Scrapyards - some love them, some hate them.
A proper scrapyard is not one of those recycling places that strips the parts from the cars, has the parts on the shelf and charges you accordingly. A scrapyard is a place where the cars are there to be climbed over and looked at, where you can wonder around at your leisure with your tools. You see all sorts of older cars that you haven't seen for years on the road. You go there for a part, then you see something that you have needed for a while and forgot to put on your list, or something that you could use for another use.
When you visit one you where wellies and old jeans etc, you are prepared to get a bit oily or dirty but the satisfaction is there that you have saved yourself a load of money, understood the car a bit better, kept the scrapyard open, done a bit of recycling of a second hand part but still life in the component, kept your vehicle on the road. Whereas at dealer prices some may well struggle, I know I would when I was 18 and driving my VW Golf Mk2, instead of a Fiesta or Nova which may well have been cheaper to run on dealer prices than the VW, but then I was prepared to work on the car myself and change exhausts, clutch, discs,pads, cambelt etc.
There are those that think they are an eyesore, but then are they perhaps the ones who can afford to drop their car into the dealership at £70 per hour and comment on the lovely coffee they had which was supposedly free but come out of the labour rates.
There aren't loads of scrapyards to ruin the aesthetics of this country anyhow. Besides, it is those who have little understanding of a scrapyard who comment on the supposed eyesore.
Definetly a place for the better and to be used more often. My 11 year old stepson had never been to one before and absolutely loved it, all the different badges of the cars were there, he isn't even into cars a huge amount, but he was happy.
So when are you going?
Blimey reading this I sound like an old bloke, I'm only 30!
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Great are'nt they and if you check ash trays and under the seats you often find money towards paying for the part you require ;o)
It'll be a shame should red tape shuts them all down
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Great are'nt they and if you check ash trays and under the seats you often find money towards paying for the part you require ;o)
Hah! I thought I was the only one to be that fortunate.
Looking for a replacement glovebox lock for my old Cavalier, I found £4 in change stuck in the passenger's seat. They only charged me £2 for the bit. Paid for the petrol on the round trip.
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I too love proper scrapyards too, but i think the hse will soon make it ippossible to climb around as on pleases
I often think what tales some of the cars you see in various states of decay could tell
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There was recently an episode of "The Saint" on TV and part of it was filmed in an east London scrap yard it was wonderfull to see all the gone forever cars sitting there.
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As a young boy a scrap yard was a place of awe, wonder, excitment, mystery, and terror* Taught me a lot
* taught me mostly that scrap yard german shepards are all fearsome bark and bite.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Next time you're looking for a nice place to take the wife and kids for "a run out" can I recommend Pimhole on the edge of Bury near the M66.
It's about 15 scrappies in one place and even after the big clean up it still looks like the renegade's compound in one of the Mad Max films.
The cafe that one of the yards runs will be the last place on Earth to still serve Turkey Twizzlers.
I love it.
And you're right TVM, it's actually the law for all scrappies to have a German Shepherd that has never seen a brush.
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I've been tp Pimhole Fold and know exactly what you mean, but compared to my regular haunt they really know how to charge!
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* taught me mostly that scrap yard german shepards are all fearsome bark and bite. ------------------------------
>>>
They have mostly been closed down on the pretext of h&s but really for the benefit of the car industry and aftermarket. But TVM's mention of German shepherds reminds me of the two St Bernards the size of Shetland ponies that were trying to escape from their shed to eat me in the junkyard in Cheyenne, Wyoming where I had gone for a radiator...
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I have mentioned before the fierce gander that used to guard my favourite Sussex breaker's yard (now got the chop so the nearest one is an extremely nasty toerag outfit further away). The goose used to come up and look as if he was going to peck you. You had to tap him sharply on the beak with a spanner to make him go away. 'He don't like anybody much,' his owner said fondly when I complained.
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Best scrapyard ever: Barry Island, circa. 1978.
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Scrappies we've known & loved:-
Passey's in Newbury/Thatcham, loads of very old cars, some pre-war in the 80's
Pease Pottage just off the A23 in Crawley
Several near North Camp station Aldershot/Farnborough
They all need a big fierce German Shepard with a very heavy chain attaching it to an old Luton Body.
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I have a couple of friends that own a scrap yard, it's a great place to be when the sun's shining! I've been going there since before I owned a car (went with my brother).
I went yesterday and removed a full electric mirror for my Xantia, set of 4 speakers (these will go in the war office's 405), steering wheel airbag connector and various fuses, torx screws and clips. Cost £20!
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Xantia HDi.
Buy a Citroen and get to know the local GSF staff better...
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Theres nothing meaner than a junk yard dog.
