What's your favorite Junk Yard story??

I was at a yard looking for a comeplete standard shift set up for a MEL engine. The yard guy told me of a 58 Ford he had with a 430 in it that was stick shift. I went to look and sure enough, there it was. A 58 two door with a 430 with stick shift. I opened the door and was greeted by the biggest fucking black lab I had ever seen. He showed me his teeth and let me know that this car was his so fuck off. I went to the yard guy and told him. He went over to the car, looked, came back and said the dog had refused even him into the car because she had pups in there. and he wasn't arguing with him. He told me to come back in six weeks or so after the pups were older. I did, and got the engine and stick set up. The dog was gone.

 

I wanna tell one more junkyard story, then I'll quit.
By the way, Murphy's junkyard didn't have no dog, but there were lots o' cats. I saw lots o' guys climb the fence late at night to steal stuff.
Anyway, I had another friend named Jim, who liked to blow stuff up and start fires and shit. He and I were in the junkyard one day, and, I forget now how it happened, but we managed to start a fire, and because the ground was soaked in gas and oil, the fire quickly grew too big for us to put it out.
The workers ran us off and somehow put the fire out. I thought they were gonna skin me alive after that, but instead they said, "Your friend is no longer welcome here." I thought that was really cool, that they blamed my friend and not me. I loved those guys.

 

I have a lot of stories about one place I've been going, but maybe the best one, the guy tells us we bought enough cars now, we could pick up any loose stuff we wanted.

So I went down and pulled the body off a mangled Model A sedan with my bare hands. It's in about 10 pieces, but I'd say that counts as loose - got the cowl, 4 doors, the top and back of it, too.


It does amaze me though no one cares that a '35 Ford pickup is going to the crusher this week. Two or three guys wanted one when I found it in the spring -

 

I used to have a toolbox I took to the yards that had all the necessary tools for a fast removal of a part. Lots of good stuff in it but it was a bit heavy. One day when there was about a foot of snow on the ground I was walking from the back of a junkyard with a friend and we were taking turns carrying the box. I passed it to him for the first time and he took about 3 steps and busted his arse, throwing the box down the hill. When we got to the box it was basically empty. "Someone" had forgotten to put the bar in front of the drawers on the box. I just grabbed the box and kept walking. No sense fishing around in foot deep snow looking for the stuff

 

My favorite junkyard experience was at an old guy's yard in northern Colorado you could ask him for anything and he would tell you exactly where it was. I went in for some 40 spindles he told me was able to tell me exactly where a set was off a car and ready to go in the back of a wrecked pickup down in the yard. No matter what you needed this guy could tell you exactly where it was.

Oh I bet a lot of people would love too have it its just they can't afford it or its too far away or they have too many projects. I would love to have it but I fall under the first catagory. If there was any way for me to scrape up some money I'd be up there in a heartbeat.

Primo

 

There used to be an old guy here that had a good pile of cars around his place...Merle was his name. Merle was single (but always talked of a girlfriend), kinda messy and always had tobacco dripping from is mouth. House was a literal tar paper shack down a dirt road. I'd go up there and get stuff a fair bit and Merle and I got along well. Lots of funny memories from there.

Two stand out in my mind as classic "Merle"moments. Both were when I was in dental school. One time I pulled up and Merle and a friend of his were having a greatly involved discussion. Merle sees me and says, "Doc, straighten Bill out here. I just pulled a front tooth this morning and Bill says I shouldn't have done that and if I keep it up I won't have any teeth." Merle pulls back his bottom lip and exposes the fresh opening, along with several other missing teeth and tobacco mess (of course!) and continues, "I told him it weren't no big deal cuz another tooth will just grow in like when I used to pull my teeth when I was little." Much to his sadness, I had to inform Merle, that Bill was, indeed, correct and that he would not have a 3rd set of teeth grow in.

Another was equally amusing. Still in dental school, I was cutting a rear fender off one of the cars and cut a finger pretty nicely. No stranger to the ER for stitches to my fingers (bad for a dentist, I know), it is clear I will not finish the fender today and need to head into the ER once again. I stop to tell Merle I'll be back another day and he tells me he can fix it. Says he dropped an engine block on his thumb once and just bandaged it up with clean rags (I'd seen Merle's rags...no thanks already! ) and popsicle sticks and healed up just fine. "Works just like new!" he brags as he wiggles his thumb....with not a single joint able to bend! "I got some popsicle sticks right here and I'll fix it right up!" "That's ok Merle, I'll just run get my stitches and I'll be back later."

