Junkyard Stories

[sciphi]

Let's hear some good stories about junkyarding for car parts!

I'm a fan of using good-condition used OEM parts from a yard when it's reasonable. Like the time I spent a few hours in South Carolina gravel stripping a dead Pontiac of 80% of its brake lines to put into the Buick. Getting those lines out around the engine was a trick. And the looks I got when I wheeled the wheelbarrow back in with 10 feet of brake line hanging off were priceless. Like, "why would you strip the whole car's brake lines?!? Oh, you're from up north..."

Or today going for wheels for winter tires. It seems everybody has the same idea this time of year, as there were no wheels to be seen in the front of the yard. Fortunately some GM cars in the back had 1 or 2 wheels in okay shape. 3 cars and two trips out later I had 4 wheels loaded into the Buick. No dice for the Fit. Oh well...

 

[Jim 5]

I went to the junkyard once a week for about 4 months to search for a 75-79 ford 150 front spindles/rotors/hubs to convert my early bronco front drum brakes to discs.

It took a while but I finally found a 79 bronco with the right parts and I felt like I'd hit the jackpot. I think the whole conversion cost me about $50 and the Early bronco restorers were charging hundreds for the conversion.

Also did a tilt-steering column conversion and an upgrade to the heavy duty saginaw power steering pump conversion. Thanks to a bunch of guys who have done it before me and wrote about it on the net, it became really affordable.

I used to love the junkyard for my project bronco, but now my kids get all my spare time!

 

[Jimmy9190]

There are a couple of good U-Pull-It yards not too far from my house. When I hit a deer a few years ago, the body shop replaced my radiator and fan shroud, which also holds the coolant overflow tank and the new one did not have the dipstick in it for checking the coolant level in the overflow tank. The guy at the junkyard was not really sure what I needed when I asked him if they had one. I went out and found one, brought it back, showed it to him and he just waved me off and said something like "you can have that for free", it was probably a 15 or 20 dollar part at Dodge. I went to the same yard and found a perfect condition sun visor, and a handful of metal trim panel retainer pins, they only charged me $25.00 for all of it. At the dealer, the visor alone was I think $85.00.

Another yard let me go out and get a V8 throttle body off a Dodge V8 motor to use on my V6 and while I was out there I found a Durango that had Dodge lug nuts all over the interior floorboards. I had my 2 front pockets full of lug nuts, maybe over 2 dozen of them, the yard guy charged me 5 bucks for all of them. At the dealer, just one new lug nut costs about $7.50. The silver covers come off the lug nuts after so many times an impact wrench is used on them. The same yard charged me $65.00 for the V8 throttle body, including the throttle position sensor, Manifold Absolute Pressure Sensor and the Idle Air Control motor still attached to it.

That same yard also sold me a rubber seal for my headlight/parking light assembly for 5 bucks, it would have easily cost 25 bucks at the dealer. I bought a used fan clutch from them that day too off a Dakota with the same V6 motor that I have. The donor truck was running when they got it, but was hit really hard in the driver's side. Someone got hurt pretty badly in it, I imagine. But the donor truck only had 80-ish,000 miles on it and the fan clutch is still running fine on my truck. I had some real problems with the new aftermarket fan clutch I had first tried. Autozone was great about giving me a complete refund though.

I had to replace the evap emissions leak detection pump on my truck not long ago to cure a CEL, and a new one costs $130.00 from Dodge. I didn't want to spend that much money and have it not fix the problem, so I went to the junk yard. It was not a U-Pull-It yard but they had what I needed. The new pump came from a "Cash For Clunkers" truck, they wanted $40.00 for it, but the pump had a small cut in the side of its housing, so I said no thanks. The guy said "well, for 20 bucks and a little JB Weld it would be a good part". 20 bucks, a little Permatex and 4 months later and it is a fine part. My CEL has not come back on since I put on that pump and replaced the emissions hoses under the hood.

I think junk yards are great and a super valuable member of the automotive community. They have saved me a lot of money over the years. The yards around here have a great bunch of guys working there and they make an honest living by taking a wreck that might not be worth anything to one person and making it invaluable to the next person. It's a great skill to be able to make something from nothing. I won't always use junk yard parts but I do get a lot of satisfaction when I can fix my truck and save a ton of money in the process.

