Hot Rods Any embarrassing moments while looking for parts?

I was just telling this story to my adult children this morning over coffee.

Earlier this week, I decided to walk down the alley from my home to look at an old pickup box converted to a garbage trailer. Its four doors down from my home, so I sauntered down there. I can see this trailer when I drive by in my truck, but to see it on foot, I have to peek through the fence boards.

This is a decent box for a slick sixties fleet side truck. Its a long box, and the bottoms of the box sides have been cut off. As I surveyed that side, I move over a little bit so I can see the other side. Yup, it looks decent also. The front panel, which I really need looks to be in really nice shape. No matter how I try, I can't see what the floor is like, as there is a bunch of garbage bags in the trailer.

But I can see the inside of the tailgate, and holy shit, its a Mercury tailgate. Now I'm excited. Then I glance over the back yard, and I see a trampoline.

On top of the trampoline, I can see a pair of human feet. As I was kinda bent over, I stood up straight so I could see better. That is when I noticed there is an attractive young woman laying face down on the trampoline in a bikini.

It only took a split second for me to high tail it out of there, thinking all the while that I hope to hell there wasn't anyone around in their back yards watching a grey haired guy peeking through the fence at a young lady sunbathing.

I'm having fun retelling this story to all my friends, hoping nobody saw me do that.
And no, there sure as hell aren't any pics to prove that this happened, at least none that I know of.

 

Any normal person would think you have your priorities all wrong.

 

A few years ago I had heard about an old junk yard way back in the hills near where I live. I decided to try to find it and check it out one day. When I say back in the hills I am not kidding, there was grass growing between the dirt road getting to it. There was no doubt I had found it when I came to the end of the road, there was junk cars and trucks every where, looked like 40's throughs 60's stuff . The old guy that lived there came out of an old trailer to greet me. He was a crusty old dude, looked like an old hippie type. I told him how I heard about his place and asked if he sold any parts. He said sure. look around, but watch for snakes and critters. I walked around and found most of the cars were picked pretty clean but still interesting just being there. I opened the door on a 54 Olds and a big black snake looked me right in the eye. I jumped backwards and fell right on my ass in a sloppy mud hole. I was done for the day! I went back to my truck, got a beer out of the cooler to chill out. The old guy came over and had a beer with me, he looked at me and asked what scared the shit out of me. I tried to tell him I fell in mud but he was laughing so hard I just put a garbage bag on my seat and took off.

About a week later I was at the parts store where the guy had told me about the old junk yard. When I walked in the door the guy threw a rubber snake at me. He said "Sorry, I hope you didn't shit your pants AGAIN. Every one in the store must have already heard the story and thought it was funny as hell.

That was 15 or 20 years ago and I still get razzed when I go in that parts store, they call me Snake Eyes!!

 

I had gotten a '56 210 steering wheel for my '56 without the v8 center cap emblem. I was at a tri-five chevy parts seller picking up a few things when I mentioned I just wanted a driver quality one. He had a center cap which I didn't need but said I could have the emblem for $5 if I removed it myself. Busted one of the two studs held on by little clips removing it. So I spent $5 on something I probably won't use since I broke it.

 

In high school I worked in a shop that had a small yard of parts cars out back.
One day I walked out back to look for something I needed for my mustang and stumbled upon one of the guys from the shop, his girlfriend had brought him his lunch and stayed for a nooner behind the wrecked cars.


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A few years ago I was in a scrap yard removing the brake assembly from a car and lost track of time.
Come 6 PM and the gate was closed. I was locked in. Glad there weren't any dogs. I had to stack some tires up so I could climb up and throw my parts over the wall and leave. Returned the next day and paid for the parts. Owner never even said "Thanks".
Oh well. Here's the photo I took in the scrap yard at the time.

 

Reminds me of the old joke : They found a hole drilled in the fence surrounding a nudist colony, the police are looking into it.

 

BuckeyeBuicks, that reminds me of my first job as a mechanic in 1971 at the City of Muskogee central garage. We/I worked on police cars there. There was a older policeman that was deathly afraid of snakes. He was in the shop all time, because they gave him the oldest and junkiest car. We would tell him we thought we saw a snake crawl into his car while at the shop.... but we couldn’t find it. He would take the seats out and look all over that car before he would take it! Yeah I know we were jerks...we were young and dumb! There were other snake jokes played for a while until someone coiled a real, But dead snake , on a seat at eye level on a dump truck. When “Buttons” the driver opened the door, it scared him so much, he has a heart attack! He survived..... but that ended the snake jokes, for sure!





Bones

 

Not in a junkyard, but when I worked in a machine shop years ago, cut offs from longer bars of steel, worn drill bits, ect., would be put in a big dumpser near the sihipping dept. for recycle. I was freinds with all the people in shipping and when they heard the scrap being unloaded into the dumpster from the various departments, they'd call me and I'd go down and look through the stuff to see if there was anything I could use on my lathe or fabrications at home.

One day I was bent over the dumpster and happened to look uo and there was a guide leading a small group of customers around to showcase our business. Without missing a beat, the guide said, "This is our resident bag lady doing a little dumpster diving". I turned bright red and left quickly.