Ahhh, I miss good ol' Merle!

 

Last time I was at the junkyard, I found a pair of panties in the middle of one of the lanes.

They were G-string style, about big enough to fit a 2yr old kid, and the patch that covers up the honey hole said "JUICY" on it.

Eeeeeeeeewww.

Couldn't help but laugh though.

 

Rare. Officially, Playboy pink (or the even rarer "Dusk Rose" paint code "S") was never offered until 1967 but they were specially made for celebrities, playmates...etc..

A real playboy pink car (lord knows why you would try to fake one....) will have a blank where the paint code is. The exact number made isn't known.

That car would've been an extremely rare, high dollar car.

 

Last week some friends and I followed up on a junkyard here in Tx thats being "cleaned out" well as things go we were a day late and theguy went to town for a few day's and we couldn't get in. So we went to some of are old tried and true spots (this town has about six really good yards) to see what we could dig up . I was needing some 53 chevy fenders for a new project along with some misc stuff and wouldnt you know there was two straight 53 chevy fender laying behind a mountain of used baby diapers and trash in the back of the yard. Got a matching set and a 53 buick fender with the portholes and trim and a set of 55 buick portholes for $60 bucks. The old guy had drank himeself damn near blind and his eye's were completly white! Weirdest shit I ever saw, he built hemisef a "tree house " in a oak tree three people couldn't wrap there arms around and monitored the yard all day . By the way he still drives a one ton truck around town go figure!!!

 

Soooooo, whataya take for them? baddabing, baddaboom

When I was about 15 (1961) my Dad, who was a great junkyard goer, took me to one to show me the "moonshine car". Sure 'nuff, it was a 56 Chrysler New Yorker, hemi with 2/4's, giant tank in the trunk with truck springs, and had a "quickchange" tag holder so you could swap plates quick. Wonder what tales it could tell?

Later in life, I was in a yard stripping out a Caddy and found a complete set of golf clubs in the trunk. Put 'em over my shoulder and walked up to the office and asked if anybody had seen my ball, and could I play through.

Same yard got in a NICE 63 1/2 Galaxie 500, 390, 3 speed, complete with all the trim and glass. Yard had picked it up from some old guy 'cause it wouldn't run. Since I was at lunch, the yard owner said he would hold it for me until Saturday; went back and it was crushed flat as a pancake Apparently his yard jockey didn't get the message.

Same idiot set a pickup truck on top of a pristine little F-85 Cutlass 2 door hardtop. Perfect body (until then), complete interior and glass, aluminum V-8. sigh

 

In the early sixties my late grandfather out in Garden Grove, Ca. had a white 59 Lincoln town car with an ugly ass greenish brown interior. My dad used to tell me stories about it. About two years ago I was prowling around a yard not far from us here and stumbled across a complete whit 59 Linc. Town car....with 1963 California plates on it! Same ugly ass interior in it! I bought the plates and when I got home I started questioning dad and tellin him about finding this car, he told me that his dad let his go sometime in late 62 or early 63, but the only way to identify it for sure was to look for a big hole burned in the front seat where grandpa had dropped a lit cigar. I went back several months later and peeked inside again, there was a blanket layed out on the front seat drivers side like it could be covering up a hole, but the doors are locked on the thing so I may never know for sure. Its still sittin right there though.

My other grandfather had a 67 Coupe Deville that blew the engine after they drove it out here from Cali. It ended up at a local yard, several years ago I located it and it still had all his paperwork in it.

 

When I was around 15 I was poking around a local yard (that's long gone now) and someone tapped me on the back, I turned around expecting to see the yard owner or some other guy, but instead I was almost eye to eye with a huge great Dane. At first I almost shit my pants, he was the first Great Dane I'd ever seen, it turned out he didn't have a mean bone in his body and he and I got to be great friends. I now rescue abused Great Danes and have 3 in my house right now.
Oh, and another time my buddy and I found a whole box full of old 8mm porno movies, back in those days the kind of girls who did porno were UGLY, but not quite ugly enough to keep me and my friends from watching them. Wonder what I did with those?