I always thought it would be a good idea to take kids who are turning 16 and 17 years old and just starting to drive to the junk yard, walk them around some of the really bad wrecks at the yard and show them what can happen if they don't drive carefully and practice defensive driving, courtesy and patience. I will never forget a guy I knew who worked at a junk yard telling me how he sometimes had to take a hose and wash the blood and guts out of the interiors of the cars the police had towed there after a bad wreck. Sometimes that's a real sobering thought.

 

[TMoto]

The driver side inner fender liner on my Century was missing for some reason, so went to the local junkyard and picked one up for $8.

While I was there I lucked out and grabbed the cup holder for the rear seat that fits in the fold down arm rest. Was surprised it was $5 when that gigantic fenter liner with felt(?) insulation was only $8. Go figure...

Also, those flimsy cup holders are lousy but wadddya gonna do?

 

[Chris142]

Back in HS during summer vacation I used to go to Pic A Part and pull stuff for the local street racers. They would tell me what they were looking for and I'd go look while they were at work.

Some of the hot items were 429/460 Ford blocks and heads. 390 Fords, I scored a 428 one trip.....Made bank off of that! 351C engines.......Never found a 4bbl 351C though.

Chevy double hump heads. Extra cash if they had acessory bolt holes. 4 bolt main 350's and 400's.

Small block Dodge heads if they had a #915 in the end of the casting #. Any 383,400, 413 or 440 engines. 413 heads were a popular item(high compression).

455 Buicks, Olds and Pontiacs. Th400's. 12 bolt GM rear axles.

Any Holley carbs or Carter AFB's. GM HEI Distributers.

Vega torque converters. Clutch pedal assemblies and clutch parts from ANY American made stick shift car.

Now all thats at PIC A Part is imports or FWD junk.

 

[PF52]

A few years ago, I was looking for a new or somewhat-better rear decklid for my 1988 Fiero GT. My original decklid had really bad peeling clearcoat, and someone years earlier had drilled it for a bad aftermarket spoiler. Worse, the holes weren't anywhere near the stock spoiler hole locations, so sealing them against rain was proving to be tough. I was pleased one Friday evening when I got word that a yard near me had just gotten in a Fiero GT with a clean decklid (with NO spoiler), so I made plans to be there Saturday morning when they opened to grab the decklid.

Sure enough, I was there when they opened and soon located the car. The decklid was perfect, had really good paint and clearcoat and best of all it was the right color! Perfect. It took a bit of a balancing act to remove the decklid and get it down (this particular yard stacks the cars two high - smaller cars on top of larger ones, and the Fiero was perched on top of a 90-something Camry). At any rate I was soon headed home with my new purchase.

Upon arriving home, I quickly washed the new decklid and swapped it over onto my car. At this point I remembered I needed to swap over the lock mechanisms from my original lid to the new one. I soon ran into trouble when I realized the lock mechanisms were attached with little screws and the first three I tried on my old decklid quickly stripped. No matter, I thought; I'll just go back to the junkyard and grab the keys which I'd noticed were still in the ignition.

So right after lunch I was back at the junkyard looking for the Fiero. The trouble was, I couldn't find it. I went over and around every row in the yard and it was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't even spot the Camry it was perched upon but I probably walked past it without recognizing it. I widened my search into the far reaches of the yard and eventually cast an eye over the fence into the crushing area. Now at this yard, they don't use the "crusher" like everyone else has; these guys just flatten the cars with the bucket of a big front-end loader. There was the Fiero, right in the process of being crushed! Disregarding the "Employees Only" sign, I sprinted past the gate and into the crushing area, waving for the loaded operator to stop. I think he stopped more out of surprise than anything else. Reaching in through what had been the caved-in roof of the Fiero, I felt around for the keys. I could feel the steering column pressed tight against the seat cushion. Finally I found the keys, grabbed them, and made a quick wave back to the operator and I got out of there quick.

Back in my truck, my arm was covered with dirt and blood, but I had the keys. That car had come into the yard on a friday evening and was crushed at 1PM on Saturday but it gave me what I had been looking for for months. To this day, I still use that junkyard key in my rear decklid.

 

[exranger06]

I found a used AC compressor for my Explorer on eBay. The seller is a salvage business in South Dakota. Came out of a wrecked 01 Explorer with only about 86k miles. Cost $80 including shipping. But when it arrived, I discovered they sent me one from a 98 Explorer with 130k miles. Even worse, it was a remanufactured compressor.

