Resource Discussion How To Get The Most Out Of A Trip To The Junkyard.

MustangIIMatt

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Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Mar 7, 2002
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I originally wrote this for AFM, and it's written in a non-model specific way that slants heavily towards Ford. I know a lot of us II owners end up digging through junkyards looking for something, anything, that'll get or keep our cars on the road sometimes, so I thought I'd edit it a bit so it read a little better and share it here.

Step 1: BE READY!

Know the rules of the yard you’re going to. Some yards allow generators, power tools, small gas-powered compressors, sawzalls, the works. Some have serious bans on all of the above and more. Call ahead or visit their website ahead of time so you can know what they do and don’t allow in the yard.

Bring all the firepower you can. If your yard doesn’t allow the luxury of power tools (my local yard won’t allow anything more serious than cordless tools), then bring the best you can. Breaker bars, pry bars, cable cutters, penetrating oil, wire cutters, bolt cutters, nut splitters, hacksaws, etc. You never know what you’re going to need to cut through to get something off, you never know how rusty things are going to be, and you never know how something will be wedged into place.

Dress “right”. Shorts and flip-flops may be comfortable in the summer, but they’re not practical in an environment where heavy parts can fall off of cars onto your foot, and where insects, and small animals (mice, rats, even snakes!) might be sharing space with you. This can also be affected by the rules of the yard.

Bring water. Your yard may or may not have refreshments, and if it’s a hot and/or windy day, and you’re going to be out there awhile, you might get dehydrated, bring water. You may also need some (along with hand cleaner or dish soap) to wash your hands with later.

Bring cash. Credit cards are great, but not all yards take them, bring cash.

You can never have too many tools. I go to the junkyard with a 24”x12”x18” tool box that my grandpa used when he worked on fighter jets in the Air Force. Fully loaded it weighs over 100lbs when I go out to the yard because I want to make sure I have everything I need. There’s nothing worse than finding something you need, going to take it off, and not having the tool. Best case scenario you have to make an extra trip, worst case, that part’s gone when you get back.

Step 2: LOOK HIGH AND LOW, AND LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

There are several ways to look “high and low” for your parts. This can mean going years above and years below your particular car. It can also means looking at low end machinery (Pinto, Tempo, Tracer, even non-Fords) and high end (Mustang GT, Thunderbird, Mustang Cobra, Lincolns) for your parts or parts that will work. Another meaning is to look under cars and inside and even on top of for parts other people took off trying to get to what they really wanted. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to get a fox-body Mustang rack-and-pinion at my local yard, just walk to the general area where they are at and pick one up off the ground.

If you’re looking for something fairly generic, say a square-bore 4-barrel carburetor; then you owe it to yourself to open the hood of every rear-wheel drive car in the yard, regardless of make. Holley, Edelbrock, BG, Carter, and Predator (and others) all have the same bore and bolt pattern for their carburetors and they’ve been installed on everything over the years. I’ve found 4.6L 4V engines installed in Crown Vics and Cougars, I’ve found an Edelbrock intake and Holley carburetor on an otherwise stock 1980 LTD. I’ve pulled Flowmaster 40 series mufflers from a 1988 F350 that was otherwise stock (was actually looking for a piece of transmission linkage and noticed them, had them out with my hacksaw in 15 minutes and owned the pair for less than $20 that afternoon). Don’t rule out anything. Open the hoods on GM and Chrysler products too, and don’t completely rule out imports, I’ve found small block Chevys in 280Zs that had nice performance pieces on them, and even found performance parts I could use on Jaguars. You can save time by ruling out front-wheel-drive cars that are fuel injected if you’re sticking with carburetion, but if you’re working on something fuel injected, you’d be surprised at what you could find. With two cuts, a cold air intake from a mid-90s Civic fits a 5.0 Mustang, it bolts to a 2.3 Mustang with no work. Billet oil caps from Civics fit stock Mustang 5.0 valve covers (had ricers wondering what an APC billet oil cap was doing on my 5.0 for a long time).

Step 3: HAVE IMAGINATION

This is one of the harder aspects of junkyarding; seeing how you might be able to use what’s available in place of what you wanted/needed. If you’re handy with fabrication this gets easier. I’ve been able to make the throttle cable bracket for a ’78 Fairmont 2.3/auto fit where the one from a ’74 Mustang II 2.3/manual should go (they look NOTHING alike). I had to cut it, turn the upper half around and weld it back together, but it worked. I’ve also used shifter linkage from a 60s Ford pickup to fix broken linkage on a ’77 Mercury Capri, that took some fabrication as well. This works especially well if you’re wanting to convert an older car to serpentine drive without breaking the bank on an aftermarket kit. Take a picture of your engine compartment with you to the yard, and compare different serpentine drives from different cars with the same engine or engine family.

Step 4: KNOW WHAT WORKS

There are a few books out there that give interchange information for Ford parts, and those are invaluable. The internet is another useful guide; browse Mustang forums long enough and you’ll find out that EFI 460s use 24 lb. injectors, 3.8 Tauruses have fans that will cool a big block in a truck pulling a trailer, but fit nicely into a Mustang with varying degrees of work depending on year/model/mods; you’ll find out that Thunderbirds, Cougars, and Mark VIIs used the 5.0HO as well, that Explorers with the 5.0 have great heads and intakes, and much, much, more.

Step 5: DON’T GET DISCOURAGED!

Sometimes you might not find what you need on a particular trip. In that case, there are several options. Ebay, classifieds, other junkyards, and craigslist are great places to start. You could also just wait and go back another day, junkyards are constantly turning over inventory, crushing cars that have been sitting and not getting much pulled from them in favor of bringing in new stock, they might have it next time. If you’re going for a popular item, it make take several trips to get it, 5.0 Mustangs in particular get camped by performance enthusiasts that can do so (work nights, have days off in the week, etc.) and the second they go from the processing lot to the main yard they rip into them like vultures, pulling 8.8 rear ends, 5.0s, T5s, and anything of immediate value. If you see a car in the processing line to be put out that you want something off of, ask the yard personel if you can look at it and pull stuff from it, or if not, when they think it’ll hit the yard. (This let me get to a 1988 Thunderbird Turbocoupe first once, no, the turbo wasn’t there.)

Step 5: KNOW WHAT’S WHAT

I have an almost photographic memory, it’s both a blessing and a curse. It also drives my dad nuts when we go out to the junkyard together, as he’ll be wondering around mostly lost and I’ll say “Hey, check to see if it’s a 3.8 or a 4.6 in that mid 90s Thunderbird over there” and I’ll get a blank stare back, then the shoulder shrug, as he has no clue as to which of the flock of Thunderbirds over there came from the mid 90s. You don’t have to memorize it, but it would help to have some sort of guide put together ahead of time as to what is what.
 
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