With all these threads about abandoned cars and cars rotting away, has anyone ever come across some car that was left to rot and found any parts that they needed or that were valuable and salvageable ??? Ever snagged a part off a car like that and made any money on it ??
Yes my dad and i took a dash cluster from an old 40 Nash Sedan. He had a 39 but it was just too pretty to leave there.
Whats the matter, don't you work for a living. You gotta rely on "snaggin" parts off other peoples cars? Cars are not abandoned. They are usually on someones land like a farmer or rancher and it would be nice if you asked them first if you could "snag" a part off it.
Had a friend tell me I could have all the "old crap" he had out on the back of his property. I still haven't finished harvesting there ... believe me, I'll tell you all about it, but the one successful salvage was a 51 Desoto grille... that brought some much needed scrill.
When I was a kid I asked about a REALLY rusty 65 Mustang coupe rotting in a yard. Owner said I could have the car. I had no place to put it, it was rusted all to hell and where it was it would be a real bear getting it out of the yard. All I took off of it was the factory Ford/Shelby Tri-power set up!! Looking back on it I realise that it was a K-code GT coupe but I had no idea back then. Sold the intake and carbs for $150 which was a world of cash for me in those days.
a neighbor of my brothers has his collection of old iron on some property he has out in the sticks. people "snag" parts off his "abandoned" cars from time to time. this is also where he goes shooting. prolly a good idea to ask the owner for permission before getting the parts you found on someone elses property
Yep! Client saw me wearing a Speed Shop Tee Shirt at work one day (I own a Land Surveying Business) and asked me "you into hotrods". Well to make a long story short, he had a basement full of NOS stuff from a Speed Shop he owned from 1959-1973, including some parts off his 34 Ford Roadster (that he won his class at the Indy Nationals in '61). I got the parts and have been selling tham at swap meets and here on the HAMB ever since.
I actually have a book and a calender put out by Hemmings called "Abandoned Cars".......Guess I'll have to write them and tell them there is no such thing.
The only thing I would consider "abandoned " would be on government land in the middle of the desert. Otherwise It belongs to someone. As my old (late) friend used to say, " That ain't junk, it's merchandise". It belongs to someone............
I found a few rip-rap cars in ditches in the early '80s that I got parts off of for my '55 Ford Fairlane Victoria. My best story centers around a rear end out of a '56 Fairlane Club Sedan that was nose-first on the side of a creek embankment. The heavy-duty rear in my Victoria (bolt-on rear cover) crapped out on the way home from my cousin's graduation in May '82 - shelled out the differential, needed something quick to get it back on the road. I went for a weekend drive on the back roads between Lincoln and Wahoo with a couple of friends and a case+ of beer - a nice, warm early June Sunday. First place I looked was where I knew there was a '55 Club Coupe called "Jesus Saves" in a creek (that's what was spray-painted on the side of it), but it had no rear end and was pretty well stripped out. After a few hours of criss-crossing the area we found a few '40s-'50s cars used for rip-rap a few yards off the beaten path. The '56's rear was up in the air, and it had an intact rear end with a front-mounted center chunk (but not a 9"). Out came the wrenches and hacksaw - after about a quarter of an hour we had it sitting in the trunk of my '63 T-bird along with whatever trim we could pop off of it (I still have the passenger side 2-door Fairlane chevron). Problem was there was a Nebraska State Trooper patrolling the area and we had open containers of adult beverages in the car - he crested a hill above where we were at just as we finished loading the rear axle in the trunk. We high-tailed it out of there and headed for home, throwing empty cans out the window when we got out of his line of sight. Didn't get pulled over, got the differential back to the shop, drained the water out of it, thew in some new gear lube oil, axle bearings and seals, wire-brushed and painted it, then swapped them out. I didn't know it at the time but the rear axle we nabbed had a real high ratio (2.6x or so) versus the 3.50:1 (?) gears I had in the original, meaning I had very little power out of the hole behind my 289/C4, and it took forever to get up to speed on the highway. I wish now I would have kept the original axle. I may still swap it out for a 9" from a '63 T-bird parts car if the width is comparable.
Hey Kerry.guess these boys have never heard of the desert.........hell Ive found stuff out in the middle of no where on goverment land or on the res. hell its been there 20-50 years..........
Exactally. I can show you a few out this way. There are some that went over the cliff on the way to Globe that have been there at least 40-50 years not to mention some that are just sitting in the middle of nowhere. I am not so sure that someone is going to park a car 50 miles from the nearest house and let it sit for 50 years.
i used to try and buy a few things from an older man 30 years ago and he was usually too high priced for me. well the older man is now 91 years old in a senior assisted living complex and the son has no interest in this stuff and i`ve been buying parts for peanuts. yesterday was my last trip over there for a while, i can hardly walk thru my garage. i didn`t buy anything earlier than `32 nor later than `37.
When I was a kid a guy saw me in my 55 and offered me a 55 4dr wagon that had been side swiped, the motor was gone and the car was pushed off in a ditch. I got the Belair dash trim and put in my 150. Got the Dash Clusters and some other knick knacks. I made a Chevy Bowtie in High School Wood Shop and put the Belair Script of the speaker cover, out of that car, on to it. I still have it all on my office wall. Was offered a 283 Chevy today!
