Let me just share an alarming trend here. Junkyards are disappearing quickly as the prices for scrap metal continue to climb skyward. The shop that I work in is on land that up until a few months ago was a great junkyard. They sold the entire lot to a scrap outfit that just went in and crushed and hauled everything off without regard for anything. There were piles of aftermarket rims, a stack of transmissions and bellhousings, many of them from drag and circle track cars, classic and antique cars by the scores. Old trucks, vans, big rigs, they even cut a huge hydraulic crane into bits. Gone. They had a few guys out there with rakes and bucket loaders, and they cleaned every bit of trim, glass and metal out of the dirt, erasing the yard completely... Another friend is going right down the rows and crushing everything in sight, old and new, and another local yard reportedly crushed a pile of tri-five Chevies among other things. Some just missing money doo-dads and front clips. Metal is high, and people sitting on yards of steel are seeing green and unloading while the getting is good. Please take a minute and stop by the local yards and see if there is anything you can grab, it may be your last chance on some stuff that has been sitting for a while. Lots of good old cars are going straight to the shredder...you guys would be sick if you knew what all they just threw away around here. Not good for car folks at all. War is bad, m'kay?
I let an F-1 frame and several late 50s Ford 9" rearends, still under trucks, get away. Cut up, put in bin, sold for scrap. I hear prices for scrap iorn going down somewhat but lotsa stuff got away. Buddy has salvage yard, says anything over 5 yrs old costs him to have in yard, not profitable. But he is saving the old stuff anyway.
Same exact thing happening here in New Mexico...... a lot of good old car junk yards can't afford to keep EPA happy, and the local and state environmentalist at bay...... It's very sad to see good parts being crushed and hauled off for pennies on the pound. We joke about it amongst ourselves....but it's tempting to do a midnight sabatoge run on some of those mobile car crushing machines.......the enemy
History repeats itself. I was only a kid but didn't a similar trend run it's course in the 70's when they crushed everything in sight?
[ QUOTE ] do a midnight sabatoge run on some of those mobile car crushing machines.......the enemy [/ QUOTE ] yeah.... I'd be down for some mayhem. The sad part is that most of these parts are worth more than the crush value, but they can't get them to the market to gain anything for keeping them. A lot of these guys don't know about Ebay, or have time to deal with swaps or people, and a one lump sum is an easy way out.
yeah, we lost a bunch in the 70's and heaps more in the WWII piles. History does repeat itself, and it sucks sometimes.
Between the rust, and that self-rightous bitch, there's almost no vintage "unrestored" tin in WVa. I've heard all kinds of stories how they came and pulled cars out of people yards... didn't ask or anything, they'd just show up and if it wasn't registered, it was hauled off. Filthy commie bastards...
[ QUOTE ] didn't ask or anything, they'd just show up and if it wasn't registered, it was hauled off. F [/ QUOTE ] Some poor fool would have has an ass full of buckshot....
I know of some old junk yards here.The ol'guys running them sometimes would rather crush an old car then hafta deal with cheap ass wafflers trying to get lil parts off them. Its a shame stuffs getting crushed. Real estate has gone threw the roof around here too.So getting a chunk of land to store stuff on is a pipe dream for most guys.....Shiny
From what I hear from my scrapper friends, that the Chinese have finally built their infrastructure enough to process steel. They are big enough to shut down all other world operations, and are overpaying to do so. Also, these guys say the price is going down at the end of May...They are scrambling to get it all to the ports before then... Just think.. the USA buys tons of shit from china (no I wont give it a capital C..) and they use all the $$ to build their military..and industry..we are stupid I think, we are giving them the means to our own end... The wreckers dont care about the old cars... do what you can to save them. Once crushed, gone forever...
NUKE CHINA NOW!!!! Communist? HAHAHAHA. Capitalist Dictatorship... FAWWWWWK, I'm turning more and more into DrJ every damn day...
Have a friend who has a body shop. He is into mid 60's MoPars. He buys all the old 4 door, station wagon odd ball Mopar stuff he can......for cheap money. He cleaned up the other day.......a hull got him $100. He went thru his back lot and just cleaned up the real picked down stuff. He showed me the check...almost 9 grand It is sad.........but thats what makes them RARE..
This early american iron that's beeing turned into tomarrows cambel soup cans are apart of our history and heritage. The automobile single handedly saved our country. During the depression and in the comming years after it was Henry Fords leadership that kept this country afloat. Henry Ford set wages for his workers that no one had ever seen for the time. He instituted educational requirements of his workers, making sure that the work force could speak english and live productive lives. Without the automobile the country would have been in dire straights from the depression on. He was also a bit crazy but that is something for another discussion. Why is it that a tree pissed on by Davie Crokett can be a nation treasure and the antique automobile is just more scrap for pop cans? I understand the world we live in is a bit topsy turvy right now but there are things that can be done to preserve this part of America culture and history. Stop sending my tax money to NASA for Mars exploration and start sending it to people to resurect this part of our heritage..........uh.........oops I fell of my soap box..one moment please.........there thats better ok where was I....oh yes, Two blondes are walking down a back woods road when one of them stops and says "look at these rabbit tracks" the other begins to argue saying "no those are deer tracks" the two women were still argueing when the train hit them.
Yep, around here all the yards are either long gone, or gone to imports. Nothing much around here at all..there was one that I went to with dad a long time ago, full of old cars now gone. It's making it real tough for a kid like me to build a car on the cheap
Government can't get car scrapping programs passed, they say hey lets jack up the price of steel and watch them cut their own throats. Think about it....plmczy
Its every state nowadays guys- Our old parts will be gone and the stuff we have will skyrocket up in price as well.....kinda good but mostly bad.
Has it not already skyrocketed? I can't seem to find much for cheap anymore, just gotta keep lookin out for them deals.
I'm definitely not anticipating being able to spend my retirement working on the kind of cars we work on now, because they'll either be so rare or so expensive that it'll just be impossible. In 40 years, a 60-year-old car is going to be a 1984 Pontiac 6000 four-door with simulated velour upholstery and genuine planned obsolescence. Ugh...
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