I emailed the seller and he told me the one I had ordered was damaged, so they sent me the other one instead. I saw that he was selling another compressor, out of a 00 Ranger (Ford used the same compressor in A LOT of different vehicles lol!). This one had only 49k miles on it. I returned the reman'd one and he sent me the Ranger compressor at no additional cost. A brand new one would've cost twice as much.

I also bought a used interior cargo cover for my Ranger off eBay. I spent way too much on it, but it's a pretty rare part and the only one I could find in the right color, so I snatched it up before anyone else could.

 

[caravanmike]

i bought a 97 xj cherokee to flip. it had a bad transmission solenoid. new ones are $150 plus shipping. i went to a local u-pull-and-pay and took one out of a 98 for $10 (after i ohmed it out). i also got a good blower motor resistor for $2.50. they want $40 for it at the big box parts stores!

i could walk around a junk yard (and look) all day!!!! some thing peaceful about it! mike

 

[The_Jeff]

First junkyard trip, my mazda 323 was having issues with the door lock. Found a 626 with the door panel apart and could see the lock mechanism worked the same. Offered the employee I could take the ignition key over to a hardware store for a copy, so they could use it on the rest of the car. He said just take it. I got used to the two-key system then inherited a cadillac cimarron where it came standard.

Also grabbed a clock and trunk light switch, the wiring was already there. Japanese cars from the 80s have lots of plastic squares on the dash for options you didn't get so I filled one in.

Saturn S-series are great cars but subframes rust out. Am always on the prowl. My sister's getting married next month in Dallas and I might go yarding... putting the rust-free frames on a greyhound bus or something. This is not a pick & pull item for me, under a car, shakily supported on loose ground, no way! But "we pull the motor and crush the shell" places have the frames laying around.

My favorite yard crushed a lot of stuff for the metal a while back. But their tire pile is bar none. If I get "the old guy" they're $5, someone else $10. For something with a 32+ tread! Sometimes I'll test them by buying one tire, if they're $5 I then go in for more.

The only free on street parking in Portland is in bumville. Wife parks there and walks three blocks to work past all the soup kitchens. Some jerk knocked her rearview mirror off. Junkyard wanted $35 "and it's still on the car". Got a new off brand chinese one off ebay for $26 shipped. They can be a little full of themselves for collission parts.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I bought an Olds 403 engine out of a '79 98 for my '87 Buick Regal. I found the car in a local 'yarde and my friend and I took a can of starting fluid and a battery box up to the car and got the engine running (so I could hear it run). I paid $325 for the engine, and the 'yarde even pulled it out and delivered it to where I worked (Advance Auto at the time).

 

[sciphi]

The yard closest to me is full of Detroit cars. 25 or so rows of dead cars from the Big 3. The "imports" have barely 4 rows at the far end of the lot.

Other yards I've been at in other states have lots of "imports" and not a lot of Big 3 cars.

 

[VNTS]

I go to my local yard all the time. He gets the derelicts with tons of miles on em and scraps out 3500-4000 cars a year.

You get to see the actual durability since these are 3rd 4th hand cars. I get a lot of parts cheap but I am usually looking for Turbo Dodge parts from 2.2 2.5 engines and odd n ends for interior. I still see Lebarons, daytonas shadows and what not still coming in, amazed at the miles on em too, most with 200K plus but the numbers have dwindles the last few years.

Last year thanks to cash for clunkers a couple Durangos cam in, grabbed the Infinity amp, head unit, speakers, instrument cluster, overhead console, switches, door switches, altenator, TB, AC compressor, injectors for 15$

A WJ also cmae in and I raped that one too.

Yard is full of mid to late 90's stuff like Corollas, Neons,Civics, Camrys,Accords, Intrpeids, Exploerers, Cheorkees, Vans etc

 

[TMoto]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
The yard closest to me is full of Detroit cars. 25 or so rows of dead cars from the Big 3. The "imports" have barely 4 rows at the far end of the lot.

Clearly imports are superior and last longer, therefore never make it to the junkyard.

Quote:
Other yards I've been at in other states have lots of "imports" and not a lot of Big 3 cars.

Could be some yards specialize in imports? I know there are a few here in Denver that do. Otherwise I'd guess whatever's on the road in that local area is what ends up in the yards. More imports on the road percentage-wise, means more of 'em in the yards.

