Normy

-Heh heh heh...I haven't done that since I was 13...

[But occasionally, on garbage day, If I drive past a particularly juicy pile of garbage at someone's curb...I have to fight the urge to stop and pick through it! On occasion, I have returned home, jumped into HappyTruck, and gone pack to pick up some particularly interesting "free" tidbit.]

But when I was 13, me and my best friend Mikey used to walk to Temperance, Michigan, about one mile away and while enroute...scout out the ditches for bottles that we could return for 10 cents each. I'd like to tell you that we spent our "fortune" on candy, but usually it was cigarettes-

<img border="0" alt="[nono]" title="" src="graemlins/nono.gif" />

Blachhh! I never inhaled and never got hooked and to this day cannot even stand to be around these!

But we also occasionally worked our way down to Toledo and found the dumpsters behind the mall. When the cops weren't looking, we jumped right in and picked around. Usually all we found was styrofoam lunch containers, cardboard boxes, broken bottles, and other miscellany that only young boys could treasure. On one famous occasion, we found a stereo that the Radio Shack inside the mall had obviously discarded! Since I had a stereo and Mikey didn't, I decided to give my "share" to him.

6 friggin miles I rode on my bike with the speakers under my arm; When we finally got home I was ready to throw them at him! We plugged it in at his house and instantly smelled smoke. That night, Mikey's dad pulled it apart and soldered a few things...suddenly it worked!

-WELL...today, on a whim, I decided to do the modern version of my old pastime: "Junkyard Surfing". I drove out to Bithlo, outside of town.

Bithlo:

1. Home of Orlando Speedworld Drag strip
2. The kind of place where you can fire your gun in the back yard...and the neighbors come over and shoot with you-
3. All the best junkyards in Central Florida are here.
4. Propery is CHEAP!

You'd think I'd live there, based upon all that. The reason I don't: I prefer wheels on my cars...not on my house~ <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" />

ANYWAY...while I was out there sniffing around, I came upon one of the lesser junkyards...in which not ONE but TWO 928's lay in the mud! One was a '79 of indeterminate origin [no Euro lights, but no US side markers either], and a black '83.

They also have an M28.16 [US model, '81-82 automatic] complete engine waiting for a new home.

BUT my crowning achievement....while looking at the '79, I noticed that the dash pod was perfect- not a crack in sight....

I walked back to the office and asked the guy what he wanted for the pod. You may hate me now...

"$40....you want anything else?"

<img border="0" alt="[jumper]" title="" src="graemlins/jumper.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[jumper]" title="" src="graemlins/jumper.gif" />

Yeah...I just about RAN back to that car with a 10 mm socket, philips screwdriver, and allen wrenches!

WELL...he also had a serviceable radiator [needed end tanks] for $30! I took that home too~

The whole point here [other than some obvious gloating!] is that a little trip to the "You Pull 'Em" yards now and then can be quite rewarding! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Normy!
'85 S2 5 Speed

bcdavis

AWESOME!

Reinhardt

Great Scott!!
And I thought I was a little weird.

Randy V

Ah yes, Springtime, when a young man's fancy turns to buried autopart treasures.

I, too, enjoy the occasional sojourne to the auto wreckers.

Numerous ventures as a poor highschool lad trying to keep my '73 Gremlin on life support. Most recently when I restored a '69 Impala convertible a few years ago.

Every trip like a Christmas morning, filled with hope and wonderment at the possibility of finding a serviceable window regulator or that chrome trim strip.

Funny how we don't seem to mind lugging our tool boxes into the yard and spending 3 hours dismantling a car to get at a $10.00 part.

Sorta Zen-like, wandering amoung the fallen, knowing there's a sad story associated with that mangled Celica with the tiny pink sweater laying on the back seat, or that charred Camero the next row over.

Makes you feel glad to be alive. After all, I'd have to pay 5 times as much to get this part retail!

ErnestSw

I remember touring the back roads of Nova Scotia in the late sixties looking through the fields for parts for "The Dutchess", a 1948 Dodge flat six fluid drive. Now THERE was a "touring car". No chance of whiplash in third gear from a standing start! Zero to sixty by a sundial.

Flint

Just did that today, matter of fact, though I was only looking for a taillight from a Camry. I was hoping I'd run into some gold like a trashed 928 with just the right working parts, but no luck. Well Done Normy!

Normy

That trip to the salvage yard in the thriving metropolis of Bithlo, Florida was also depressing-

We as human beings are not as evolved as we think we are. I'm also certain that geneticists are geographically wrong; We must be closer to pigs than they think we are~

What I noticed while walking around the seemingly artistically twisted metallic hulks in the land of the house trailer is that the things that we put our trust on, that we seem to find "real", that we pour our time and effort into...are nothing but veneer. Thin, fragile, and basically false premises of nothingness; Our world is a world of false fronts- one good impact and the whole house of cards comes crashing down-

[A bit of a metaphor for the world today isn't it? The "Empty War Head" in the White House seems intent on blowing on the world "card house"-]

And the two 928's out there also showed me something. Human achievement is a great thing to gloat about, but in the end it means nothing. I have a copy of "Project 928", the book about the genesis of the 928, and it goes in great detail [and wonderful 1970's style] into the design, development, and testing of our cars. This was a huge program! These humans spent upwards of 6 years to bring this product to us.

And there their effort lies- belly up in the silt and rattlesnakes of BITHLO-

I mean it is so easy to climb into a car that hundreds of people spent thousands of hours working on...and stupidly drive it into something or wreck the engine by not changing the timing belt or some other such stupidity. We live in a society where we care nothing about our own efforts...or ourselves.

That sucks. But since I don't run with guys/gals in car clubs anymore, I don't have to worry about seeing their cars out there...bent to hell and covered with blood.

Pre-Shark I was the pilot of a VW Corrado, and hung with a car club called "VW Racing" here in town. We met Saturday nights at 10:30 downtown in the parking lot of a Greek Restaurant, and chilled out until the cops ran us out. AJ was one of my friends, and had an early Jetta. Gawd, I freaked one day when I came across it torn all to hell in Bithlo...blood all over the driver's seat.

I called his number- he answered and explained that someone pulled out in front of him, and that he wound up hitting them- but only took a scratch on his scalp which was bad enough to require stitches. Since scalp wounds bleed profusely...the scene was far gorrier than the reality. But you get the idea~

Again, I don't run with car clubs these days; No reason to and I don't have the time anyway. That solves the problem of worrying about my peeps. Pretty thin but such is life~

Normy-
'85 S2 5 Speed