scrap steel $ has me nervous.

we are getting the same thing over here in OZ, scrappies advertise on tv and will travel 500km and give you $120 a ton and you just gota show them where it is, Australia doesnt have the luxury of tons of old cars layin around and whats left is getting harder to find, the worst thing is the farmers that have it would rather sell it to a scrappy then let a hotrodder/car freak on their property, seeing most of the aussie built cars were 4 door we arent seeing valuable 2 door stuff being crushed, all our good stuff has to come from US, $3-5k to ship one over makes our projects exe to start with

 

if you plan on snagging a four foot section of R.R. track you might better bring some help.

 

Yea I have to agree...a 4ft section of railroad rail. You might end up dropping something out of your pants and I dont mean your keys or wallet.

And while on the subject of railroad and scrap. While working for a shortline railroad we caught a guy stealing 150lb buckets full of spikes to nail the track down. His excuse was "I thought they were garbage"

And while we are on the subject for scrapping old cars. Have anyone looked at the Salvage and Parts car section on evilbay? A ton of awesome cars in that section.

here are two that caught my interest...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1932...ryZ39405QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
The price aint bad

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Stre...ryZ39405QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
if this isnt bought Ims ure its going to scrap.

Also a seller in MN as a bunch of stuff up in that section.

I listed a 52 chevy 4dr on craigslist. I listed it for $500. I had a women call me and offer me $100. I asked her why the lowball offer. She said because its going to be scrapped and not worth much more. I told her when even if it was worth that I wont go to a scrapper. It found a good home with a young kid who wants to fix it up.

 

I normally go to the local scrap place during workdays. I just went Saturday morning instead, to grab a dolly for a motor. Man, it was like a scene out of "Grapes of Wrath"movie.....lines of trucks, trailers and even people with stuff piled up inside of their small cars. BUSY..

I got a US made older Dayton metal horizontal cut-off bandsaw for $25. Came home, plugged it in, and started cutting some metal I bought there

 

>>"if you plan on snagging a four foot section of R.R. track you might better bring some help."<<
Yup; grabbed a 20" section last year (made an anvil/dolly out of it), had to carry it maybe 500 feet- tossed that shitter on the ground many times to take a break from the weight.

 

yep glad to see the prices start to drop some. i saw a 54 belair 2r and a 53 4 door at our local crusher along with 1950 desoto 1961 chevy convert 1941 ford delivery being stuffed into crusher right off trailer. and they were complete cars! junker would not sell a thing. and just to mention i bought 7 new cat converters last week and guess what they dissappered at the omaha nebraska UPS facility in route from utah. guess they have theifs too. better buy what you want now and store away with crushing and shipping of our old cars and parts overseas everyday it wont be long before they are gone. sad.

 

It's gone staight to stupid around here, manhole covers and all. I tried my best to buy a '59 ford wrecker a few weeks ago from a local dude, running, driving, wrecker, he said he'd never sell it. Fast forward a couple of weeks, this crackhead wakes up one morning, calls another wrecker service and has them haul it to the crusher! I guess he decided he'd rather destroy it than see someone else own it. I plan on at least verbally abusing him if I see him around.

 

People are just nuts. I listed a '79 Mercedes 450 SEL on Cragislist for a buddy with $2500 on it. Nice car, runs great, no rust, but something's up with the trans, it won't go. Might be a plugged filter, might be shot, no one's had time to try to mess with it. But a really nice one runs $6000 and up, I figured this one had to be worth half the $2500.

So a guy emails up and says he'll go $450 for it. I wrote back and said if I was going to take that for it, I'd take it to the junkyard and get it there. It's dropped down to $170 a ton, but there's still plenty of loose scrap to make the difference. He writes back and wants to know what we want for the car. Isn't that why I put a price in the ad?

I mean if it was a Chevy Impala or something, who cares, $450? Sold! but these things don't grow on trees, it's not like there's 5 of them in a row in the you-pull-it yard. If I can't take three things off it, tops, and make $450, I'm doing something wrong. Namely by not just junking it in the first place and not putting up with that crap.

