So, along comes July and August, the hottest months around here. While it's been a bit cooler than normal (if this is global warming/climate change, please send more), it's still warm enough to make you not want to work on your own vehicle outside, let alone go to a junkyard and be surrounded by piles of hot, reflective metal.
This also happens to be the a time of year when stuff is likely to break. So of course it's the time when you're very likely to have to go to the junkyard. Here's the most recent trips to date.
In the middle of July, Pick N Pull had a half-price sale. Since my junkyard partner and I already had a list of stuff we wanted, we decided to participate and hit some of the local PNPs. As always, all pictures are clickable for larger versions.
I don't think they want handguns on the premises at Pick N Pull Dallas South...
Their set price list - each part type is one price no matter what marque or model you pull it out of. They only differ between car/truck and not many vary that way in the first place.
Perusing the list of newly set and newly removed cars.
After walking through the office, this is what greets you - the rebuilder sales area, where you can still buy the car out of the yard. Sorry, no panoramic, just panning shots.
Spotted what was left of this old Thunderbird. Either they took really good care of the vinyl roof or it was replaced at some point.
Then this abomination upon car-kind, the Ford Aspire.
I have no idea what the sticker on the back quarter says, but the owner was still an idiot for putting it there.
70's Thunderbird, IIRC it was a 74:
Proof that FWD sucks - a FWD Miata aka the Mercury Capri:
In case anyone ever wondered what the hidden parts of a 9th generation Ford F-150 FlareSide bed look like when you cut off the external flare. No, I have no idea why someone neatly cut the bed side off then left the panel just laying there.
The naked firewall of a 9th gen Ford truck.
This is where it belongs.
An ancestor of thomas' Cadillac - an older D-Body Coupe de Ville. Was in great cosmetic shape, looked like someone had tried to take care of it. I initially couldn't figure out why it was there.
Then I looked under the hood and saw the engine.
Check the fender sides just to be sure...
Yup! This was the V8-6-4 engine, the very first intentionally variable displacement engine in the world. It was a massive failure and when certain things broke they simply could not be fixed. This one seems to have soldiered on until now, somehow.
A Geo Metro, one of the worst cars sold in America. Fortunately most are long dead now.
With its craptacular little 1.0L three cylinder engine.
This is what's inside the right rear fender covers/inner panels of a Suburban or Tahoe with the separate rear climate controls - a separate climate control core box with a fan, a heater core and an evaporator core.
We spent some time pulling some relatively desirable brackets off Ford E-Vans. These allow the fitment of more powerful Saginaw power steering pumps to 7th-9th gen Ford pickup trucks that came with Ford C2 pumps. For some reason Ford decided to only fit these to the vans.
The used pumps are usually in sad shape so we take them off the brackets and only retain the brackets, bolts and pulleys - all else you can easily and cheaply get from your favorite auto parts vendor.
This F-650 was parked outside another junkyard we stopped at. If you look carefully, you can see that the F-650 used the 7th generation (80-86) F-150 cab. This was the state of affairs until well into the 2000s when they finally stuck the SuperDuty cab on it.
Another Pick N Pull yard had this sitting behind the "not ready for the public" fence was the corpse of a heavily riced Mustang.
More stuff behind the fence.
Dodge pickups with V6s have this enormous weird fan shroud on them. We put it nose down, dropped a plank on top of it and used it as a tool stand.
Isn't this one of Rickhamilton's favorite colors?
This Super Duty was only out on the yard two days at this point. It's been pretty well stripped. It'll have been completely stripped and crushed about a week after I took the picture. SDs do not last long in PNP yards.
A late Ford Pinto. It apparently didn't run, didn't have a key and the engine was missing parts when it arrived. I can't imagine why...
This is what happens when you leave your bright red car in the Texas sun for years.
On the way out was this Buick Century T-Type, an insult to the T-Type badge:
There was this hunchback Cadillac Seville, a model Cadillac would probably prefer we all forget it made. This is basically a Chevy Nova with an ugly Caddy body on it.
Why yes, it is a problem. (See decklid text.)
Behold! A Cavalier wagon! Do not you wagon fans adore this vehicle? Do you not want to rescue it from durance vile in the junkyard to get your wagon fix? Yeah, me neither.
More to come, got two more visits' worth to upload.
