Art & Inspiration Ever have a lucky discovery with junk?

I think you took the only picture of that expedition. We should really write it all out before we forget it all.

 

I was riding my Harley one day about thirty years ago, by an old salvage yard they were closing down. Out front they had 4 old Ford enclosed driveshaft rear ends. The sign said $10 apiece. So I stopped and bought one..... the one on the end.... with the bulges on either side of the ring gear.






Bones

 

Sounds like an LT-1 motor... I could be wrong....

 

Yes, twenty years ago when I was about 18 I had a guy give me a bunch of flathead stuff . I wasn't going to take it because I knew it was a bunch of stock heads, intakes, exhaust etc...

My dad talked me into going he said "If you don't take these parts, if there are ever any good parts to be had from him you will not be the one to get them."

As I was loading about half a ton of scrap iron in my truck, I saw the man hand my dad something.

My dad call me and held up a mint Stromberg #97.

 

1970 Camaro SS LT-1 300 HP 350.

 

Huh???....

 

Went to a relatively new wrecking yard in the county here, with my pal Les. He always sits in the passenger side of the various cars, and goes thru the glove box.
This one day there was a nice late model green Olds station wagon, Les thumbs thru the owners manual, four $100 bills fell into his hand. I said, "Wow." He said, "I always check. Some folks forget they had mad money just in case!"
Junk cars indeed...

 

""with the bulges on either side of the ring gear""

Columbia?

 

1969, 5 hours west of Sydney Australia, 1934 deluxe 6 wheel equipped coupe utility, $10.oo Thank you.

 

I feel that's me, too.

 

Nothing as exciting or valuable as some of you, but...
A few years back I was helping a friend of my wife’s move from a small house to an apartment complex. She said that she had a storage area in the basement, and that the previous tenant left some car parts in it. The landlord said he’d throw them in the dumpster for her,if she wanted him to. I told her I’d check them out first. I found 2 rust free, original paint, early 70’s Cutlass doors. Also some stainless wheel well trim, still in the GM packaging. I took all of it and loaded it into my truck. I ran the GM numbers and they trim was also early 70’s Cutlass. I had no use for this stuff myself, so I listed it for sale on an Olds forum. I made about $225, and made a few buyers really happy!

Another time, a neighbor moved in with her boyfriend. They ended up moving out of the area together, so the house just sat. She decided to sell it, and hired my wife and I to clean and fix the place up to get it ready to put on the market. She came with a moving truck and took everything she wanted. She told us anything that was left, we could keep or throw out.
Well, there was a late 70’s Yamaha, maybe a 750, and she had the title for it. Hole rusted in the gas tank. A little brazing rod, and a can of tank sealer later it was running. Got $800 for it.
I also found some T-tops for a mid 70’s Trans Am in the garage. I posted on a Pontiac forum asking how much they were worth. Seems like 400-450 was the going price. I said whoever can come pick them up can have them for $200 then. One of the members had a nephew a couple of towns over from me, he couldn’t get there fast enough with the money!

 

Back in the day, 60's I built my first car with a junkyard tri-carb 348 and that put me on the road to a lifetime in the car hobby. The junkyard was my speed shop, parts store, trannys, rear ends, all kinds of parts. Parts/cars came to me that I fixed/sold, it was a part time business and fun at the same time. I think one of the best deals I remember this am was a 65 Impala SS 327, 4 speed car I purchased in around 71 for $250, sight unseen, a coworker bought it new, blew up engine he thought and had it sitting at his parents house. I met him there and was surprised how nice the car was, paid him, we towed it home with a chain. I get to checking it out, spin motor, had oil pressure, drop pan, nothing blue or rattled, hmmmmm, pull heads, looks ok, hmmmm, start taking piston/rods out and find cracked damaged piston, pull all, just 1 with problem, bore/ crank was good, pulled front main, looked good, left main bearings, so 1 new piston, ball hone, ring set/rod bearing set/gaskets, had valves touched up, added 30/30 chevy cam/solids, a rebuilt 300/327 for a maybe $150/200 and my time. Polished/cleaned her up, drove for a very short time and sold it, thinking $1200+ or so as it was a very nice car. I did not have a driver's license at this time from all the trouble (caught street racing) I got myself into with my 64 Impala SS in 69/70, so was driving without, insurance to get license back was more per month than my house payment, so car had to go, I had bought a Plymouth Fury w318/auto/AC car, slower than slow to avoid any temptation, also had started racing open wheel for my need for speed, a great 21 year adventure. The HAMB, haven't thought about that car for years, today I would love to have the 64 or 65 for a hobby cruiser and all the Drive/Ambition/Endurance, never slept more than 4 hours/per until my later years, now up to 6/per with sometimes an afternoon nap. LOL

