Dallas Junkyard Runs

There was also this 1976 Lincoln Continental, the epitome of the large personal luxury coup? of the 1970s.








One of the things I'd been casually looking for was Ford Explorer 5.0 fuel injectors. These are direct swaps for my Bronco's fuel injector, only they have better atomization and better spray patterns which improves throttle response and fuel economy even if it doesn't significantly improve power. Unfortunately they're kind of a pain to remove from a fully assembled engine as you have to disassemble quite a lot to get to them so I'd been looking for a partially dismantled Exploder 5.0 that the injectors could be easily removed from. Well, we came across this Exploder that had its fuel rail hanging out over the driver's side of the truck, with the fuel injectors just hanging in free air ready for the picking.




By the time we headed out to check out the other local PNP yards, the temperature had risen from 40F to about 55F and the mist had turned to full on fog verging on "Can't See Shit, Captain" levels.


These were outside the next PNP yard we hit, Dallas South Central - a Beetle on Mexican plates and a carbaged Jetta. I think the Jetta should have been *inside* the yard. :p










There was an 08 F-150 that had recently been placed in the yard that should have had some interior parts that would work in our Broncos...


... but it seems someone beat us to it.






I wonder why this Mercedes C220 was in the yard.


No, wait, I don't.


Good place for this affront to the Jaguar name:


...


This appears to be a rickhamilton special.


Here's a 4th gen Civic originally from Minnesota - graphic evidence of how salt/rust up north eats cars.










Sadly, this destroyed Caprice wagon was new to the yard and had nothing useful for us.




More dead carbage, though of a mild nature:




I wonder what expensive system broke that could have sent this car to the boneyard. Couldn't possibly tell from this picture, right? :p


The last dead carbage seen in this yard before we moved on to the next one.


At this point, we relocated to the last PNP yard we could hit, Dallas South. There, we found an Isuzu Ascender that had indeed ass-ended someone.


We also found this very rare Ford Explorer Sport 'Turbo' edition. :rolleyes: No, it didn't actually *have* a turbo.


And one last panoramic picture of the Dallas South rebuilder's lot in the fading light, right at closing time.
 
This past week, I made a bit of a field trip (for this section) - a friend asked me to come along to check out a recently publicized yard - Wrench A Part Belton, Texas. On the way down, we observed the curious sight of a semi-tractor flat-towing a Ford Ranger equipped with a flatbed.








When we got to the yard, we found this sitting outside:


Apparently it was the prize in a drawing. We declined to enter.


Once we entered the surprisingly nice office area, we found that they had an unusual layout.


Turns out that they had a special premium section, separate from the rest of the yard and accessible only by going to a different exit from the office.


This premium section was for vehicles that were newer than the typical run seen in self-service type junkyards as well as specialty and antique vehicles.




What's left of an International Scout:


What's left of a 1967 Ford Ranchero.


They even had something for rick!


I *think* this is what's left of a 49-53 Buick Super convertible.


Another Scout:




A look back at the 'antique' row of the premium section.


Someone managed to roll over one of the IRS "reduced rollover" equipped Exploders:


This recent F-150 looks like it got into a nasty crash but the cab seems to have survived surprisingly intact:




They also had the usual rebuildable sales area - more on this later.


This Divorcemobile was in the premium section for some reason.


Couple of Jeeps:




They had this motorcycle off in one corner of the premium section, looked like people had been stripping it.


One the way out of the premium section back to the office en route to the regular area was a customer cart storage area and a hall of used tires.


More in a bit once I get the pictures uploaded.
 
Heading out to the 'regular' section of the yard, you walk through another hall of tires. They had this Fabtech lift for a GM(?) truck sitting there waiting for someone to grab it.





Yes, there was some carbage there.


A rollover Exploder that, yes, rolled over.




There was this 10th gen F-150 that someone had introduced to gunfire - appears to have been mostly shotgun fire.






Almost much it got through the tailgate but little got through the front side of the bed. About what you'd expect for soft unjacketed lead balls.




They also had some unusual stuff in the back of the 'regular' section, like a fire truck and ambulance.








Walking back to the front, we passed by the holding and processing area, which featured a New Beetle in the process of meeting its well deserved fate.




There was also Mount Dead Cars - which included a couple less common vehicles. These were to be sent to the crusher after spending enough time on the yard.


Spotted this well-stripped Land Rover Disco Series II on the way out:




Just a guess, but I suspect the bad head gasket/dropped cylinder liner got this one.


Looking from the front aisle all the way to the back.


The fence between the premium and regular yard.


