What's your favorite Junk Yard story??

Down in Floriduh, a friend and I were hitting the local junk yards near Lakeland, and there was this one kinda-sorta yard. It had a bunch of old junkers in it, several big trucks, and a mobile home that looked like an office. The whole thing was surounded on three sides by that dense Florida underbrush, and out front, there was a wide drive going through the brush. It was kinda like a compound.

We drive in, park, and get out of the truck and start to walk up to the mobile home...there's a small burn pit smoldering, a couple chickens walking around, and we're completely out of sight of the busy road out front, even though it's only 10 yards away. As we get to building, thinking this whole thing looks a little sketchy, we hear squealing, and out from the bush comes this small pig just a-haulin' ass.
A couple steps behind Porky is a black guy, dirty as hell, wearing tattered clothes, missing a good number of front teeth, yellow eyes...and a big damn wooden club in his right hand. Like ax handle big. About that time, Mama Deliverence comes out of the trailer, along with her pa, and asks what we need.

We asked, very quick-like, if it was a junk yard (since all the neighbors were), were told no, but "if you see anything you like, make an offer." (SHUDDER!)
We didn't, and got the hell out of there.

-Brad

 

while walkin with a yard guy lookin for 440 mopar stuff years ago i open a chrysler fordoor and the junk yard dog.(a nursing bitch )springs out and is attacking me the yard guy runs away i just grabbed her lower jaw and fell forward to the ground and yelled "no' she stopped right there and whimpered a little and went back to her pupps the yard guy said 'no one "had ever gotten near her ever before without some damage.. the owner who would let her out only for her food at night and with more food to get back in that fourdoor come morning... i felt lucky to have known that bitch only a small bite mark for proof

 

A rusted out '64 Valiant trunk also makes a good toilet. Just watch where the leaf spring is sticking up through.

That guy later gave me free a '54 Packard taillight bezel when I found it in one of the sheds there.


The yard we cleaned out last year, on one of the first trips, I forget what I paid for, I think the one Dodge convertible.. the '55 Dodge panel next to it had an assload of carburetors and things in it. Lo and behold here is a Stromberg 97. They told me I could have it when I asked up front. I sold it on eBay later for about 1/3 of what I bought the car for.

Between me and one other guy we found about 8 of them up there, almost all of them good rebuildable cores.

Later I bought a '57 Dodge 2dr wagon, cheap, mostly because I'd already bought a box of carbs and things that had been inside it for $100 (plus a '58 Buick 4bbl intake and carb we pulled off the car) that included another 97. (Also I figured a 2dr wagon was cool, and different, and even if it's a turkey I can store a lot of crap in it). I brought it home on a car trailer, they loaded it for me with the loader. I had the pedal on the floor going up a couple of the last hills with my half-ton 350 Suburban, not sure I'd make it back with the thing.

When I cleaned it out, I found out why. In addition to being around a 3500-lb car, there were about 20 starters, 20 generators, 5 clutches, 15 distributors, half a dozen water pumps, at least 20 fuel pumps, and a bunch of hubcaps in it. The average generator or starter weighs around 20 lbs, so I figure there was an easy 1000 lbs of crap in the car.

I later sold one of the other carbs that came in it for about 3/4 of the price I paid for the car.. I've sold two or three other things enough that I've actually turned a profit and still have the car.


The best find though was towards the end. We'd paid no attention to this upside down Buick along one of the main paths, I'd walked past this car probably 50 times since February and it was now October. I stop to tie my boot, which has come undone for the 5000th time, look over, and see the emblem on the side of this car... "Skylark" .... "no way" I say to myself, that is not what I think that's gotta be... a badly wrecked, rotted from the top down 1953 Buick Skylark. All it was missing was the engine and front frame clip. So I had them flip it over - it was all there, some pieces were cracked or rotted pretty bad, but if you had a donor car for the sheetmetal... it was most definitely worth the scrap price I paid for it, considering what I sold it for.

