The Dark Wob

christine wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 1:02 am Washington dc has lead in the water ,so any kids you have will be thick...

Explains the people you see from there on tv

It's amazing how much rare and restorable stuff is sitting in just that one yard let alone others. That said a lot of yards have been cleared of the older cars as nobody buys the parts from them so much anymore. Or is willing to pay the price for rare parts, there is of course always the cantankerous yard owners to try and negotiate with. That said I've wandered around some great old yards before, wish I could find the photos. I know they're in the house somewhere.

slowanimals wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:32 pm

mercrocker wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2022 3:09 pm Yeah, there was another yard nearby but if I recall he was a bit of a wurzel and didn't really want us in there....I wouldn't be surprised if the Imperial got raced, it looked good but had already had something dropped on the front n/s wing which was full of plod and red oxide.

Not saying that it's the same one you saw, but here's the picture of the 57 at Arena. Surprised I don't remember anything about it being out on the track, I've seen a few of these on the oval and while they're not the fastest thing out there they are almost invariably the strongest. Anyway, apologies for derailing the thread, will have a look in the loft on Friday for the scrapyard photos.

IMG_20220323_191409.jpg

I saw either that imperial or one in the same colours race at Northampton, it was on it's third big meeting I believe.
Actually from memory think was a 1965? Maybe different car.. It has humungous rear leaf springs, bloke admitted in the pits they were off a Mercedes truck, which is a bit naughty.

Ah, scrapyards. One of my favourite places to be back when they were full of interesting old cars and assorted junk to rummage through, stacked precariously in the dirt. Dodging dog (hopefully) shit and puddles of oil looking for treasure.

The one I used to go to with my dad was a mile or so from home, no idea what it was called and can't find any pics online, but it was at the Mountnessing exit off the A12, set back from the road but a local landmark, especially as there was a disintegrating Austin Seven atop the office. Many happy memories of going in there looking for bits for my mum's Super Minx or later here Dolomite, never my dad's Cortina or Saphire though, must have either been more reliable or he got it fixed elsewhere, who knows.
In my early teenage years myself and a group of friends did some exploring around the outside of the site, and worked out a way to climb through the wall of cars that formed one of it's borders (others being formed by the A12, a river and local roads). For a few Sundays running we explored and pinched badges, before I decided it was too risky. Unfortunately those friends carried on, and took other people in too - one weekend spending several hours messing about and waving to people in the nearby houses. Plod were waiting when they left and they were quick to drop my name, the fuckers. That was a fun time explaining to my mum why the police had knocked looking for me.
Ended with a caution, expunged from my record once I was 18.
Looking back I guess we were also lucky we didn't get eaten by Alsatians either.
That scrapyard is long gone, the site remained empty for many years while various parties decided whether it was to be the new Sainsbury's (built on the old Thermos site behind the High Street in the end), a cinema, leisure centre etc. Eventually they changed the road layout and built a housing estate there, bet the residents love digging up old alternators and rad caps every time they do a bit of gardening.

The owners of that scrapyard moved a mile or so to a site where once a magnificent house had stood (Thoby Priory), there were a couple of other smaller yards along the same rough, potholed road, their opening hours seemed to be on the whim of the owners. I remember chatting to the gaffer of one, who decided for some reason he wanted rid of a boat, so jumped in a MK1 Jetta and battered it into submission with it.
The bigger yard was never as exiting as the former site, other than seeing the various cars that were abandoned along the approach road disintegrate over time, think there was a Vauxhall VX 4/90 although it could have been a Victor. We did once find a MK2 Escort GL 4 door that had been absolutely mint prior to a shunt in the OSF wing, I seriously considered buying it but closer inspection showed the whole front was bent to the left. These days it would be snapped up, but we did at least relieve it of all of its trim for our 4 door Ghias we had at the time.

In my early 20s most weekends with half decent weather would see us going to a scrapyard, there were four or five at a site called Temple Farm, we got a right bollocking there once for throwing a MK3 Escort "clean hands" dipstick over the fence and trying to retrieve it later. It was an interesting site with houses in various states of decay and gardens full of cars, I asked about a complete Renault 5 Monaco 3 door but the £350 price put me off - the Campus I was driving at the time had been £85. A fortnight later the Monaco was in the yard, still 100% complete, I bought the OSR quarter panel to repair my car - they chopped it off with a petrol grinder, straight through all the leather trim and colour coded bumper etc, they picked up the remains and squashed it. I paid £50 for the quarter, so if they'd sold me the whole car they'd have made more, but scrapyard owners are a funny bunch. This site has now been made into a huge gated Jehovah Witness encampment.