The used/rebuilder car section - some decent, some awful.




Annnnnnd then someone's take on a monster truck. :p




Cars awaiting processing and placement on the yard.




There were goats in this junkyard.
 
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Two days later, we were back at the local junkyards again - the Pick N Pull chain had announced a surprise half-price sale weekend so off we went. This was a blitz through two local yards on the first day of the sale, so I don't have too many pictures; I was too busy looking for and pulling parts. In this case, I was looking for parts to finish Der Stig's axle swap (it was missing some brake bits0 and some underhood bits for thomas' Caddy among other things.

There was this unfortunate Caprice someone had painted purple.




Another Caprice that had been hit pretty hard (but had already had the driveline scavenged).




Carbaged Dodge Intrepid:


This Buick Roadmaster would have been a good candidate to donate another climate control head unit...


But the interior was so full of mold there's no way in hell I'd go in it.


Some Buick fires:




Flattopped Jeep XJ:


This was sitting outside the first yard; a customer's car, it was in really rather good shape and unusual to see a car of this tier and condition at the junkyards as a customer vehicle.


At the next location, we spotted this E39 wagon in pristine shape. Long way from home, looked great. Again, a customer car.








This 72 F-150 'Ranger' donated the parts from its left rear drum to help complete Der Stig's 9" swap.


 
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After that Saturday trip, I found myself taking a research trip to Fort Worth to look at an intact LT1 Cadillac Fleetwood in order to learn how best to replace a rodent-damaged wiring sub-harness on thomas' car. Turned out the car was located just a couple blocks from the Fort Worth Pick N Pull location so once I got done over there, I simply drove a couple short blocks to the (considerably smaller than the other DFW locations) PNP location and went in to have a look-see at the Fleetwood that I'd previously pulled parts from among other things. The half-price sale was still on and since the FtW PNP is in a better area, I figured thomas' Cadillac would be okay parked outside.

For those that wanted to see what the Americanized Transit looked like in the wild, here's one that was parked on the shoulder across the street from PNP.


Walk in the place and on this day you were greeted by a pile of bad to mediocre aftermarket head units.


Anyone need a remote?


A look at some of the highlights and lowlights of the rebuilder lot:
















More crushed recalled VW TDIs:


The Cadillac I'd raided previously had been quite a lot more stripped. Nobody seemed terribly interested in the dog-scented interior bits, though.







In fact, it seems someone heaved the dog-infused rear seat squab into the trunk.




The 1977 Cadillac Coup? Deville, another large personal luxury coup?, complete with Cadillac big block. Someone had retrofitted it with an alarm at some point, but it had clearly been left to rot somewhere for a while.










- - - Updated - - -

There was a 1992 Buick Roadmaster Wagon on the way back to the exit - or what was left of it.






In case anyone was interested, this is what the L05 TBI motor looked like in the B/D-Body cars:


May want to avoid rolling your SUV:


There were some Land Rover Discoveries:






There was also this little guy on the way out. The staff told me that the cat had decided to adopt the place; they did attempt to care for him and were providing food and water. Seemed friendly if a bit cautious.






 
These were outside the next PNP yard we hit, Dallas South Central - a Beetle on Mexican plates and a carbaged Jetta. I think the Jetta should have been *inside* the yard. :p[/url]


A single exhaust on a beetle means fuel injection and cat, right?
 
A single exhaust on a beetle means fuel injection and cat, right?

If stock, it means it's a 1991 or later Mexican Beetle with Digifant EFI and the weirdest looking cat/muffler combo you've ever seen. However, there have been dual exhaust USDM carbureted Beetles that the owners' converted to a single non-catted exhaust, including the Mexican Beetle's valance panel - so if modified all bets are off.
 
Pick N Pull had a five day half price sale to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday, so naturally I had to take advantage of it. A buddy of mine and I decided to attend two days of the sale. There are fewer pictures than normal due to my needing to pull bits instead of spending more time walking around. As usual, all pictures are clickable for higher resolution versions.

I hit Dallas West on Thursday and this was their 'rebuilider' or resale area:




More on those stacks of wheels later. As we walked the yard, we came across this Lincoln Town Car; someone had actually gotten one of those fender porthole kits and then cut the fenders to make the portholes semi-functional or at least passthrough instead of completely fake.




We found the Joker's 7th generation Ford F-350.


In case you were wondering what the 7th-9th generation Ford truck dually beds look like with the big fender flares removed:




A Land Rover Freelander in the best place for it. These sold poorly here, thankfully, and those that did get sold mostly died fast.