They pulled one '55-'56 Ford four-door out of the brush with the loader at the end, and the damn car was just about perfect. Nice interior, shiny black paint, red wheels, a little rot in the doglegs but you coulda patched it and spotted in the paint. Even though no one had touched it probably since 1968. It was just about ready for the cover of Ol' Skool Rods. And it left top mashed in with a '54 Plymouth - just as solid - on top of it.

By then we were just out of money and hadn't sold much yet. We got like 40 cars out of there as it was... it gets expensive when you have to pay scrap or twice scrap that many times.


One other story; way way back when I was like 19 and driving my '60 Pontiac I needed a generator... I had to have my mom take me to this yard in Auburn I had never been to. It's still a yard, but the old house and everything old pretty much is gone. Well at that time, the starters and generators and some other stuff were in a row of about 4 or 5 old late 40's pusher-type GM city busses. So I go in there, find one that looks like it will work, and there's some rustling in the back... here at 2:00 in the afternoon comes a raccoon climbing up onto the middle shelf and walking towards the front of the bus. Well, a coon out in the day is pretty odd.. so we got the hell out of there in a hurry. Yes, we, for whatever reason my mom had to come in there with me.. I think she was afraid once I got wandering in a junkyard I'd be gone for hours. But I did get the generator, I think it's the one still on the car now.

 

Tucson, AZ Summer 1957 There a RR crossing wreck where a big truck was hit by a train. without any deaths. The tractor was demolished and went to a junk yard on North Stone owned by Al Bosonos. That Sunday three of us sneaked into the yard intent on ripping Al off for the big blower on that huge deisel engine. We couldn't do it. It engine mounts were broken and the with blower was wedged againt the fram. No problem. We wedge a piece if steel over the fram and under part of the engine and Dan got out on the end of it and started jumping up and down. Our intent was to use leverage and lift the engine away from the frame just for a second so we could lodge something in that keep the blower clean. Conceptually great. Actually awful. The ebgine slipped and dab flew like a rock heading for the castle wall. He went over the truck and landed hard. Broke his arm It also probably did some brain damage too the way he crumpled.

 

years ago a yard down near south sound seed way was rarely open wen you coud get in they usually fowled you around but it was full of late fortes early fifties cads the owners hear family was a Vere early Cadillacs dealer their was several 49 cad hearse one was full of tonka toys trucks another full of pappier work dating back to the turn of the century a nuher full of 1970 magazines and the creepy one full of doll body and parts their was a green dart with a shot gun cut in tow 2in pieces they crushed out several years ago switched tow industrial salvage still have a wind up police mustang I pulled out of the hearse

 

Wow! That is the longest fragmented pieces of unpunctuated English I have ever tried to read. Can't we do better?

 

I was helping my friend and his father restore a 1954 Corvette. He had picked it up cheap as it needed body work and it had a V8. His father and I rebuilt the frame and suspenion while my friend did the body work. It came down to the engine. The intake and carbs (with air cleaners) was found through Hemmings. We needed an engine. Calling around we found a yard in Elmira that claimed to have a few 54 Chevy's. It was cold but there was no snow in the yard. We split up and my friend calls us over to a 54 in the back line. A 3" diameter tree is growing out of the engine compartment. I scrape off the ID number and read it off to my friends father. He aksed my if I had memorized the number. I said no, he then told me the number on the engine was ONE digit off of the one that was originally in the Corvette. We left the tree.

 

As a young driver I was at a junk yard office when I heard a guy ask for a dipstic fo a 49 Plimit.

 

a buddy took me to a salvage was going out of business.it opened at 8am.we got there an hour early and they let us walk around before the crowd got there...they where selling out !!!! i walked down a row and saw the rear of a 55 chysler new yorker 2dr hardtop.the front clip was missing ....but the hemi was there and complete..because the clip was missing they sold it to me for $150. i paid cash they gave me the title and i wrote my name on it with shoe polish....
i had people trying to buy it all afternoon...ended up parting it out and kept the hemi...