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Youngest son has run his Mark3 Fiesta on scrapyard wheels and tyres for last 30k miles @£10 each.. No problems as we inspect each VERY carefully first. Plus replacement wheel trims at £1.00 as opposed to £15 new.. Lots of Mark3 Fiesta in scrappies at present.. and Xantias and Metros,,,
I beleive it's called recycling so the Government - in their usual bungling incompetence - are trying to make it as difficlut as possible for them to operate.....
I recall walking into a yard one day past a kennel .. no sign of dog. When I was past it , huge German shepherd rushed out (on a chain) and knocked me down.. literally. Fortunately i was dressed for occasion- overalls and wellies so its attempts to bite me were an abject failure. But some dogs I have seen were as rough as their masters!:-)
madf
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My dad always ran bangers when we were kids and we'd regularly go with him to scrapyards to look for bits. One of the local yards was run by an old friend of my dad's (we knew him as "Fred") and while the two of them would stand for hours and put the world to rights, my sister and me used it like a big adventure playground, accompanied by the scruffy, battered Alsatian ("she'll be alright if you don't touch her" - and she always was) and the half dozen feral cats that would sleep in random cars and hiss and growl menacingly if you got too close. I can't remember either of us ever getting so much as a graze from all this.
The highlight for me as an 8 year old boy was being allowed to start up a Minor Traveller that was waiting to go on the pile and rev the engine. This made my week!
Later on when I got my own banger, I continued to visit "Fred" for bits, as well as a couple of other local yards of the old school "pile em up" variety. As well as the bit I wanted, I would also leave with a pocketful of spare fuses, bulbs, bits of wiring loom and anything else that was easy to get at and "might come in handy one day"
Although my dad doesn't tend to use scrappies so much, he reckons "Fred" is still around and so is his yard. I would love to go back there one day.
Cheers
DP
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Just ask Mad, Bad Leroy Brown...
Thanks for the Frank Sinatra reminder, oldman!
20 years ago I found a replacement vertical headlamp for the Merc 280 coupe I had then, in the huge yard at Lydford-on-Fosse by the main London railway line in Somerset. The yard owner wanted 30 quid for it and when I tried to haggle he said 'Do you know how much these are new, Sir?' No wonder he drove a Silver Shadow.
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Scrappy nearby where I used to live in the West Midlands stacked their stock shells 4 high after taking engines out. To access the upper storey there was one wooden ladder with several missing rungs available. This always in use by somebody else so it was necessary to adopt Alpine techniques to scale the heights. For some S...Law reason the car you needed was alway on the top of the stack:-((
Elf und Safty Wots that??..
Phil I
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Very slightly off-subject, but please bear with me, kind mods..!
Some forty years ago, I was an A.T.C. cadet on annual camp. My mind has gone so I can't recall the name of the airfield we stayed at, (possibly Benson?) but it was adjacent to R.A.F. Maintainance Unit No. 1, and Group Captain 'Johnnie' Johnson, the WW2 Air Ace, was Station Commander.
We had a 'free' afternoon during the week, and were allowed to spend the time exploring the aircraft scrapyard alongside the 'field.
Aircraft from the thirties onwards were stacked three and four deep - Wellingtons, Spitfires, Tiger Moths, Miles Magisters, you name it..of course we indulged in some souvenir hunting, and also in some 'Walter Mitty' moments at the controls of the bombers and fighters. (And surprisingly, no injuries- nowadays of course 'ealthn'safety' would have nipped the whole affair in the bud..
When we formed up in a squad to march back to the field, the sergeant told us to place anything we'd liberated on the ground.
You wouldn't believe what appeared!- throttle quadrants, joysticks, squares of fabric with roundels and reg, numbers, etc. etc.
The reg. numbers and similar were allowed but the rest had to be left there.
Halcyon days!
P.
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I remember my first trip to a scrapyard at the age of 16, I was absolutely terrified! I'd just bought a clapped out mini and needed some screws and bulbs for it! The guys running the scrapyard were the scariest, hardest looking men I had ever experienced. Hands and faces black with oil, hurtling around the yard in a smashed up cortina with no doors or windows, I was absolutely shaking. I found an old mini, removed the screws and bulbs I needed, then realised I had to actually go and talk to the oily men. I walking into the rusty corrugated iron building, showed 'em the screws and bulbs, to be met with rounds of laughter!
Looking back now, I must have looked pretty stupid! Screws and bulbs!
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One of the more surreal episodes in my life came during my twenties when my best mate was the sort of manager for the notorious band The Macc Lads.
We had this odd game to while away the hours on trips to gigs of Skoda Spotting - 1 point for Skoda, Skoda pulling a caravan 10 points, loader full of Skodas outright win, you get the picture but we took it very seriously with printed membership cards.
For my mate's birthday we decided to club together and me and the band's drummer went to a scrappy in Ancoats and just asked the bloke "how much Skoda can we have for £20?"
I don't know who was more weirded out, the scrappy owner or the landlord of the pub that night when we gave my mate the carefully gift wrapped door off a maroon Estelle.
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