 

Looking through a privacy fence here in the South can result in a eye being dotted or worse, If I see something that intrigues me I will knock on the front door. HRP

 

^^^ This

Years ago I was a supervisor for several line crews in the Fresno area. I was out checking on them and when I arrived at one location there were 4 linemen up the pole!! What the hell? There were 3 girls in the back yard sunbathing topless to their delight--the girls didn't care at all.

 

Hell we got a lot of nice fresh veggies brought over by the neighbor 41 years ago when my wife would sunbathe out in the yard in her little green bikini that she fit in quite well at the time.

It wasn't in a wrecking yard but in the first shop I worked in in Texas in the 70's. I had to work up under the dash on this car that was a bit dirty and nasty anyhow as I had taken a broom and swept the dirt out of the floor before I got in it to get under the dash and I've got my head up under the dash and feel something wet on my chest and running down my shirt and then figured out that I had knocked over his spit cup for his chew that he had a bracket mounted on the dash for. Talk about stink.

 

!

 

I once took the starter off of a slant six Chrysler product at a auto wrecker once when I was much younger when I went up to the office to pay - one of the yard guys asks where I got the starter? I pointed to the valiant 40 ft away - he says “that’s my car”. Luckily I didn’t cut any wires - had to go put it back on! Sheesh - it was inside the fence.

 

Four doors down huh? I do know where you live.

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Yeah, sure. I'll bet that it was just because it was a Mercury. Getting caught like that is the same as when the woman you are talking to says, "Hey, up here".
And you think of some lame excuse like, I was just admiring the buttons.
Bob
Bob

 

"Decent Box" sounds like lady parts to me.

 

Get a tube of 3M Emblem Adhesive. I glued a chromed potmetal emblem on my tool box with it years ago, it's still as solid as the day I put it on. Once you glue something on with it, it will take a hammer and chisel to get it off! Dries clear, too.

 

"an attractive young woman in a bikini laying face down on a trampoline" I think ive seen this movie.....

 

I had to laught at that one. I used to frequent the salvage yards all the time when I was younger and with some pertty junky trucks. I one time saw a guy eyeballing my truck for parts. We had a good laugh over that. After that I kept a cardboard sign in my truck stating “ this is not a JUNK truck! ..... sad state of affairs when the trucks in the junk yard are better than what your driving! Lol





Bones

 

Had it happen to me years ago in a big yard north of the city.

After a long night of drinking on the Friday , wake up early Saturday 1hoyr drive with my buddy coffee and cigarettes the whole way.
Get right into the back corner of the yard furthest from anything...,, the stomach rumbles and grumbles.....
I scramble knowing I won’t make it back to the buildings with the washrooms...
I spy an old conversion van in the corner
So there I squat in the van orange shag interior , wet, damp mouldy stinky beyond whatever I was doing
And my buddy outside laughing his ass off playing guard so no one would walk-in in on me.
Did what I did...... lost a sock in the process and I think my buddy peed himself a bit
When I came out missing a sick tying up my boot

 

Reminds me of the time I took the defroster vents off the wrecking yard's homemade fork lift. They were facing the back now so they obviously didn't need them.

 

I bet I know right where you're talking about, not far from Monday, can't recall the gent's name though.

 

Pulling a ‘57 Ford station wagon 9” rear end I found in a junkyard. It was high school, I had a pizza delivery kids wage, there it was in the yard! I was sooo stoked, this would be PERFECT for my Duster!!

Get all the u-bolts, almost everything undone, but some little thing I couldn’t do with the tools I brought.

Get out of the yard, drive to the store, buy the tool and hustle back as fast as I possibly can.

The rearend was gone.

Most embarrassing and possibly my most angry moment looking for parts....

 

Back in the day a buddy of mine and myself heard of an old wrecking yard a couple of hours from our home. We drove up and found this old yard way out in the woods where a guy that looked about ninety years old and his creepy looking son lived in a trailer on the property. They let us in to pick after shooting the shit for a while and after I presented the old guy with a bottle of Canadian Club. It was getting near the end of the day and we were still way out in the yard filling boxes full of parts when we heard in the distance the sound of barking dogs and they were getting closer. We scrambled up a pile of old Kaisers just before five of the biggest junk yard dogs I had ever seen almost took a chunk out of our asses. The old guy forgot we were back there and let them loose. After a couple of hours and getting eaten alive by bugs the old guy with a shot gun in hand stumbled back drunk off the bottle I'd given him to where we were trapped and called the dogs off.

 

This wasn’t embarrassing, but it was an event that happened to me at a salvage yard many moons ago. While prowling around the yard not looking for anything in special, I spied a set of heads pushed into an area on an old box truck, that put me in mind someone was trying to hide them! I pulled them out and they were a set of DOVE 429/460 heads, with screw in studs. Since all heads were the same price at this salvage I picked them up.
After that , I always looked in obscure place while hanging out at salvage yards!





Bones

 

Should have gotten the sunbathers attention and try to explain how you were interested in her old box. Then run like hell.

 

That is hilarious

 

That's funny, right there!