Yesterday I spent the better part of the day cleaning out my shop. There’s a lot of junk that needed to be removed, a lot of material laying around from cutting up the flooring we put into my house, a lot of parts left over from the Imperial that weren’t really useful for anyone that need to be dealt with, and there’s certain pieces that I needed to uncover and figure out what the next step is. One of those items is the transmission that we pulled out of the Rollover Explorer a couple of years ago, a 4R70W automatic that would need to be converted to a rear-drive tailshaft setup in order to be even remotely usable in a project. Could it be used? Maybe. Is it financially worth it or is there a benefit to it? I’m having second thoughts, but that’s here nor there. Seeing that transmission took me back to the deal I managed to work on the Explorer.
For something I paid a couple of hundred bucks for ($400, if I remember right), I made a killing on the back end of the deal. The GT-40P headed 302 is slotted for the Great Pumpkin and it was a stout runner before the teardown, throwing no codes. The engine alone was worth the cost. The transmission was kept as a possible plan, the front suspension parts were wold to a gentleman who got a smoking deal on them, and a bunch of interior parts now reside in the “The Revival” Ford Super Duty. In money alone, I made about $350, not counting any money I might get from selling the transmission if I do, and that doesn’t count the freebies from the interior. It makes for a good day.
Salvaging isn’t glamorous but it’s financially got an edge. It’s got a risk, but sometimes it can have one hell of a reward. Got a good story? We’d love to hear it!
Looked tidy when I left?
That will buff out no problem.
It’s not that great of a story and I hadn’t thought about it in years, but . . . in the early 80’s I was renting an old farmstead on the far east side of Indy and attending Ivy Tech vocational college. A classmate had a line on a couple mid 70’s F-150s, one with a utility bed, that could be had for next to nothing just to get them outta where they were.
We dragged them out to my place, he got the utility bed and I spent the summer parting out what was left.
As I recall, I came out of it with about a $500 return on a $100 investment. Not bad.
There’s another story about life at that same place involving $50 of a total holding at the time of $85, an ancient David Bradley tractor and a veeery pissed off young wife. But that’s another story for another time.
couple of wrecking yard stories when i was a yungun at the transmission shop, one was a toe found in a smashed econoline, the other was a flap of skin floating in a puddle. when im at the yard i usually skip the bad ones.
The Other side
1973 Vega my girlfriend now wife had this is late 82
engine was worn out , and one of the rear ‘ control arms ‘ rotted out
at the uni-body welds ..we were driving home and you could change lanes
with with gas pedal …Sold the car as is for $125 as the nose was a rare
un-rusted one also sold the tires/wheel for $75 .
we should have had to pay to get rid of it
Back in the 90’s I made side money buying wrecked mid-80’s Monte Carlo SS’s and stripping them. Did pretty good and paid for my racing habit!
On a Monday I drove to work one day around 1990 and saw a Duster sitting behind a fence at an electrical business that only ever had abandoned Chevy vans and Forklifts sitting around before. On Friday it was still there so I stopped in.
It was a 1971 slant 6 car that was complete and actually looked pretty nice. The owner said it was his ex-girlfriend’s car and they had just split up because she ran the thing with no oil in it and he was so mad about her blowing the motor that the argument caused the breakup. Since he bought the car he took it back but just wanted rid of it because it reminded him of her. I asked him what he wanted and of course he said “what’s it worth to ya?”. I told him “not much” since I had already bought a few of them for under 500 before that were much nicer. He scratched his chin and said “how about 75 bucks?”. Ahhhh….sold!! I told him I would have it off his property by the end of the day.
I called a friend of mine who had a trailer and a 69 Dart race car who went in halfs with me on the deal. We decided we would sell it instead of fixing it up so for my investment of $37.50 I sold basically EVERY part on it. Hood, trunk lid, bumpers, near mint black interior, grille, fenders. Hell even the tranny and then sold the leftover shell to a guy who wanted it for a race car. All my friend wanted in return for his investment was the front disc brake setup(yep, ever had those) and the aftermarket wheels that were actually pretty nice and had all but brand new tires on them. I don’t remember what I cleared on that deal but it was well over 2 grand. I couldn’t buy that car for 7500 now. Ah the good old days.