 

Never ask a man who's been out in the yard why he has only one sock.

My story is funny, but in a gross, weird way. I called RT 14 about a quarter for my late model daily driver. They said it would be cut by 3 pm. So at 3, I pull up in the old man's stick shift Ford F-250 towing a snowmobile trailer. The quarter is loaded on, and I get the idea to look for some more parts. The front desk sends me a Mexican dude to help me, on accout of the car being stacked 2 cars high. Insurance regs, I guess. They slam them in tight around here so we had to hop over/on bumpers and shit. On one, I slip and slide my and along the trunk. As I walk toward the guy, his eyes get real big and he shouts "Senior!!!" and points at my left hand. Blood. BLOOD!?! WTF? I ripped a 2 inch gash in my hand on that car's key emblem. I felt nothing.
" Relax, it'll clot. It'll clot. Uh...its... not...clotting."
Shit. I stab my dirty ass right thump in the hole and walk up to the office. On the walk, I managed to drip and smear blood all over my arms.
"Got a bandaid?"
Every dude in the place goes white (even the black guys), an the couter man shouts "Oh Christ!" He lets me clean out the chunks in the back room, and puts a huge bandage on so my hand looks like a Q-tip. You know you're fucked up when you gross out junk yard employees. Now I get to strap down my shit and drive stick with one hand. Unloaded it, THEN went to the hospital. Funny, but it never hurt once.

 

Injuries sustained in junkyards could start a whole 'nother thread. I nearly cut a thumb completely off while loading a 62 Pontiac on a trailer with a come-a-long that snapped back on me. That was before we discovered that we could just go buy nice trailers with winches on them! The guy that owned the yard took me in and bandaged me up real good and fed me lunch. When I came back out my buddy that was with me was pissed off! He had loaded the car by himself!

 

Funny thing is I took it all in stride. I was laughing at the whole thing. I even freaked the nurses at the ER. When asked if I had a tetnus shot, I replied no. So when they went to give me one, I got to say a classic Simpsons line, " Oh! fiddle dee-dee. That will require a tetnus shot."

 

Myself and a buddy went to a local, mom-and-pop country junkyard to get some parts for his '64 Country Squire. While we were there, I saw a '66 Country Sedan in great shape. Having a '66 Country Sedan, I spot some stuff I could use. Lots of stuff.

So, I remove a bunch of parts from the engine and engine compartment and stuff from the interior. Some tailgate parts, a taillight lens and the perfect grille. We load everything up in my buddy's pickup and head up front to pay. The owner looks over what I got, gives me a price, I pay and leave very happy.

A few weeks later I have more money (I was 16, still in school, with a part-time job). The car is gone. I ask what happened to the '66 wagon?

Seems someone had stolen a bunch of parts off his son-in-law's car while he was on vacation. OOPS! He had it back home and was fixing it.

Now, why, in the name of God, would daddy-in-law park that car out in the yard? He was just going to keep it there while the guy was on vacation. Maybe he didn't like son-in-law?

Regardless, I had a much better running and looking wagon! I did feel bad though (for a little while).

 

About 3 years ago I went to local "U-PIK" yard and got the rear brake assembly off a 91 Lincoln. After about 3 hours I went up to the front gate to pay the bill and the place was locked up tight as a drum. I was locked inside the yard with nobody around. It was still daylight. Piled up some tires and scaled the fence with my parts. Came back the next day and the owner says' "Oh yeah, we close early on Sunday." Paid my $50 and was on my way. Thank goodness he didn't have any "junkyard dogs" to guard the place and the cops didn't seee me climbing over the fence with my parts.

 

There is no way that could happen to you here, they all rush you babbling spanish telling you that they are closing. Good thing I speak spanish or I would have been screwed..........

 

Last year was N of Denver walking a yard and noticed some sheep grazing about. When back in the office I mentioned them being healthy looking and the fellow got this look and said that the "purtiest one was his favorite, and to leave her alone".. then he chuckled of course...