Other memorable sites include Rainham Marshes, lots of different sites here, I remember dropping a screwdriver through the gear lever hole of a MK2 Escort and hearing it clatter onto the roof of the car below - but then you always found a few tools others had lost so it evened out in the end.
Best find at Rainham was when I was looking for a better set of MK2 Escort instruments for my base estate - "any car you like just not that one" we were told. Of course we immediately checked out "that one" and found a set of RS2000 clocks. Think we gave £20 or £25 for them, sold them on eBay years later for lots more.
All the Rainham sites are now gone.

I also discovered a yard on the back way into Bishops Stortford, I have no idea where he was getting all his cars from but it was amazing, 3 door Sierra, MK1 Transit and the only Talbot Tagora I've ever seen were just a few of its treasures. Sadly he got greedy and the last time I went it was just a huge jumbled pile of cars with no way of getting much useful off. Site is long gone, houses I think.

Final memorable yard, and probably the best of all, was Kirby's in Rochford. They had the contract for all the cars the council scooped up, and there were some brilliant things to be found. They kept anything old or interesting aside, tried to sell them for a while and if they didn't were put in a separate area, not stacked up and only crushed once they were a completely bare shell.
Thankfully I did take a camera with me on a couple of visits, so I do have images of a lot of the older cars. When we first discovered this yard in the mid to late 90's, it still had 50s stuff like Austin A30s here and there. Prices were very reasonable too, I even liberated an XR4i of it's gearbox, exhaust and various other bits when I was planning on fitting the 2.9 Cosworth out of my Scorpio into my 1.8 Hatch Sierra. However I did come a cropper that day - XR4i was on top of another car, at some point I picked up a bonnet and put it over the bonnetless engine bay of the bottom car - then forgot, stood on it and surfed off onto the floor in a heap.
I think they lost the council contract as it got very quiet to the point half the yard was empty, eventually it closed and was used for salvage car storage instead.

Here are the pics I took at Kirby's over a couple of visits

https://flic.kr/s/aHskY6a1jh

Kirbys026 by RS, on Flickr

I hardly see a breakers these days, a few glimpsed from the A13 but haven't been inside one for years now

Great pics!

I used to use Temple Farm yards a lot when i lived in Billericay. There was also a bodywork firm in there run by two lads whose main business was repairing damaged in transit new vehicles before they went off to their blissfully unaware new owners. The yard next to their shop also had seven or eight bare mk3/4 Escort cab shells that i was advised it probably wasn’t worth asking about….

There was also a yard by the A12 / Roman Road junction to Mountnessing behind a row of derelict 1930s houses.

It was where I once saw the most immaculate 1980 Metro around 1999/2000. It was covered in waxoyl and had the injection holes everywhere. Engine was kippered though. They wouldn’t sell it whole. The bastards. It’s all gone now for houses.

They must be pretty shit houses if they are made of old Metros.

Kirbys was legendary in the Southend area. I started going in with my dad from the age of about 13. I remember seeing an A30 on the pile and dad liberated a few bits off it for ours.
They also got a lot of scrappage scheme cars in during 2009 and some really decent stuff they would have normally sold had to be broken up.
It was a very sad day indeed when they closed.

Remember the Mountnessing scrapyard very well, lots of good parts there, and not expensive.

Temple Farm was a bit different for me, too many "dodgy" cars and bikes for my suspicious mind.

Blackwells in Halstead had lots of 1960's stuff there in the mid 1980"s, which kept lots of old shite running that bit longer. Similar can be said of Arthur Clarke's between Rayne and Dunmow. Both still deal in scrap but not vehicles.

There was another in Felstead that ran alongside the disused railway line between Braintree and Bishops Stortford. The owner was a right cunt, so we sometimes smashed headlights and windows on cars that were outside the yard, on the railway line footpath.

What's the largest or most expensive thing you've managed to steal from a scrapyard?