Coolest thing you have ever found at a wrecking yard???

I found a Mopar T/A 340 in a motor pile. Paid $30.

 

Cut the roof off a 59 Buick Invicta Wagon for my buddies 27 sedan. $100
Got the steering wheel and column. 50 bux.
Tried to get 45 fin drums but couldn't get them off. Would have had to pay 75 for them. The junk yard pro tried to help and ended cutting his arm from his wrist to his elbow and had to be taken to the hospital. This was a tore up rusty pos but complete. I wanted the whole car but after the ambulance left I had the idea the owner wanted to crush the car and me to get the "F" outta there. That was a month ago. I have found a lot of other cool stuff too, this is the most recent.

 

56 desoto fireflite,me or the owner couldnt get the hood open to look over the hemi but he said it shud run. i asked him what he wanted for it and he said a hundred bucks !! I SAID SOLD and proceeded to pry the hood open with a crowbar. he was right, i ran and wud lay that bias ply rubber as long as you wanted. since then its been punched out and now sits in front of a 37 chevy truck cab on my rat

 

I don't know about cool, but odd, yes.

I found a BMW Isetta that someone had grafted in the transaxle and motor from a VW sticking way out the back. Painted brown like the turd that it was.

 

in a yard near Temple, Texas in the mid-1970s, I found a perfect 1952 F-1 pickup. Owner told me I could have it if I could get it out of there.....then told me about the copperheads living underneath it. He wasn't shitting, either, they were all OVER it.

 

Couple fire extinguishers, wear welding gear and grab it with a chain....

 

Last cool find that went home with me was in '94. The local yard called me at work and told me to get down there Saturday, they got in another '67 Catalina. Donor parts for my 2+2.

Popped the trunk open after taking out the glove box liner, the power steering pump. pulleys and brackets. Inside the trunk was a COMPLETE Kanter front end overhaul kit new in the box.

Best part, the car was in the yard because a lower ball joint separated and they abandoned it along side the road. Police impounded it, salvage yard got it, my good luck.

 

Years ago friend had closed a boneyard that his grandfather had opened back in the 30's. I loaded my 16ft trailer over 10times and came out w/about 50each 8" & 9" 3rd members, about 30 8.75 Mopar 3rd members, about 20each 8" & 9" readends, 50 pairs of M2 spindles & upper/lowwer control arms, about 30 new windshields for 49-54 GM-Ford-Mopar-Nash-Mercury cars, flywheels for just about any automatic on the road, finned al. brake drums, new 261-235 chevy heads, 6/8 cylinder flathead heads, wire wheels, wooden spoke wheels, and so much more.
Hell there was so much stuff that it filled my garage. Best part was I paid pennies on the dollar for the parts and everybody was happy with what they got, especially me.....joe

 

An old American Le France fire truck with the V 12 Pierce Arrow engine. Wish I still had it...would look good in an early rod.

 

A couple complete ECO air meters, one to use one to resell.

Before

After a trip to the blaster

 

Back in H.S. had an old junkyard out in the desert that only my buddy and I could get into because his pops fixed the crusher and the other yard trucks. We go in one afternoon after school because we were bored and found up in the brush outside the main yard a 1969 z-28 back shell that was really twisted from a frontend collision. I was surprised it had not been crushed but I guess it got lost lol. My buddy pulled gas tank cap which was actually still on the car wtf? Damn thing was stripped and they left the cap shiiii. I knew what it was but it was wasted and deserved to go back to mother earth.-Weeks

 

a finger, kilo of coke, guns well shit just about everything but we been at it since 1933

 

When I was a teen in Brownsville Tx. I found an emblem of a Ferrari (long gone) tried to look for the rest of the car but no luck!

 

my current 70 fm3 roadrunner that i pulled out of a yard in eastern washington.it was sittin next to a plumcrazy 70 charger.also found a hurst wheel there.

when i was 16 up in prescott az there was a wrecking yard.they had a 69 383 airgraber rr.
a 70-71 ss454 montecarlo.
a unmolested 67 390 mecury cyclone.

down past bisbee were 3 68 charger r/ts in a yard.



set of spyder motorwheels.

not a wrecking yard but back in the 80s there was a guy out in the avenues in phx[not blakes] that had a ton of mopars behind a chainlink fence including a green 69 hemi rr conv.

my buddy bought a 70-71 skylark from a yard and down where the trunk curves away was about 3k in jewerly.