A rickhamilton special - a Saturn Vue:


Anyone need two door Pathfinder/VG30I parts?


Not a lot of the interior left intact though and it's a rather unfortunate red velour to start with.




Some dead Mitubishi Mighty Maxes:




Exhibit A for why roll bars in an older SUV are a really good idea.


An Isuzu P'up! Rare here to start with, rarer still to see a last gen one still around even in a junkyard. I was actually looking for a part out of this one for a friend's truck, but it was broken too.




A complete TommyLift type hydraulic lift on a 1988 F-150. I would have taken this if I still had the F-350.




Here were some of the vehicles awaiting space in the yard:


 
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On Monday, we went to hit the Fort Worth location. This was their resale/rebuilder area:














Yes, the Ranchero was demonstrably running and driving.

Somehow I don't think that having bolt-ons is necessarily going to help sell this Mustang.


Next to that was this rare Accord wagon.


There were even more heaps of crushed Dieselghazi VWs at this location.








This white van was kind of disturbing. Note writing on right rear window.


Came across this Fleetwood, a year older sibling to thomas' 94 Fleetwood Brougham.






It had a perfect blue driver's door panel that thomas' car needs. Unfortunately...






Yeah, the airbags had gone off, there were suspicious brown and black stains everywhere in the interior and it smelled of decaying blood. I'm not in need of any bloodborne pathogens, so I passed.

Having rather struck out for what we'd wanted at the Fort Worth yard, we went back to the Dallas West yard to pull some other parts we'd forgot Thursday. Some signs on the front - rules and such.






Remember those tires I mentioned earlier? This location must have been crushing Dieselghazi VWs as well, because there were tons of decent OE VW wheels with tires inside the fence, all specially priced.








When cars come in, they are searched by the employees. Sometimes they find aftermarket stereos, tools, or even new in box parts. All these things are placed in a 'thrift store' area in the office for people to pick over and buy.






Pretty much it for this time by; was too busy pulling radiator supports, power steering systems and tons of switchgear out of designated victim models to get much more. It's about to really get into summer in Texas which means it's going to be really unpleasant to go run around junkyards, so we got in what we could while we could.
 
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Did any of those mitsus have a non-melting steering wheel/door cards/buzzer/door locks? All of those are very much on the "Not available" list around here.
 
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Dallas Junkyard Runs

Haven't a clue, I didn't go examine them in sufficient detail to know.
 
Oh dear, any plans of going there in the future?

Even finding people who work vinyl here is a pain in the neck. This is very frustrating if you have, say, vinyl upholstery to repair. I've asked a lot of people about them and they have all given me as their best reply:

"Look, what we can do is cut all the trim that goes over the door card itself (door card is a rectangle of fibreboard) and add bits of cloth on what is left. You just have to paint the now-exposed top of the door."
For some reason, they look at me weird when I tell them that I don't want to roast my elbow/arm on bare metal.

The steering wheel is another source of annoyance on my truck, as it seems to be turning back into the petroleum goop that it was originally made of. It has gotten to the point that I cannot remove the worn and flaky cover that it has on right now because it would likely take out the top third of the wheel off with it. And most aftermarket wheels I've found are boy racerish at best and stupid at worst thanks to the mini trucking phenomenon.

The buzzer is just personal preference. It died ages ago and I've been looking for a replacement. That both the door locks and the ignition could do with replacement is rather a more pressing issue.
 
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Oh dear, any plans of going there in the future?

Of course, but I hadn't intended to go back in the immediate future.

Even finding people who work vinyl here is a pain in the neck. This is very frustrating if you have, say, vinyl upholstery to repair. I've asked a lot of people about them and they have all given me as their best reply:

"Look, what we can do is cut all the trim that goes over the door card itself (door card is a rectangle of fibreboard) and add bits of cloth on what is left. You just have to paint the now-exposed top of the door."
For some reason, they look at me weird when I tell them that I don't want to roast my elbow/arm on bare metal.

Your local craftspeople are weird. Restoring (not hacking up) a door card is a standard repair/rebuild offering around here. Not necessarily cheap, but it's a standard enough offering.

The steering wheel is another source of annoyance on my truck, as it seems to be turning back into the petroleum goop that it was originally made of. It has gotten to the point that I cannot remove the worn and flaky cover that it has on right now because it would likely take out the top third of the wheel off with it. And most aftermarket wheels I've found are boy racerish at best and stupid at worst thanks to the mini trucking phenomenon.

What, you don't want this?

