Projects Cutting up parts cars thread..

Lenox had a contest in the 80s , you had to guess how many blades it took to cut up a rail car.....heck..those blades were better quality back then , I remember they would last.....

 

In the late 60's, I bought a used, but very nice '57 Coupe De Ville off a car lot, drove it around about a week, (to test if everything was up to par) then put the engine, trans, and rear in my '29 A tudor. Hauled the rest to the scrap yard.

 

What year suburban? I'm looking for a quarter panel for a 58...any leads?

 

Several fine examples met their fate on oval tracks. In the 50s & 60s, tri-fives were a popular choice for various stock classes, so we stripped them down for battle. We threw $$$$$ in good chrome into the dumpster. If I knew then what I know now...

 

I needed the rear bit of frame rails. maybe the pm didn't go through.

 

Pm sent

 

HA childs play! heres just a few i did in the last year!

 

Looks like the first one came apart on its own , boy is that car toast.....

 

Lets see what you hooligans have been up to...I did pull apart the 50 dodge..keeping the front clip , rear fenders , rear axle went to Dallas..the pumpkins were used for horse carousels that walks horses for exercise..who'd of thunk it...its not cut up yet..if anyone in Houston can us it .shell is actually very solid....cheap

 

Just finished cutting up the remains of a 63 Chev wagon. Wasn't a whole lot to get excited about. Going to try to sell the x frame now. If it sits around for too long I'll send it down the road as well.

 

did this 51 a few years back. disassembled it, saved anything that was not rusted to shit, parted it out and cut it up as I went. I was unemployed so this was my job.

 

Hello,

One of the hardest things I had to do was to go over to my friend, Atts Ono’s house on the Sunday after our explosion and fire at Lions in August, 1960. First, I had to tell him what my brother looked like, his condition, and prognosis at the hospital.

Then after contemplating what was to come next, he tried to make us all feel better by mentioning that there were a lot of parts on the Willys that did not get damaged. He stayed with the burning Willys until the fire went out and the Lions Dragstrip shut down (completely) for the night.

He said that since my brother would want us to salvage as much as possible, he would spend the next several days helping me take apart the Willys. He had always been there for us helping with our build, being a part of our prep/pit crew, and as a good friend. His help was invaluable.

So, we went over to Lions to get the Willys out of the fence. The strip was closed after 9:00 p.m. on Saturday and all day Sunday. This was because on Saturday, our 40 Willys was on fire, wedged into the spectator’s side fence and on Sunday, it was a burned out wreck still wedged into the fence. All of the races were postponed until another week.

I did not notice the surrounding events going on, but during this same time period, the Albertson Olds FED with Leonard Harris was setting their consecutive, So Cal, win streak record at Lions. It just so happened that on this day, we stopped that consecutive week’s, win streak due to having the track shut down. Record of this shut down has been misprinted in many publications. (It was a C/Gas coupe, not a C/Altered that stopped the streak.)

When we got there, we had a flat bed trailer, a bunch of tow straps, a gas torch, and tools. (too bad there was not a photograph of the finished scene. It would have looked odd: a black 58 Chevy Impala towing a flat bed trailer with a burned out Willys on top, driving back down the dragstrip toward the starting line...)

At first examination of the cabin, it was very disheartening. Besides being all black and burned out, there were metal pieces wedged into the dashboard at all angles. Also in the door jam on the passenger side were some large chunks sticking out of the metal and inside the frame of the door.

We were wondering where these large chunks came from that were wedged into the door jam and floor. There was this huge hole in the floor where the scattershield was supposed to be and the remnants of the clutch just hanging there at an odd angle. The scattershield was never found as it mysteriously disappeared.

The place where the Moon Tank and pump were bolted to the floor had only a couple of bolts still there holding up nothing. The seats were simple wire structures. The Moon foot pedal had only 1 bolt showing and was also gone. Aluminum melts fast, and those parts were gone.

The 4 spoke wheel was only metal with the black rubber surround grip missing. The simple floor shift lever on the LaSalle transmission was also bent at an odd angle and the knob missing. Fire does some nasty stuff.

So, we spent most of morning there taking apart the car from the fence and on to the trailer. The tow straps pulled the wrecked Willys out of the fence and rolled onto the flatbed trailer. We took the car back to Atts Ono’s house, side yard, where we would take everything apart.

My brother had told me that we should NOT take the wreck back to our own backyard by any means. He saw what this accident and burns did to my mother’s mental state. He told me that if she ever saw the remains, she would go totally berserk. So, for the next week, we were auto salvage, deconstruction mechanics in a friend’s backyard.

The whole front end was the first thing that came off while it was still on the flatbed trailer. We decided that it would be easier to dispose of the remains if it were still on the trailer. The hard part would be jacking it up and taking out the Chevy rear end and suspension.

The 671 SBC came out easily as did the transmission…There was nothing (other than the two mounts) to hold it in place as the clutch was missing. Cutting out the floor board made fast work here. Finally, the hydraulic jack and stands did the job of holding the body up while we took the rear suspension and rear axle unit out.

We thought the rear fenders, the trunk, as well as the doors were in good condition and could have been saved, but the bad vibe surrounding this whole project was evident. So, Atts Ono did not want those extra parts as replacements for his own Willys project that was in the process of being built. In the side yard, we covered all of the parts off of our burned Willys with a tarp and took the remains to a salvage yard near Lions for scrap.

Jnaki

It took almost 5 months before I could bring the remaining parts home, just before my brother came home from the hospital. There was a tremendous response to our Drag News Classified Ad in the January 1961 issue. We sold the complete motor to a guy that flew in from the Midwest and the rest of the racing parts went to local racers within another month. So, ends our Willys build and following escapades from 1960.

Was the Willys set up fast? We were within .50 sec off of the national record for C/Gas and about 8 mph off of the top speed after 6 runs with the 671 SBC. It was a never completed, “works in progress” for us that still lives on in our memories.

So, yes, we would have been very competitive in the C/Gas class while looking good chasing that elusive national record and trophy. Bright yellow paint, Olympic Auto Parts and Nakamura Brothers on the side with a possible Reath Automotive on the trunk lid was the future look that we discussed before the accident.



possible future

 

Not me, but a few years ago I bought a bunch of early V8 Ford parts from a much older guy. Told me about the time he cut up a 32 5W with an axe to make a doodle bug/power plant to run a saw mill. He did say he wished hadn't.

 

In 1969 I cut a 1957 Bel-air from side to side behind the front doors to use as a senior prank in high school.
We chained on either side of the fence between the parking lot and the building making it look like it rolled down and went through the fence.

 

When I get far enough along on it to do a thread on the build on my 48 there will be some parts trucks cut up in the process.

Over the years I cut up a lot of rigs as donor rigs and some of them would be quite valuable now. Cut up the body on a 65 Chevelle 2 door hardtop that came to me minus the title, nose, interior, engine and trans but was a nice rolling body shell and frame with an axe in my driveway in Texas in the 70's. Unbolted the doors and deck lid and loaded them on the truck and cut the roof off with the axe and cut it in half and loaded it. Next day unbolted the body and quartered it and loaded some of the pieces and hauled the rest the next day and then cut the frame up with the axe. Sold the rear end to a friend who was building a T bucket for 10 bucks and even delivered it as he didn't have a way to haul it. I learned the cut it up with an axe deal from a big red headed dude in Waco who was scrapping a Corvair behind the machine shop I went to with an axe and when I asked him why he used an axe instead of a torch he said "torches cost money to run".
Back in the 70's and 80's donor cars were just donor cars and I had a lot given to me or bought them for 25 to 50 bucks.