 

I found numorous tools including a tool set with some Snap-On tools that someone stashed outside the yard so that they could come back after hours. Got many tachs out of C60 and such to sell to the C10 (67-72 Chevy) crowd. I wish I could get out to the yards more!

 

About 12 years ago I stumbled across a demo'd '32 Ford Pickup cab in a local yard...it was a pile, but the firewall was perfect, and only held in by 2 bolts @ the hood hinge. I finally broke the bolts and took it up front to the trailer. The owners son let me have it for $20.00!
I used to score bare 15x8 Corvette Rallye wheels at the steel mill for the "std wheel" price of $5.00 until the owner caught on and started charging me the "sport wheel" price of $8.00.
My best score so far was a '57-'64 Olds Mickey Thompson aluminum 3rd member w/4.30 gears. It was on the ground next to a '58 Mercury wagon my buddy was buying. We asked about it and were told it was for a 9" Ford and to just take it!

 

Hmm, probably the 34' Ford grille shell that looks like it was ran over by a semi about 50 years ago! But I think it's cool!!

 

It wasn't a wrecking yard but in the 70's my buddy and I found a complete '41 Buick in the town dump somewhere in Utah. I was only 17 and just passing through (looking for stuff just like this) so we had to leave the bulk of it but we got some nice parts for free that we swap meeted.

 

Best thing I can remember in a yard was when I was back in high school and wandered around this junkyard and there was a 30-31 Model A coupe body,complete with original mohair interior and original paint.Not a spot of rust or a dent in it.Just the body,nothing else.And I had no money to buy it.

 

i bought a 60 catalina 2 door sedan from a wrecking yard for 450 (i just needed the glass for my 59 biscayne) when i popped the lock on the trunk to get the window trim off i found a tri power intake and some old oil cans.


the motor in the car was complete so this must have come off something else ,im not a pontiac guy anyone know what it fits?

 

Holy crap...tore open the trunk of a 57 chevy 2dr belair in 1972 after the n.e. Flood in pennsylvania - found a nest of 200+ rattlesnakes...shit my pants - never do that again!

 

You have GOT to be shitting me! DAMN!

 

I'm sure the intake/carbs are worth some cash, pontiac for sure. Not a poncho guy but I think it's the same basic casting from 59-67 389 and 421 alike. Look for a date code on it somewhere. Wish I was closer I'd buy the '60 Cat less the glass. Kevin

 

That is an Oldsmobile J-2 intake. Probably quite a bit rarer than a Pontiac setup. Value? Who knows.

 

A few years back in a yard in Butler, PA I came across a '49 or so Hudson with a roll cage and numbers on the side that looked like it had been sitting there since '51! i wish I would have taken some pictures....that thing was classy and man would I like to know its history!

 

Seen this at Midnight Auto Wrecking(now pick a part) in '98. Looking @ me like a one eyed shelter animal waiting for its fate. I should've kept it movin'.. Elevan yrs later I finally have all that was missing. 2dr 58 Biscayne doesn't fit in up there with the Impalas popularity, so the supply of parts aren't exactly abundant. But it's as rare as the 59 El Camino I just bought for 1500 hundy! Now ain't that shumpthin'..
Oh Ya.. I paid 300 hundred for the 2dr, and got another 4dr parts car with it for another hundy!
They stopped driving it, only because the wiring harness burned up.
Ever seen the commercial for 58 chevrolets(you tube).. they jump it an also hit a ramp to put it on 2 wheels. Unbaweavable.. They even drive it on the beach

I've also bought a 56 Chevy 2dr wagon for $200.00 from a local "Yunk Yard" (odelay)
A little work later, an I ended up selling it for 16hundy

 

The coolest thing I ever found was a rally pack gauge cluster for 68/69 GTO with the tach and oil/temp/. That was 1982 and I still have the tach. I was with my dad once at Bill's in RI and he found a master cylinder for a Model J Dueseberg.

Didn't find this but I thought a photo of the round door Rolls was appropriate for the thread.

 

grew up in long beach, calif and alot of junk yards around anaheim blvd. and the river by where jesse james place is now, I was about 13-14 and sitting on the street was a 68-69 hemi road runner with no hood and the carbs gone and the motor full of water I knew what the car was and it broke my heart, wish I could have bought it.

 

Neat stuff in here. Sadly finding stuff like this is what keeps me going back to the junkyards. That Rolls is cool. It must have been Posies inspiration