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I’m restoring a 1989 gmc. I cant tell you how many times I’ve gone in just to find the truck and the part I ant is broken and you can tell it’s been torn off. It’s such a motherf’er A-hole moment.
If I had a junkyard I would never allow a pull your own. So many hard to fone valuable parts just bashed. I saw a guy cut a frame fenders hood fire support just to pull a Diesel engine out. Wrecked $1200 worth of front end sheet metal not to mention a few thousand worth of frame to get a engine and trans out.
Sorry folks, I've got no interest in treating a junkyard car with kid gloves. I'm no more destructive than the junkyard employees... which isn't saying a whole lot. My local pull-a-part has no problem with people bringing in sawzall's... so they're clearly not concerned about collateral damage either.
But hey, thanks for being conscientious junkyard citizens and leaving more intact parts for me to sawzall off
I am old now but as a lifetime hot rodder I went to Pick Your Part often. Here in the high population and car centric southern Calif. they recycle the cars fast, they're only in the yard about 3 weeks before they go to scrap.
There was a guy here who had a big truck and he would pull engines and trans that were good and take them to Mexico.
One thing I hated was occasionally you'd come across a really rare old car, in restorable condition and it didn't matter to them. Off to the crusher it went after a little while in the yard.
When I used to frequent these places, I followed what I thought were common sense rules... If you need to get a part out, you need the right tool and it must be directly accessible.
I would not pull an engine to get to an internal part - unless I asked first if it was OK.
I would not lift, turn, or otherwise reposition a car - that seemed to me to be a common sense rule.
Basically, if I couldn't get to the part and get it out with simple tools within an hour or so - it was a no-go.
I would never think about destroying any part to get to - or get out another part unless there was an issue with stripped bolts on the interfering part.. Small wiring harnesses being the exception. For example, if I wanted an engine and it had a lot of harnesses going here/there and tucked in hard(er) to reach places, I felt free to cut the harness. Yet at the same time, if I needed the harness going to a specific part, I wouldn't destroy the entire harness getting to two or three wires.
To me, the name of the game was always do as little damage as possible getting to the specific part you want.
Not only is is courteous, but you are working on and destroying someone else' property.
The less damage you do, the more parts can be salvaged.
Pull-a-part yards mainly deal with common-as-dirt vehicles. Mass-produced commuter appliances with no particular collector value or performance potential. And even among those vehicles, the more desirable/valuable parts are often removed before the vehicle is put on the lot. If parts don't sell within a few months depending on the yard... off to the scrapper they go.
These are the Wal-marts of junkyards. Quick, simple, mass-produced junk turning a quick profit. Nothing wrong with that... that's perfect for the kind of vehicle I drive.
But by and large, these are not valuable parts or vehicles... and they warrant no special consideration. I'm not going to destroy commonly sold parts that are worth something. But wiring harnesses and hoses? Out come the side-cutters. Can't get to a particular bolt? Yep, I'll cut a chunk outta the frame.
90% of the time, it's just going to the scrap yard anyway. Junkyard employees know this, and that's exactly how they treat these vehicles.
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I just studied it so I wouldn't break the one on my car.