 

[NYSteve]

Originally Posted By: TMoto

Could be some yards specialize in imports? I know there are a few here in Denver that do. Otherwise I'd guess whatever's on the road in that local area is what ends up in the yards. More imports on the road percentage-wise, means more of 'em in the yards.


What yards are those? Haven't looked very much since I've been here.

 

[01rangerxl]

A few months back I slammed the Ranger into a metal road sign. It trashed the passenger side door and fender. The fender was only $37 or so from Certifit, but the door was going to be over $250. Instead, I decided to try my luck at Pull-A-Part.

I went with two of my friends. We had a bag of hand tools, and borrowed a wheelbarrow from the yard. There was one 1993+ Ranger on the lot, and it just happened to be black (like my truck). When we got to this truck, it was clear it was a prized item. Four other people...yes, four...were already at work taking everything of value from the truck. I claimed the door and we took it off the hinges. I got it for $45, complete with glass and everything.

I got the door home (tossed it in the bed of my mangled truck), and my friend helped me put it on. We bolted the door up, didn't really adjust anything, and just shut it. It latched perfectly the first time. We were shocked. The door was from 1994, the truck from 2002, and the door worked flawlessly without even adjusting anything. I spray painted over the Splash logo on the door and called it a day. That was by far my most successful junkyard trip.

 

[TMoto]

Originally Posted By: NYSteve
What yards are those? Haven't looked very much since I've been here.

I haven't been to these but saw them in the phone book when I was locating my parts. Sometimes I think phone books are being displaced by the internet like newspapers are, but for something like this I find a local phone book invaluable.

This is what's listed under Auto Wreckers/Used Parts
Central Foreign-Denver (Although their ad states domestic as well)
Hond Automotive-Lakewood (Honda)
Japa Import Auto Wrecking-Denver
Japan Automotive-Golden
Mile Hi Body Shop-Denver (Saab only, I've used them when I owned one. Good reputable shop for mech. + body)
Yota Yard-Denver (Toyota & Lexus)

Plus there are quite a few listed under Auto Parts Used & Rebuilt. A quick scan came up with 25, some make specific, some generic import. Looking for something specific?

 

[bigmike]

There are import only junkyards here as well. I had to go to one to pull some lights off of a toyota 2wd early-mid 90s truck. I did a front end swap on my '86 Mazda B2000 to a toyota bumper and phantom grill, but needed the signal lights and other wiring, etc. No regular junk yards had what I was looking for, then I found an import only. They had over a dozen toyotas sitting side by side. It was like a mecca.

 

[VNTS]

The one near me simply pays 220 a ton for scrappage. You can come in and pull whatever you want, 100 for a complete engine, 50 for a transmission and a few bucks here and there for trinkets.

My observation is most imports from early to mid 90's have cycled thru and dont see them anymore, now seeing a lot of the mid to late 90's imports. Domestics still see a whole lot from early 90's and some still coming in from late 80's, also getting late 90' stuff too. I guess the imports around here just rot out faster and lifespan is less and the domestics seem to do better in that area and hence people tend to fix them and keep them running longer, hence they continually trickle into the yard with some real old ones.

Of course they dont last long, maybe a few months if dumped in the winter when the owner suspends crushing but could be a couple weeks before they are gone during the summer when he crushes.

 

[Trav]

There is a old timer with a yard that is totally forgotten a few towns over,he closed it years ago but still lets folks he knows hunt around.
In the yard there are some huge 50's Chryslers with hemi engines (392 ci)lots of large body GM Ford and Chrysler transmissions and diff.
A 63 Corvair Conv and a few late 60's Corvairs even a Monza turbo engine under plastic.
An honest to God 50's and 60's paradise.

Before anyone PM's I'm not telling where

 

[onion]

Originally Posted By: Trav
There is a old timer with a yard that is totally forgotten a few towns over,he closed it years ago but still lets folks he knows hunt around.
In the yard there are some huge 50's Chryslers with hemi engines (392 ci)lots of large body GM Ford and Chrysler transmissions and diff.
A 63 Corvair Conv and a few late 60's Corvairs even a Monza turbo engine under plastic.
An honest to God 50's and 60's paradise.

Before anyone PM's I'm not telling where

I knew a junkyard like that way out in the sticks back in Tennessee. Lots of cars from the late 40's through the mid 60's. The place was long since closed down, but you could go prowl around if you knew the guy. That was nearly 20 years ago... not sure if it's even there anymore.