pump in the tank. So HTF did that **** get in there? It was a full moon the night before and still dark when I left. Thats' the only explanation I can think of. The guy who can hang onto a bunch of stuff now is going to be in good shape in 5 or 10 years. The economy can't **** forever. When it comes back, 90% of the stuff in yards will be gone, and people will be digging them out of where they're buried as landfill and building things no one will touch now.
I have to agree !!! There was a yard down here in Texas that was going out and a HAMBer went and bought a 55 and kept it quiet but teased us about going back . Well I think the owners posted it on craigslist as an auction but it was too late and bad weather for many of us to go .
Old cars disappearing is just the tip of the iceberg.. With manufacturing going away and education on the back burner, America's most valuable resource is its s****...pretty sad...wake up and get ready to fight. Unfortunately our young people aren't fit enough to run a hundred feet, or educated enough to count the ammo in their weapon without an ipod,cellphone,gps,or laptop to help em. Sign me...not afraid....just sad and disappointed.
Hatch, I say the same thing day after day, when China finally gets all the s**** from us and own all of our debt, how long will it take for them to come take over all of our farm land for themelves? China is a hugh land m*** but not very much productive farmland. I don't trust them! I hope my grand kids make it thru the next 100 years. Paranoid? maybe, maybe not!
"A lot of restorers/hot rodders don't have room or can't afford to buy a whole car but they're happy to buy just the pieces they need for whatever they're working on." Amen.... The s**** yards near me are almost all gone now except for one and that one is a matter of time. Fact is if they were making a decent living, they wouldn't need to s**** the cars, sell the land and move on. There are not enough of us old car guys to make a difference and many of us are to *^*&^ cheap to pay a reasonable price. With land prices increasing and land taxes double what they were 5-6 years ago (up here) and the environmental movement these guys are getting fed up. Labor cost is also a factor. Most guys are too busy or lazy for u-pull yards but don't want to pay for it to be pulled. Would you spend 3-4 hours to pull a dash from a car you own and sell it for $75 bucks? What makes it worse is that with manufacturing going offshore, many smaller towns are dying, so people are moving to the city. Us city guys have no space to store parts/parts cars and bylaws to enforce it. I have a 2 car garage, a 10x10 shed and I'm paying $100 a month on another single garage an hour across town. I couldn't keep a parts car around even if I wanted to save one. I've parted a couple, but it's typically a weekender with a buddy to pull what we need and s****/sell the rest. My suburban late-model driving neighbors would take a dim view of a couple of parts cars parked under a tarp in my driveway for any length of time. It might affect their property value or contaminate the groundwater for the entire area....
A friend of mine is crushing all his old stuff. Yes, he knows about ebay and has been building real hot rods for decades, but when the stuff sits in the yard for years, with everyone asking about it and no one buying it when it's really cheap, it has to turn into cash. I watched a 50 Buick, 51 Chev COE, 49 Chev fastback, and several others go off to the crusher on one load of probably 50. The s**** prices are up, and after 15-20 years of selling it cheap to keep hot rodding alive, there comes a time when it has to go and no one wants to step up. Remember that lots of folks (esp. older guys) don't do ebay or the internet at all, so if the customer doesn't come through the door, they don't deal with them. It hurts to see the parts all go away, but the 180-200 ton s**** is bringing is the money that pays the bills. I hate it, but the only way to change it is to buy them all yourself, and I don't have the room to do it.
No as a student of history I can find the same tired old "not like the old days" remarks throughout time.
yes, but they don't realize. Thats why "they" don't get "us" I dont know how many people asked me about my 54 or the touring and how bad is the mileage in those old hotrods...............both got 18 or better, what does my "modern" car get? 2000 Ranger 18mpg
welcome to my world.. michigan has nothing (or almost) nothing left any more. all rusty 80's and early 90's cars..try to find a nice 350 engine that isnt newer than 90's..good luck..and as for cars..HA! better get um soon..before there gone..and all those guys hiding where the old iron is thinking they are saving it from all the hot rodders..better get off their heaps and get um sold before they are crushed in the name of the allmighty dollar.
Out of the 5000+ cars in Buzz's yard, they are crushing 2000. Had dinner with him on Wednesday, and this is killing him. He has tried the e-bay thing, but he does repairs in his shop next to the yard full time, and there aren't enough hours to run the auction stuff. Also, to make e-bay work well, you have to take the parts off and be ready to ship them, and that takes more time and people that he does not have. I hate to see it happen also, I have gotten LOTS of parts out of there. Sure glad I got all the window electrics out of the 62 Caddy a couple of months ago. Doug
the good news is the yards that don't crush now will be able to double their prices because the parts will be twice as rare,
I parted a 53 and a 52 chevy on ebay. I had well over $6,000.00 in sales between the 2. did the same with a 1960 El Camino and had $5200.00 in sales from that one. these 3 cars were rusted junk. no one in thier right mind would rebuild any of them. that's what makes me sick when I hear about these old cars getting crushed. they are worth so much more in parts, and they helped other old cars get back on the road
so, maybe we all should think twice about chizeling the junkman down on his price, sometimes it is more prudent to pay-up... that is of course ***uming the junkman isn't "out to lunch".
What about the crook on the mountain in Missoula that screwed everyone on Hemmings for years, is he still there?
Toymont and I went and saw the junkyard on the mountain. Toymont posted photos of it here a couple years back. A guy that used to work for them said . "The second brother tried to show the first brother that you could make money by just decieveing people - you didnt have to actually steal from them like the first brother" Sheesh!
It's gonna get worse- brace yourself for yet another jump in the s**** price. Rumor has it around here that the current price- $240 a ton- is going to jump to $275 a ton within the next two weeks. as much as I hate seeing the stuff go, I can't afford to buy much, I saved one last year, and one this year, so I feel I'm doing my part. My boss has a 30+ year collection that he is ready to whittle down for retirement, some stuff has already gone that I disagree with, but I am trying my damndest to get him to hold out so I can offer the stuff up for sale whole before it gets destroyed.
A lot said about the Chineese, and Joe Average helping them, is spot on. We pay the c's to bury ourselves...just as Lenin and Mao predicted. But as far as the cars go; boys we in the auto world (pro or not) are up against the wall and it's gonna get worse. Why should Joe Average give a rats A** about old cars? Heck, ANY car! He can't fix a burned out light bulb, much less his car! We've got the Greens out to paint us as 'Ecological Terrorists'...and thats a direct quote. Funny now...wait 'til January '09 and see if it's still funny, or when laws like the proposed WA law actually gets by...most of us wouldn't be able to AFFORD to keep these cars, and thats what they want. To me, the biggest threat facing the U.S. is that we have lost the brainpower to build anything! Now, I am not talking about designing something or selling it...building it. Pretty soon the last generation of builders will be gone...and then it's all over.
crazy part for me is my little rusty sports cars probably weigh less than 1000 pounds without the motor (always pulled) , I have chased a few down from rumours I followed only to find out they were crushed !, what did they get $50-$75 I guess you can only save so many of them.....
I have lived just down the road from roses s**** yard my whole life and in the past ten years he and the other two major s**** yards in town have been crushing like crazy. I was there when he crushed a 57 chevy 2 door, he had the guy put it in the middle of the trailer so no one would see it,sad
one of the reasons why i like living here in the white mountains of az, we have 2 yards here and the owners won't ever crush, unless its wrecked late model ****... ones full of 30s-70s fords mostly, the other 50s-70s chevy
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