 

6,000 x $500 = $3,000,000

 

Y'all ever heard of Ducks Unlimited? It's a large group of people who contribute funds, volunteer time and lobby state, local and even federal governments to help insure the preservation of huntable birds by preserving their habitats. By pooling their resources, they buy land in migratory bird flyways throughout the Americas so they can continue hunting by helping to limit the destruction of the natural habitats of migratory waterfowl.
Maybe HAMB-ers and SEMA or similar organizations should begin to think about doing something similar wherein we raise funds to create new no-crush salvage yards, hunt for the good stuff that's left in current yards and pool it together for use by enthusiasts, restorers, rodders etc...before it's all gone to the scrapper.
Yes, there'd be a huge upfront cost, but eventually the yards would be self-perpetuating...as for those upfront costs? Raise funds with memberships, then pitch people like Jay Leno, Bruce Meyer and many other wealthy automotive enthusiasts to step up to the plate and help preserve the hobby we all love.
I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but when you look at the Ducks Unlimited model, it does work to help preserve their hobby, why not use the same methods to preserve ours?

 

This thread inspired me to clean out the stuff under my deck.

Scrap iron -- $10.00 / 100 lbs.
Aluminum engines -- $15.00/100 lbs.
Old radiators (no steel) -- $1.20/ pound
Getting rid of 950 pounds of junk, making the wife happy -- PRICELESS.

N B R

 

The scrap price is also bringing lots of "goods" to the junkyards. I picked up a running Chevy 350 Crate Engine (engine code 10066036) for $50. In fact, the scrap yard has so many 350 engines that I had my pick of running ones for $50 - but I had to get the engine unbolted and ready to lift out. In the 90's, most yards couldn't even keep a running 350 on there lot.

Also, I noticed tons of old shop and farm equipment being unloaded. Its just a gold mine of cool stuff. If only I had more time to look through all the stuff! It's amazing how much stuff was dropped off while I was at the local yard in 1-2 hours.

However, I did notice cars/trucks arriving so quickly that the yard just had to crush them and stack them to save room. In my local yard, the older stuff was being set out for people to go over then off to the crusher.

I actually think its a great time to pick up parts. I have not found so many good parts in years.

 

I took in 15 radiators (cleaned)yesterday and got $412.00. $2.00 a pound here. They quoted me $220.00(a ton) for car bodies. Last week it was $240.00. It was over $300.00 a ton about a month ago. So it seems to be dropping. I have about 50 more radiators to strip so you know what i'm doing tomorrow.

Overheard at the resturant Saturday morning, a farmer I know was offered $420.00 a ton from a out of state scrapper for his farm equipment and $1.85 a pound for his radiators. Haven't had a chance to talk to farmer since with noone around to see what he's doing or if the guy is actually honest but he seemed to know him.

I know when I use to go to farm auctions to buy scrap metal with my friends, we would usually get outbid. We found out it was from in out of state group of guys that was buying it all up and they were getting paid triple the price then what we could get in Wisconsin for it. I don't know if that is still going on now or not that was a few years ago when the prices weren't so high.

 

well I spun the bottom end out of my truck, knew it was gonna happen whoever put the 400 in this 62 used the original 283 flywheel had a bit of a vibration so I cant haul any scrap to make the cash to build one of the 350's I have to put in the truck to make some money!! damnit! it would seem that word got out around here too as theres been more scrap haulers running through which all claim to not speak english when we (neighboors and I ) run them off! Prices are down here just a bit as they're not coming around as much.. funny how I was the only one around here hauling scrap then the prices go up and now every one's all over it.. last trip to the scrap yard a few wetbacks mouthed off to me and my youngest son, something about white guys stealing their money whatever, it was kind of hairy for a minute when they came at us, but very cool when the couple of black guys I BS with there all the time backed me up and ran them off ! I mean what the hell ! not to sound all raceist but most of the mexicans here that are all over the scrap are total newbies whereas theres quite a few of us that have been doing forever and will continue to do it after the price's are no longer good enough for the rest of them! I've been scraping since I was 16 even when I made 80 a year running the collision center!! just always did it because it was the right thing to do on a recycling point of view! today was trash day here and I had to watch my trash cans all morning due to people going through them! called the cops on a guy this morning that was dumping peoples recycling cans into the back of his truck!! thats flipp'n theft!!!
I think it's all gotten out of hand! and even though I need to scrap stuff to help ends meet I'm just gonna stock pile what little I do get and wait for things to settle down around here! it's bad enoughhere that for the first time I'm thinking of getting a gun ! sorry for the rant just been one of those days!

 

I was at a scrap yard today, it was a scene to behold. Real sad. There was a 50 Ford that was already crushed and a 48 Minneapolis-Moline tractor that they were breaking up for cast. I think the era of hot rodding and collecting as we know it is almost gone.