 

My first actual real "job' away from home was at a junk yard.
It was owned by a real nice old man named "Peg" Bailey at New Boston Missouri......[never knew how he got that name]
we would always start work afterschool hours and on Saturdays junking out old cars.
We would typically take his old 8N Ford tractor and throw a chain over the roof and roll each car on its side,
Then we would torch the mounts and "roll" out the motor and trans on the garssy lot!
He was always red faced would always get kinda shaky at times and would only level out after takin a horn of the bottle of Old Crow in his overhaul bibs.
last cars we did we dragged the remains of to a nearby ditch to prevent washout from the heavy water runnoff....a slick 54 Olds hardtop black and red...a sharp 38 Plymouth sedan -black
and a red and white 59 Ford retractable convert!
Me and my buddy Curly would always leave school and race our latest 6 cyl Chevys thru the deadmans curves on the 15 mile trip there.
Peg would always ask us if we wanted to be paid in money or cars,we usually took a car as we liked havin three-four different cars a month!
once we took our"pay"[car] and left.....went about 3 miles up the road,rolled it [and burnt it]- walked back and got a second car and went on home just as if nothing were out of the ordinary!!

 

If you lived in the Cincinnati area in the 60's and 70's, and dealt with any of the local junkyards around here, you would have known of "BOOT HILL". Owned by a fellow named John Coyne and located on a hilly lot east of Cincinnati (in New Richmond). He was a charactor and the stories about him go on forever. He had to leave the salvage business some years ago when his address changed to a Federal Penn, but that's another story. His place was a bit of a drive for me so I tended to go to more local yards, but one time in 1970 I went there with my brother.

He had broken the drivers window of his 58 Ford and Dad insisted it be repaired. Since we were not strangers to salvage yards to keep our cars running, we checked around for the glass. Boot Hill had several 57-58 Fords. Their price structure was funny....everything had 95 Cents after the dollar price. In this case, the glass was going to cost my brother $24.95. Seemd awful expensive at the time, but we went for it. Drove out there and John told his yard jockey to take us and get the window. We were glad because that meant a ride in John's WW2 halftrack truck up the STEEP hillside to the car. The kind of ride where you keep your jaws tightly clenched or wide open, so you dont bite your tongue on the next bump. Same with the family "jewels"....kept them clenched too.

Once we arrived at the donor car, the "salvage technician" pulled the O/A cutting outfit out and dragged it over to the side of the old Ford. We watched patiently as he opened the door and cut the door hinges so the whole thing could fall to the ground. Then he ripped off the door panel and began cutting anything that was in the way of removing the glass. Finally, he pulled the side window out and handed it to my brother, and back into the halftrack for the return trip to the yard's office. Paid the $24.95 and off we went. The whole thing took about an hour but we didnt care since we were having more fun than a trip to the amusement park!

Looking back, the funny part we always remember to this day is this. He got the glass home and went to install it in his car. Without any experience doing this, he promptly broke the "new" window trying to fit it in place. My father took pity, knowing that my brother had really tried to get things fixed. Dad told my brother to take the car up to the local auto glass dealer where they replaced the broken glass with a new one. Price..... $24.95!!!!! Lesson learned.

Many, many stories about Boot Hill and John Coyne. Anyone around here over 50 would know at least one.

 

Your not talking about Uncle Roys are you? Him and his boys sit up in that tree drinking Budweiser and playing dominoes. Last time I was there though uncle Roys eye's were yellow from the jaundice cuased by all those years of cold beers.

 

Happened upon this thread and really enjoyed reading it.

My dad and visited a local yard just inside the detroit border where all the "donate your car to charity" cars end up. We weren't prepared so we took my nieces wagon in case we found anything. I pulled a set of seats out of a 68 montego and loaded them on the wagon which promptly bent the front axle, we pulled the seats (front and back benches) a good 1/4 mile out of the yard like that. People were quite amused at the sight and someone shouted " you love Ferndale huh?" and winked and laughed. It was then that I noticed the "I love Ferndale"sticker my niece had stuck on the back of it.

Metro Detroiters will know that Ferndale is a notoiusly gay community here. Good thing my dad and I look alike....

 

There was a legendary yard in Industry TX west of Houston about 75 miles. The only yard I've ever been in where a good 1/4 of the late 40s-early 50s had Lynx Eye "Blue Dot" taillamp lenses. The old Czech guy, Mr. Krenek, who owned the place might sell you something today or maybe not, come back tomorrow.
A friend and I went there one day and he bought a 48 Buick convertible for $350. It sat in a corner of the fence surrounded by stacks of cars. Mr. K said he'd get it out and would let us know when to come get it. Well weeks turned into months. We offered to take down the old fence, pull out the car and replace the fence with new posts when we got done. "Don't need a new fence" says he. Well, he died and the yard was bought and hauled away or crushed everything except a handful of old trucks which still dot the property here and there.
The Buick? How many times had it been sold? Where did it go?

