kishy's 1983 Town Car

[GM_Guy]

Agreed with all that, China can make good stuff if good stuff is what is spec'd. I have a made in China Spectra rad in my Nova, it is the best fitting rad I ever put in there. Everything in exactly the right place, never happened with the previously canadian made spectra rad.

[kishy]

I had some other tasks to take care of at the shop where the car is currently stored, and while there, more skidsteer hamfisted disassembly took place. We also decided to go get the small tracked Komatsu excavator (sidewalk-width) and found it especially functional for certain tasks, such as peeling open door skins.

I am generally not a destructive person, but this was tremendous fun. I had been considering entering the local derby with this until realizing the frame was beyond salvation, so this was good consolation for that.

Arrangements have been made for it to be hauled off tomorrow. With the current price of scrap, I'm not expecting over $100, but the guy coming to get it (a friend who works at a full serve auto wrecker) wants to buy the hood from me separately for certainly more than it's worth as scrap, so that's cool. The steel hoods are good for derby cars.

I don't recall if I mentioned it, but I opted not to take the trunklid. The bottom lip is not perfect, and anything less than perfect makes it not make sense to go through the trouble of prepping and painting to go on my car. I'll watch the yards and find a good one eventually.

I've also opted not to take the rear window. The likelihood of me deleting my vinyl top is low, I'm more likely to try to find replacement material and go that route. I did take the vent window glass, as those are easy to store and irritating to remove when you don't have the whole door peeled open.

[Mainemantom]

Aw you clawed it almost to death. Two steps to go. Crusher then shredder

[kishy]

And so it ends.

[87gtVIC]

How much for the scrap? Was it indeed a hundred?

[jaywish]

btw on China made stuff. Experience related to me by guys who have stuff made there and a guy who was sent there too often to maintain QC is if you don't have tight on site QC you get short changed.

Example. guy sends specs for 4-36 machined plated terminal thumb nuts. All looks good on delivery of 10K nuts except they are not quite taped all the way through. Each nut now needs to be run through by hand with a 4-32 tap to complete the last thread or so.

[kishy]

3200lbs = 1.6 US tons, $90 Canadian per US ton. Cash isn't in hand yet, but should be around $144 plus whatever we negotiate for the hood...which I'm asking $40 for. The recycler is buying the car, the tow driver (who works for the recycler) is buying hood, he is a friend/acquaintance and has given me stuff in the past.

Paid $200 for the car, and put $69 of diesel in friend's truck as thanks for hauling it. Cats are still on-hand to be scrapped separately at a later date. Between the cats and parts-pulling, I actually think I made money here.

[WagonMan]

You are lucky. In Connecticut if you take the cats, battery or aluminum wheels off, you have to pay them to pick the car up. If you bring it to them and scrap it, they pay next to nothing for it. WagonMan

[Mainemantom]

I remember when scrap was $35 a ton in the late 80s. If we gave the customer $50 for a running car, that was generous. The boss encouraged me to try to get the customer to take a "double credit voucher" for future parts purchase. If he saw the voucher before he quoted a price, he would just double the price of the part. I would not do that, It is dishonest. Best time to buy parts or a car from him would be on a Friday afternoon. He had to meet payroll. Paid half in cash, half on the books. Interesting to watch a dishonest person. Don't know what you will get next, good or bad. Count on bad.

[jaywish]

In 70's the price of scrap was so low people just abandoned vehicles on the street. The cities did not want to bother to pick them up as it cost too much to scrap them. It was first come first served for parts if you could beat the young vandals to the car.

[Mainemantom]

So that is why in the 70s, in NYC and in other cities junk cars were everywhere. Didn't think of scrap value. Thought that was part of the landscape then.

[Mainemantom]

3200lbs = 1.6 US tons, $90 Canadian per US ton. Cash isn't in hand yet, but should be around $144 plus whatever we negotiate for the hood...which I'm asking $40 for. The recycler is buying the car, the tow driver (who works for the recycler) is buying hood, he is a friend/acquaintance and has given me stuff in the past.

Paid $200 for the car, and put $69 of diesel in friend's truck as thanks for hauling it. Cats are still on-hand to be scrapped separately at a later date. Between the cats and parts-pulling, I actually think I made money here.

I would just give him the hood and say "Remember me next time" You will get more than $40 bucks back.

[kishy]

I would just give him the hood and say "Remember me next time" You will get more than $40 bucks back.

In retrospect, yeah, good will is worth more than a little cash. However, he gave me the cash without hesitation, and all appears to be fine.

He also wanted the frame-side engine mount brackets (for a derby car he's building), so he was pushing for me to scrap it with his work instead of another closer place.

[DerekTheGreat]

Jeez. About five or six years ago a friend and I got $460 for a 1985 F250. It was just a rusty regular cab long box. Had the "HO" 351 though, I would've kept it if it weren't for the holes in the floor board and the automatic.

[Kaysboat]

I enjoyed looking through your pictures, and for some reason find it amusing to look at pictures of other Canadian's garages/shops.

In among the projects and parts, and tools, there is almost always at least one Canadian Tire Mastercraft tool of some sort (often with a Tim Hortons cup around somewhere as well). Not to be creepy, but in your case I saw the box for the Mastercraft welder.

Although I personally have stopped buying Mastercraft tools as I have found their quality dramatically dropped about eight years ago, I still have a few holdouts (mostly handtools as the power stuff has all burned up and been replaced by Dewalt or Makita) in my garage and wood shop.

Anyway, just a random observation/thought that isn't really related to your parts car adventure.