This may be an overstatement, but heck, soon one won't be able to build a "rat rod" because all the rusty crap will be gone!

 

Its going on here in az with all the illegal immagration problems. They steal cars, parts out of back yards and head to the recycle yard. Go by there on a Saturday and half the pick up/cars with trailers of steel scrap have Mexico plates on them.

A good friend of mine in tucson had his garage broken into and they took his donovan heads.. he is so bummed out..

All the farmers who have old iron in the yards are selling their old iron to the scrap yard..

Its sad.. parts of arizona are just like Mexico now.. they have turned they have forced their way into once nice nieghborhoods only to turn them into crime ridden war zones..

 

There are only a handful of true junk yards left here.. Boatwright still has some great finds, two 49 ford coupes, 62 Galaxie, 53 Desoto and some others left..

Sad, sad we will all be forced to but repro crap in 10 years or sooner..

 

Would someone start taking pictures of these places? I wish I could see it. The lines, the cars, the end of days.

 

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/car/685124977.html


just saw this on craigslist

 

I took off Friday to go the junkyard! I will certainly take some pics. You guys will be amazed....

Hell, the last time I was there was a jet engine laying on the ground.

I know the local yard got a model A in, going to try to buy it this Friday.

Two weeks ago I went to a scrap yard and was looking in the back of an old chevy truck and found a tool box concealed under cans/trash. I found a pretty good assortment of Craftsman tools.

I'm glad to be around a few "real" yards. Most of the yards don't even let you look around any longer.

 

Finally ditched a couple parts trucks (80 Suburban/80 Ford 3/4 ton) from the shop and a small bin of suspension parts (coils, spindles, shocks, etc.)... $2200 and they came and picked it all up! Getting ready for another load...

 

That just ain't right!

 

That stuff happens, I did that already with a 47 olds and now I might do the same with a running 59 ford sedan, nobody wants to buy them and I am moving and they can't follow so I have no choice but to send them to the shredder just like that guy did.

 

yeah it's gettin crazy here too. old tin was already kinda hard to come by in this part of fla.alot of good project cars are gonna end up being parts in a chineese skyscraper.pity ain't it?

 

Well, it's damn tough to buy a car from someone who's never home then sells to the first guy who comes along after you make an appointment to come see a car, too. If you want it to sell, tow it over to Long Branch to the show June 1st and put a sign on it. Someone will buy it.

I've had two or three guys want to look at a '58 Imperial I have but I tell them to call my buddy and make an appointment to go see it since it's at his place.. they don't call. In a couple weeks, it's going to scrap too. When I can get $250 for a shell with no motor, no trans and a bunch of body parts taken off, why keep it?

I saw a white over yellow '55 or '56 Buick 2dr hardtop, a little battered like it had been vandalized, go by on a rollback, no wheels. I think it went to Marcy, but it may have gone right in the crush pile, they too have been getting more cars than they can handle. I would have grabbed that, though, battered or not it looked fairly solid.

We scrapped a broken in half '49 Chevy the same day. Went to the other Utica yard with it, and got told "we have to crush everything" when I asked about a '49-ish Dodge Power Wagon that looked like it would run and go and had been set aside in one corner of the yard. I think the guy just didn't want to deal with it and you'd get a different story from the owner. They had a sad-face pedal car set aside on top of a pile in the back of the tin yard, too.

 

Just scraped my old 88 Suburban today and got $140 a ton. Pocketed about $320 bucks for a hours work. It's amazing what those machines can do to a 5000 vehicle in seconds.

 

i'm taking the mazda to the scrap soon to get the caddy running
and it's tough with work with steel being so high alot of customers
are not wanting to start new fabrication jobs

 

I have a small yard that I pass going to work every day.
Luckily he doesn't seem to crush anything too old.
I see the older ones out front, all the time, with "Do Not Crush" spray painted all over them.
There was a truck there today loaded with 80s and early 90s crushed cars.
At least some guys are holding onto the older stuff.
However, A LOT of old tin is getting crushed in my area.
Good part is that, while a lot of the old tin is drying up, there are a lot of old cars for sale due to the current economy.
Seen some really good deals on old trucks and thunderbirds lately.

 

i saw a 56 chevy 4 door body get hauled in today..

 

And I would love to have a 56 4dr.