Footnote: found out several years later my wife's Grandma was the guy's 1st cousin. Had an IN and didn't know it.

Other legendary yards in TX were located in Corsicana, Centerville, and Schulenburg. The Schulenburg yards are still in business to my knowledge. The others were bought and stripped and/or crushed out. Then there is the yard outside Austin with the Airflows sitting on the hill, still there as far as I know.

 

I spent too much time at junkyards when I was in high school... should have been studying or chasing girls or something....

The local yard is also considered a farm... It's complete with diseased looking cows and ponies and minature horses among the piles of junk. The workers are known as "gofers" as many of them I know or knew. Just about every car guy I know locally has worked there at one time.

They had some wierd/rare stuff, like a early '50s Packard convertable complete with factory wire wheels and wide white snow tires... with everything being so rusted I don't think you could save a bolt on it... '64 Cadilliac on a 3/4 ton Ford truck chassis 4wd! with 4 speed and running boards, AMC Pacer hot pink also on 4X4 chassis...1970s motorhome packed to the brim with old '60-70s vintage toys, lots of unidentifiable 70s Japanese cars...

I used to ride with the gofers in a old Subaru to get parts and bashed my head of the torch tank.... They used to basically hit or run over whatver was in the way (this yard was a MESS)...

Best finds werea '65 Thunderbird I basically stripped for a few hundred bucks... I got a bunch of f600 gauge clusters for $10 ea which go for good money for the '67-72 F series truck guys..

My other favorite yard had or had a Henry J, '56 Caddy, '59 Imperial, a chopped '40s PLymouth with a Nova clip.. lots of washed up projects.. I havent been there in a few years but I cool place to walk around... Where there is a barber chair in the middle of the shop and cool projects in the garage.

 

You would never believe it happened but the following story is completey true...There were these two female college interns that stopped for directions at my junkyard...oops sorry, I was thinking about another forum....

 

Back in the late 90's, my daily driver had the stereo stolen as well as the dash bezel. I stopped at a junkyard by my house and as my brother and I were walking to the car they told me would have my bezel, I could see it was all smashed up. I brother said not to find any body parts in the carnage and when I walked up to the car and opened the door, there was a guy laying in it pulling out some parts. Scared the crap out of me.

 

My first car was a pristine 1946 Chev. Fleetline sedan, that was in1959. It was the old family car and at that time you did not want to be seen in cars like that. I eventually blew a rod and towed it to a friends wrecking yard in Gardena, Ca. from near Hollywood and gave it to him. The second car I had was a little better it was a 1950 fast back Chev. The yard guy gave me everything I needed to convert it to 3 speed stick. Blew the rod in it eventually and guess where it went. At that time you could tow a car with a chain but things have changed. I stepped up to a '57 Chev. with a V8 after that and never blew a rod again. Yards then had lots of old stuff then.

 

A local U-Pull-It yard/scrap proccessor has an overpass that runs through part of it for an expressway....I was there with a friend one day helping him drop off a load of scrap metal after he cleaned up his garage....it was lightly raining....we were just about to leave...but he forgot to close the tailgate....just as he got back in the truck to leave again we heard a loud screaching noise on the overpass above us,then a couple loud crashes...and almost instantly an 18-wheeler fell off of the overpass about 100ft in front of us and landed on the exit road exactly where we would have been if my buddy didn`t remember to close his tailgate!!!! We ran over to the truck,and my buddy pulled the driver out of the burning wreckage.

 

Around 1975 or 76 I found a 1970 Grabber blue Boss 429 in Mr G's junkyard on Elliot Reeder Road, in Fort Worth. No motor, but the body was pretty straight. I had a 66 coupe, so wasn't nuthin I needed.

I later got a job on Elliot Reeder stripping engines bare for $3.50 an engine. One skinny 16 year kid with a tackle box full of chinese sockets working with a whole bunch of Bikers. Those guys took care of me, so after about 8 hours of working on one engine I gifted the remaining engine to the guy that lent me a big hammer....ending my career in the junkyard bidness.

Jeff