 

In the 90s' at the Nashville AACA swap meet at the end of the day a guy was throwing away a Holley 4-bbl that didn't sell. Not a universal type, definitely OEM style. It was OK, so I took it home. Could not get any numbers to match anything I could find at the time for an application. So about a year later I put it on Ebay and it sold for like $40. I asked the guy what it fit. He waited until he got it to answer me. This is the story more or less, it's been a while. This particular carb was used for like a month on some California Road Runner like '70 383. Very hard to find and he would have paid dearly for it. I was (and still am) happy with the $40 I got and that it got used again.

 

Was at an auction where they’d clean out estates. The auction company would clean out the house and sort in in to categories, Tuesday night was household and woman folk stuff, Saturday was tools and guy type stuff.

A guy paid $10 for a tackle box then found a roll of cash hidden in the bottom with the hooks a d fishing lures.

The next table up was boxes of car parts. I needed a spare tire for my trailer and there was a trailer rim on the table. All the bidders were distracted talking about the tackle box and no one was bidding. The auctioneer said give me a bid on the whole table, I raised my hand and he hammered it sold for $10!

I got my rim which fit the trailer.
I also got a new set of Buick skylark hub caps, a bunch of sumbeam alpine parts and a complete set of smiths gauges. Made a few hundred dollars on that table.


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At an estate sale i started looking around the garage /workshop and i see a transmission under the shelves pull it out and the guy watching the stuff chimes in that it is a truck tranny because of the 3 levers its a three speed . I know different . He goes to get me a price inside and i run the numbers on my phone (1966 M-20 ) he comes back an said $50.00 each ......Each???? Another is under the bench on the other side of room i paid for both loaded them up and left. The other was a (1971 M-20) . it was a good day

 

As a road construction super I was always looking in drive ways and garages for abandoned projects and parts. Ran across a ratty looking, rusty 65 fastback Mustang sitting and through diligence ended up taking it home for parts. Little did I know the car came with two top loader trans, Hi- Po cast iron headers, Edelbrock intake etc. Engine ran like crap when started due to broken rocker stud(easy fix) but was a completely rebuilt mid performance engine with receipts. In the basement were boxes of NOS body and interior parts. I paid for the car and parts by selling off excess parts. One trans turned to be a big spline, big block trans that brought in $1200 alone on E-Bay
That car ended up being a great father son project

 

My oldest son showed up for Thanksgiving one year and said he had something in the trunk i might want. Opens the trunk and there sits two flathead intakes. One an Edmunds 2x2 and the other and early Edlebrock 2x2. He said he had been cleaning up around his place and took a load to the scrap yard to sell . While waiting in line for it to open he got out and started talking to the guy in front of him. Looked in the back of the guys truck and spotted the intakes. Asked the guy what he wanted for them and his response was $20. Done deal. Gave my kid his twenty back plus some extra for gas. When i moved south, i gave both of them to a close friend .

 

About 15 years ago a friend of mines brother in had a storage building he rented here in N.Y. He had since move to Tennessee but was forced to clean out the building as it was being sold. My friend called me to help as I wasn’t working at the time . The brother-in-law picked what he wanted to keep and moved it to another storage place and said I could have whatever I wanted and just get rid of the rest he had to get back home . So I called a scrapper I knew to take the rest of the cars (80s crap) to scrap them and we would split the profits I kept a bunch of misc parts plus 2 350 blocks 1 had camel hump heads I kept the heads and gave the block to my cousin for his dirt track car . The other block turned out to be junk but I swapped that to a guy who had a running engine he almost scrapped who just wanted the wait. That engine now is in my 31 Ford roadster.


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