Ha Ha now that made my fucking day.... Some people are calling you an asshat right now but im laughing my ass off.... Thanks i needed some entertainment... Dave
All those "parts cars" you see for sale without a title belong to somebody... Why don't they have a title? Somebody didn't want to pay to have them hauled away and somebody got stuck with them.
?????????? Hey i read it I got it.. im just commending you for trying to clear up the miss understanding ... And its still fucking funny Dave
Thanks Dave.........It was meant to be funny and not to piss anyone off. I just thought it was odd that someone says cars are not abandoned.
A few years ago I asked a guy about some junk cars setting in a sandy lot next to his house. He said they belonged to his dad and they were going to scrap everything. One of the cars was a '50 Buick 4 dr. He said I could have anything off of it I wanted. I went back later and got all the side trim, the head light and tail light bezels, the steering wheel and glove box door. I sold everything on Ebay.........I still have the glove box door. That kind of thing doesn't happen often.
I've gotten a few things from farmers that I hunt on their land. One gave me a 57 chevy front bumper (complete) for helping pile up some shingles on his house. Also scored a few bits and pieces for swap meets here and there too
Get caught taking something from Anywhere that doesn't belong to you and you are automically a theif caught stealing. In the eyes of any legal jurisdiction in the weastern world ALL Property has an owner and regardless of how many hands an object may pass through,if a person steps up and says.." thats mine.it was stolen from me in XXX and I demand it back ",they are entitled to do so. So,when you are exploring somewhere and you find something,be mindful of the fact you are stepping on land that belongs to someone or some organisation. Therefore anything on that land 'in all probability' is theirs too. Same goes for a car left in the street, local governments are bound to seek owners before removing them and advertise looking for owners. If owners do not respond,then and only then does the car become 'abandoned'. Same rules apply to you when you are caught stealing stuff .Because any authority figure will ask " ..did you ask permission from the landowner?,did they say yes,do you have proof of that permission " . Simple..right?
Back to the topic. I had a 63' Fury for sale and some really scruffy looking tweaker came up and asked me if I wanted an engine. I asked what he had ( thinking he had some old SL6 or Poly) .He said I have a 426 max wedge.... He invited me to his place,and at this ranch style house there were MOPAR engines by the dozen stacked around the porches. He pointed out an orange /red block under several LA engines and said there it is... The block was stamp 426HP ,he had the rest in a bedroom,imagine a carpet full of grease and engine oil... I asked what sort of money he wanted and he said...I need a running car,i'll swap that old toyota hilux you have there. I did the deal got a reciept and phoned a guy in the US and told him what I had, He offered me $3500 straight off. Sold!. The toyota was worth about $100 total.
I get so many vintage cars given to me that I just don,t have the time to get them all. I do however make it a point to remove as much as I can when I can. Ebay has been good to me and I never run out of swap meet parts to sell. My wife just shakes her head. Often I,ll throw some cash the owners way just as a thank you but most times they just like to see someone ambitious enough to actually take the time to remove whatever is savable. So many cars and so little time.....
Pretty easy to tell a truely abandoned car from an owned one. If it's on private property or next to some structure it belongs to someone. If it's on BLM land or Forest Service in the middle of the desert and shot fulla holes it's abandoned. What's so hard about that? Now, if you take it out of a National park and the ranger sees you they will accuse you of "stealing relics". If they don't see you, it's yours. Years ago they'd thank you for cleaning up the park but times are different now. That said, I go out "stealing relics" all the time (not really, it's all BLM land out west and it seems no one cares what you do out here as long as you close the gate). Last weekend it was a 57 Fury and I got some real nice chrome trim, wiper arms etc.
I've been getting that calander since they came out like 10 years ago or so. got the book as well. and for a couple of years they had abandoned trucks calender.. seems like this year has a few too many "late models" for me, but I like it anyways. there was a post a few weeks back about someone lifting an old 50's buick from his aunts-granpas or whoevers farm. I bet the guy who got that car didn't feel he was stealing, I'd guess the owner felt differently.
My favorite is the four door 50's models that grow out of the creek banks. No floor, no motor, no glass, no straight sheet metal. They will have like one straight piece of chrome on them. I have seen alot of their "caring owners" wad them up with dozers or push trees over them. Happened to about 3 or 4 of them near my house. I once found a fairly solid '54 or so International truck. Waded a creek to look at it, and was going to come back to find the owner another day. I had just got a '55 or so and needed a set of fenders. Came back and it looked like a metal turd laying in a pile of cut trees. A couple of years ago I found a Nash Metropolitan over a 50 foot embankement in a creek, the car had collapsed like a cardboard box from rust. The stainless window trim was laying there in a pile of rust. I took it.
i found my wife while in the woods, no title, no one around, so i just untied her and the rest is history! but i havent made a friggin dime off of her!!!
A guy I worked with just bought some property in the country along a river which had a few cars along the side but the bodies had rotted off the frames but in the small creek leading to the river was a 53 olds that had some window mouldings I could use. Jeff
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