Picture103.jpg


:p

Seriously, though - Texas is not where you normally can count on always finding good condition interior bits in the junkyard. The sun, heat and humidity are about as bad here as they are down there in Honduras. The next time I'm in a yard and see a Mitsu pickup I'll check but I don't expect to see anything usable. You would be better served looking for those parts from somewhere up north where the sun hasn't killed everything.

Here are some potential candidates for you. If they aren't the right color, that's what SEM Color Coat is for.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dodge-D50-M...ash=item33ce6516b9:g:i9UAAOSwTM5Y6qip&vxp=mtr

I have read that the pre-88.5 Montero used the same wheel and I've read that any Chrysler Conquest/Mitsu Starion steering wheel will swap on. Of course, all of those happen to be rare to find in junkyards here because most died long, long ago.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chrysler-Co...ash=item3d1a63cbb7:g:gzcAAOSwve5XNjBJ&vxp=mtr

The buzzer is just personal preference. It died ages ago and I've been looking for a replacement. That both the door locks and the ignition could do with replacement is rather a more pressing issue.

What's broken with your locks and ignition?

Also, I am not going to go looking for a used piezo buzzer as those things are the tool of the devil. :p
 
Your local craftspeople are weird. Restoring (not hacking up) a door card is a standard repair/rebuild offering around here. Not necessarily cheap, but it's a standard enough offering.

I'm in a country where computer stores do not recognize the existence of displayport and where the standard solution to a failing O2 sensor or thermostat is "Don't replace it, the car doesn't need it anyway". Calling them craftspeople is perhaps too generous a term. "Hack upholsterers" is perhaps more accurate. I found nobody actually willing to work making a new vinyl doorcard, let alone repair the one I had. Not a single soul. I've highlighted the likely reason why.

What, you don't want this?

Picture103.jpg


:p

See previous comment about not roasting my extremities :p


Here are some potential candidates for you. If they aren't the right color, that's what SEM Color Coat is for.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dodge-D50-M...ash=item33ce6516b9:g:i9UAAOSwTM5Y6qip&vxp=mtr

I have read that the pre-88.5 Montero used the same wheel and I've read that any Chrysler Conquest/Mitsu Starion steering wheel will swap on. Of course, all of those happen to be rare to find in junkyards here because most died long, long ago.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chrysler-Co...ash=item3d1a63cbb7:g:gzcAAOSwve5XNjBJ&vxp=mtr

Thank you!



What's broken with your locks and ignition?

Also, I am not going to go looking for a used piezo buzzer as those things are the tool of the devil. :p

They're worn smooth, flathead screwdriver ignition smooth. Living where I live, it's a matter of time until someone figures it out and I have a second car thrown into the river.

As for the buzzer, would a GM bonger fit?
 
I'm in a country where computer stores do not recognize the existence of displayport and where the standard solution to a failing O2 sensor or thermostat is "Don't replace it, the car doesn't need it anyway". Calling them craftspeople is perhaps too generous a term. "Hack upholsterers" is perhaps more accurate. I found nobody actually willing to work making a new vinyl doorcard, let alone repair the one I had. Not a single soul. I've highlighted the likely reason why.

And then people there wonder why the country/people never seem to advance, no?


They're worn smooth, flathead screwdriver ignition smooth. Living where I live, it's a matter of time until someone figures it out and I have a second car thrown into the river.

No offense but entirely aside from the "polluting perfectly good water" aspect, I happen to think that heaving the truck into the nearest body of water is a valid artistic criticism of the Mitsu Mighty Max. :p

FYI:
https://www.ebay.com/i/like/182456922865?chn=ps&dispItem=1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1987-95-MIT...5d5df4b&pid=100677&rk=1&rkt=4&sd=182456922865

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-97-94-M...5d5df4b&pid=100677&rk=3&rkt=4&sd=182456922865

What year is your truck, again? Apparently there's a few break points for the ignition switch part number.

Getting an ignition switch from a Pick N Pull truck isn't going to help you much - they don't keep the keys for the cars they scrap and they're usually not left in the vehicles.

As for the buzzer, would a GM bonger fit?

Haven't got a clue. Electrically it probably would, depending on what module you're using and your original wiring.
 
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And then people there wonder why the country/people never seem to advance, no?

Essentially, yes.


No offense but entirely aside from the "polluting perfectly good water" aspect, I happen to think that heaving the truck into the nearest body of water is a valid artistic criticism of the Mitsu Mighty Max. :p

I am not especially inclined about people throwing my shit into the drink. Besides, you will note that I've succeeded where Diamond Star failed. :p



Noted, may have them shipped to me next time I'm in the U.S. Mine is an '89. Shame about the ignition switches though
 
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