Junkyarding and old car hunting.... all in a day's work.... Part One

A few friends of mine from the online forum, RamCharger Central and I were meeting up at some of the junkyards located on the south side of Chicago to rescue parts we need for our ever aging Dodge trucks.

We all met up at the first yard and made our way in. The first car we come across walking in is a mid-70's Ford Mustang fastback. It had Mach 1 stickers on it, but looked like a regular one; someone stuck the stickers on there later. It was a complete wreck, but for as cheap as it was. It would make a good project for someone.

As we made our way into the yard, we made a bee lined it for the old Dodge trucks, not expecting much else.

When we arrived, the pickings were slim and most if not all were in worse shape then our vehicles. They did have a few odds and ends that we needed, so we worked them over and continued on.

We made our way over to the domestic regular section of the yard. 99% of the time there is no rear wheel drive vehicles around. We were very lucky today.

The first car we come across is a 1977ish Dodge Monaco Cop Car. Oh boy was this thing just oozing with cool, it had the police spotlight still, cop car 440, and miscellaneous other items. I began grabbing whatever I could off of the car.

I was able to only grab the dash bezel, and cop light. I didn't have the tools to get the speedometer or such out of there sadly.

Sitting there in the engine bay was a cop car 440, heavy duty cooling package, huge alternator, and the works. All of my friends looked at each other trying to devise a way to get it home... and none of us could. We just didn't have the time or money to get that thing out of there. In informed some people about the car, and I hope one of them grabbed the engine.

We continued on and discovered an 83 Chrysler Cordoba. It was a cool little car, but with nothing that we required. So we left that yard in good spirits.

We continued onto the next yard where there would be no old cars, just trucks. We hoped to come across a few more old Dodge trucks to pull parts, and we succeeded! We found a whole bunch of 1980's Dodge trucks at the new yard, even a 70's Dodge Step side.

We muddled around that yard for a few hours, I didn't find much for my RamCharger, but the others found stuff for theirs, so we were all happy.

So we parted company and went our separate ways, most of the group headed back to the Lemont area, while I headed back North, but my day was far from over...